I feel overwhelmed
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you may be running on an empty tank
There’s one theme that consistently comes up during my coaching sessions: Overwhelm. I hear various ways of describing this feeling from a diversity of clients, but the one word they use to characterize their feelings is “overwhelmed.” They’re overwhelmed with work, life, relationships, health, the news, finances; everything just seems so big and unmanageable right now.
Last week I had the privilege to connect with talented coach Cass McCrory and talk about the remarkable work she’s doing to help her clients with this sense of overwhelm.
Cass’s first step is helping her clients get clarity on their values. It’s true, we must have a deep understanding of our core values in order to create the kind of life and work we desire. Becoming conscious of your values is transformative because it completely shifts how you view yourself and your life, and how you make decisions.
Values clarity can also help with overwhelm. Cass believes we experience overwhelm when we prioritize everyone else over our own values. We have to prioritize the values and things that give us energy. So many of us are taught that we can only play or have fun once we “get our chores done.” Cass uses a powerful analogy to show how the opposite is actually true.
If you were going on a long car ride, would you wait to fill up the gas tank after you’ve arrived at your destination? No, you’d fill it up at the beginning of the trip so you have the gas to get you to your destination. It’s the same with values alignment. You need to engage in the values-based activities that give you energy so you can do the things that typically make you feel overwhelmed.
It's amazing how making the time for energy-boosting activities actually gives you more energy for other responsibilities. It requires clarifying your core values and then prioritizing yourself. I’ve seen this work countless times for my clients. Once they start prioritizing their self-care and the activities that give them energy, everything else starts clicking and their overall energy increases.
The theme of this newsletter is Work happy, Live happy, BE happy. I chose this theme because my desire is to create a more conscious workplace and world where we can all thrive instead of feeling overwhelmed. Each of these three categories is vital to create a highly conscious existence: work, life, and your state of BE-ing. It’s critical to get clarity on the core values that help us get into a state of BE-ing happy, and from there we can create happy work, and a happy life.
To help address this plague of overwhelm, consider how you will help yourself and your team:
Clarify your values and help each team member do the same.
Make sure each team member’s values align with their work.
Create regular, consistent feedback with your team to ensure their energetic tank is getting filled up.
Prioritize the activities that fill your energetic tank.
As conscious leaders, it is our privilege to help change the way we work and relate. It means being courageous enough to understand the source of overwhelm and then make changes that often aren’t easy because they are so outside current understanding and mainstream thinking. Together, we can BE the change we want to see in the world.
Work happy. Live happy. BE happy.
Meredith
More on Overwhelm:
“It’s Not Just Burnout:” How Grind Culture Failed Women
Cass’s Recommendation: Brené Brown Says You’re Doing Feelings Wrong
The way we work and build teams is rapidly changing. Leaders often feel unprepared to navigate the transition. As a conscious leadership coach, consultant and communicator, Meredith helps leaders and their teams create new ways of working and relating so they can prepare for the future by consciously co-creating it.
Contact her to develop your conscious leadership and transform your organization into the workplace of the future.
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