How to stop feeling overwhelmed the whole time
I don't know about you but there have been many many times in my life when I’ve felt completely overwhelmed. To the point when my brain just melts and goes to mush.
The day overwhelm really erm overwhelmed me
One particularly memorable example of this was the day after we brought my newborn son home from the hospital. I had twins (who were 18 months and 1 week old at the time), dogs, cats and a husband to sort out. As well as a newborn baby. I remember making a mug of tea and just sat with my head in my hands, completely unsure of where on earth to start. Who do I feed/ change first? Do I get a shower? or not? What do I do? What would you have done?
Anyway, I did the only logical thing I could do at that moment in time. I drank my mug of tea, rested my weary forehead on the table and let out a rather odd sound.. a low pitched wail I guess. I can’t remember what happened after that, maybe someone barked or meowed or cried or screamed at me and maybe they got fed first. The following morning I got a shower first, knowing that if I was up and dressed I could tackle the world. It did get easier but that particular day I was in total overwhelm. No one ever really tells you what to do when you have twin toddlers, a baby, dogs, cats and a husband do they? The baby books only cover what to do when you have baby (singular) and not babies/toddlers/etc etc etc.
I get a bit like that with the housework at times. I find housework deathly dull and have never quite let the moths out of my Yorkshire tight-wad wallet long enough to invest in a cleaner. Sometimes with housework, I get overwhelmed and don’t know where to start.
Start Small
With this in mind, I spoke to a friend and she said to start in the smallest room first so you can tick that off and admire how good it looks, and that will spur you on for doing the next room. And she was right. It doesn’t matter really where you start. Just start somewhere. Just do one thing. Clean one corner. Write one list. Empty one bin. Open one window and let some fresh air in.
How to avoid overwhelm
Don’t tackle anything all in one big lump. Just break it down into chunks. In fact, the worst thing you can do in my somewhat (not very!) humble opinion is write a to-do list. It adds to the overwhelm. Instead, do what my daughter does. She writes a ta-dah list. A list of what she has achieved so she can praise herself for what she has done, not beat herself up for what she has not.
Limit the scope of what you’re trying to acheive
My Granny in law always suggests picking just one main thing to do a day and just doing that. That’s a good way of not being overwhelmed. If you just have to pick one thing and do only that, then hopefully you can do that one thing well and not worry about everything else you need to do!
All great ways of avoiding the dreaded overwhelm.
How do you stop being overwhelmed? Please let me know :)
