The Secret To Stop Feeling Overwhelmed | Jack Canfield

Hi there. I'm Jack Canfield, co creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series and the co author of the Success Principles. Today I'd like to talk to you about the problem of overwhelm and how to eliminate the hold it has over you once and for all. But first, I have a question for you. When you think of all the many things you need to do and learn and acquire in order to achieve your biggest goals in life, how does that make you feel? Do you feel empowered, excited and energized and confident you'll be able to get everything done and succeed at achieving your goals within your desired timelines? Or do you feel a sudden oppressive weight drop onto your shoulders and your stomach clenching up, making you feel kind of nauseous and panicky? Well, if your reaction is the second option, you're not alone. A lot of people experience an oppressive feeling of mental and physical overwhelm when whenever they think about everything they need to do to achieve their goals. And that's a problem because most people let that sense of overwhelm short circuit their ambitions and stop them from committing to and making any real progress toward their goals. Now, instead of feeling overwhelmed, instead they feel overwhelmed and tell themselves it's too hard or it's too much. And then they give up before they discover what they are actually capable of. And I don't want that to happen to you. So that's why today I'd like to tell you how to eradicate that sense of overwhelm so you can stay focused and empowered and make unstoppable progress toward your dreams. Now, first off, the most important thing for you to understand is that overwhelm comes from having too many things to do and no criteria for which one to do first. No criteria for deciding what is most important. And there are several causes for that. One is not having a clear vision, a clear path to making decisions that will help you achieve your goals and bring you the joy and fulfillment that you seek. Because at any given moment, your life is full of obligations and opportunities and decisions you have to make on where to focus your attention and your energy on a day to day basis. And all those endless choices can make you feel paralyzed with indecision. So instead of taking proactive control of your life and focusing on your most important long term goals, you end up spending your time and energy on whatever tasks are right in front of you. And so you never make any real headway toward your bigger long term dreams and goals. And the reason this happens is because you have no criteria by which to evaluate your obligations and your opportunities and the choices that you have, and make sure you're focusing on the ones that are truly most important to you. When all of your tasks and responsibilities feel equally important, it's impossible to prioritize them according to which ones need doing first and making the right strategic decisions that are required to take you in the direction that you ultimately want to go. So how do you establish your criteria for evaluating all of the options available to you? It all comes down to your values. Do you value your health over money? Career over family? Family over adventure? Adventure over financial security? Professional recognition over comfort? Free time over professional advancement? When you're clear on what really matters most to you, it becomes a lot easier for you to say, okay, my priority for this month is going to be this thing, which means I have to take all of those other things off my plate. Because the fact is, you can't do everything, at least not all at once. And if you know what your top values are, if they're family and relationships, for example, it becomes easier to understand that if you want to enjoy a really great summer, your priority should be to spend quality time with your daughter before she moves across the country to go to college. And so it becomes a lot easier for you to say no to that extra project at work, or realize that you've got to step back from your volunteer duties at the food bank for the next few months. Or if you realize that one of your main values is financial security, it becomes easier for you to realize that your priority for the next few months should be to focus on leveling up your marketing so you can grow your business revenues. And that makes it easier to say no to playing beer league baseball this summer or attending social gatherings with people you're not that super close with. So if you struggle with overwhelm, I encourage you to first sit down and do some internal work to discover what's really most important to you. Rank order your values. Then think about how you can prioritize your decisions to focus on the tasks and engagements that will truly satisfy your soul. And then I challenge you to look at everything else that's currently on your plate and either delegate it, dump it, or delay as many things as you possibly can. You'll be amazed at how much stuff you can remove from your schedule. When you get really ruthless about focusing only on the tasks that align with your values and and move you closer to your heartfelt goals. And as you do this, remember to use joy as your inner guidance system. Imagine yourself doing each task and focus on the ones that will that you think and you feel will ultimately bring you the most short and long term joy. Because the experience of joy is a powerful indicator that what you're doing is in alignment with your values and your life purpose and is a clear sign that you're on the right track toward your dreams. Now here are a few more practical steps you can take to dig yourself out of overwhelm. First, get everything you think you have to do out of your head and onto paper and then using the criteria I just discussed, prioritize which are the most important and then write your total to do list down and then cross off the non essentials. Next, ask yourself what can be delegated to someone else, to family, to employees, to friends, even to your own children. And what can be delayed until later. Now you can use a monthly and daily come up file system where you have a file folder for every month of the year, January, February, March, April, etc. Into which you put reminders to do a task that can wait until that month. And then you also want to have a 31 day system, so 31 file folders for the 1st of the month, 2nd of the month, 3rd of the month, etc. And what happens is every time you have a task and you're not going to do it now, you're going to delay it for later. You put it in the month like July, and then when July comes, you take everything out of that folder and put it in is that going to be July 1, July 2, July 3, July 4, July 5, etc. And literally it gets you. It gets it off your table, out of your mind, off your desk and you don't have to think about it or see it or deal with it until the right time. Now the other thing you can do is simply delete something on the list because really it doesn't need to be done. So those are three Ds. Either delegate it to somebody and delay it until when it's appropriate time to do it, or simply dump it and get it off your list altogether because it's not a high priority. The second thing I want you to do is create a not do list. You know we also have a do list things to do, but I want you to create a things not to do list. Things you need to and are willing to say no to and then refer to it before you agree to other people's requests. You know, mine include saying no to endorsement requests when I'm actively writing a book, playing Words with friends online, and watching the news all the time. So these are things that don't serve me that I need to say no to now. Also set boundaries and say no. You have to have boundaries about saying no. You may have to find a way to protect your time for your most important and valued activities. That might mean you don't take calls or answer emails before 11am or noon, or protecting your weekends for family time. And here's a valuable tip on how to say no. Two phrases I found useful when saying no are thank you for asking me. I'd love to be helpful and help you with this project or be involved with what you're trying to do, but I just don't have the bandwidth right now. Another one is my no is not against you or your project. It's a yes for me. I'm focusing now on my relationships with my family or I'm focusing on getting my new coaching practice off the ground right now so people don't take it personally. They realize you're making a choice for yourself yourself. Another thing to do is to lower your standards. Sometimes good enough is good enough. Everything doesn't have to be done with the highest level of excellence. At home, for instance, if you're responsible for preparing meals for the family, you can keep meals simpler for a while. Order food sometimes using Uber eats or DoorDash or some other service, or subscribe to an easy to prepare meal service where all the ingredients are delivered in a box and only takes about 10 or 20 minutes to prepare. Like HelloFresh or Blue Apron or Gobble. Now one final suggestion is experiment with getting up an hour earlier every morning. You'd be surprised how much you can get done early in the morning when there are no other distractions. Okay, well, those are some of the ways to begin eradicating overwhelm in your life. Get clear on your values and what matters most to you. Then create a clear set of criteria that allow you to evaluate each task or opportunity according to whether it feeds your soul and takes you closer to your goals, or if it's standing in the way of creating the life you want. This will help illuminate your path forward and turn all of that overwhelm into easily ignorable background noise that no longer has the power to distract you from your goals. All right, well, that's it for today and thanks for watching. And now what I'd love you to do is to share any thoughts or questions you might have in the comments below and for some additional tools and videos on how to to cultivate success habits and achieve your goals in life. Please be sure to check out the resources page on jackcampo.com on my website and you'll find a ton of great stuff there. Thanks again for watching and have an amazing day.