When Overwhelm Stops Us (Why People Hire A Coach)
Sean Buttner shares why overwhelm makes people seek coaching, starting with his own burnout as a non-CS grad hired as a software engineer at Walmart. He offers six concrete moves: lead with curiosity, schedule rejuvenation time, prioritize ruthlessly, stop being indispensable, communicate your load, and protect sleep and exercise.
Chapters
All right, so how do we handle overwhelm? It's one of these things that a lot of people deal with every day and can sometimes get in the way of us really expressing ourselves fully in our lives, really going after what we really want. And, you know, the way out of overwhelm that's counterintuitive is we actually have to add things in order to get control of what we feel is an uncontrollable situation. Hey, everyone, this is Sean Butner, certified high performance coach. And this is Coaching Moments, the Coaching One series where we're going to be highlighting stories about you guys. I hope, if. And there's a link below on how to get started with that. I'll explain that in a little bit. But today we're talking about overwhelm because it's one of the major things that causes people to say, hey, I need some help. And usually that's either like, I'm overwhelmed because of something that happened in my past, so you go to see a counselor, or it's, hey, I really need to change something and have a better future for myself, which is why a lot of people will hire a coach. And so I wanted to talk a little bit about that. So when I think about overwhelm, I think about a time in my life, you know, as a coach, because, you know, we're all human. And like I said, everyone has dealt with overwhelm at some point in their life of being fresh out of school. So my story is, you remember, like, I had a lot of insecurities in my first tech gig because I wasn't trained as a coder, right? I had a couple of semesters of coding Java in grad school. I did a little bit of coding in high school. It was more of a hobby. Up until that point. I had studied business instead of computer science. And so when I got hired at Walmart initially to be a computer program or software engineer, that whole thing, it was really stressful. I always felt like I was operating from a deficit. Like, I didn't have the know how to really add value to the team. And that was really important to me. And so I put all this extra stress on myself, right? I didn't take the opportunity to say, like, hey, I have a whole bunch of other experiences that might be really helpful in that job. And so it was overwhelming a lot of times with, you know, taking what felt like twice as long on a simple task that another team member might do, or, you know, feeling like not being able to speak completely to how to solve a problem or kind of overthinking it or, you know, so on. And then, of course, being green, you know, being early on in my career too, that kind of helped with the, this feeling of being overwhelmed. And so it, I struggled for quite a while and part of that drove me to, like, just say yes to everything that particular job. And that's a great recipe for burnout. And that's probably why one other reason I burned out in that job early on. Just like there's never. You always said yes, right? Hey, we need someone to do this, okay? I'll be the one to do it so I can, you know, learn and prove myself and kind of have that type of upfront. And maybe you've had a time in your life where you felt like you weren't enough and you're telling yourself, like, they're going to find out that you're a fraud and then they're going to fire you or, you know, something along that, where you're, you're doubting yourself. You know, there's a lot of doubt in your ability to contribute. Right? And so that was me at that point in my life. But what really kind of changed for me is a side effect of always saying yes in that particular case is I had this underlying belief that I could learn anything. And I learned that in grad school, right? And information systems, getting my masters, that there might be things that I don't know, but I can go out and learn it and learn it quickly. And that's actually been a very valuable lesson. And once I, I proved that to myself and at that job at Walmart, not only did I have to learn, like, you know, I was working on Java and that kind of stuff, but I had to learn a bunch of these other older computer languages like COBOL and, you know, we learned some, some JavaScript. We learn like, we had some C. Like basically any type of language that was out there. Walmart had some system that worked in it and you had to integrate with it, so you had to figure out how to make that happen. And so in a way that, that kind of feeling that I was not enough in that job allowed me to kind of be like, I'm bad at all of these computer languages. I might as well try to learn how to integrate with the financial system that's, you know, in Cobalt, right. Or whatever. And so that really served me in that. And I started to come out with a belief that, yeah, yes, I can learn anything, but more importantly, that you start to identify things that are in common. Right? So So I learned how to really quickly learn any computer language from that job, which is pretty helpful. But how does that help you? How does that help you deal with overwhelm? Well, really like there were things that I could have done that would have helped me a lot more. And you know, I talk about stumbling on one of them, which is exercise and just wearing my body down. So, you know, I signed up for a marathon during that time. I've talked about that. You can take a look at some previous videos where I talk about marathon training. But that burnt a lot of that stress and a lot of that overwhelm. So I could just be quiet enough in my head to think, you know, and I think that's really helpful. But there's also other techniques. And as a certified high performance coach, you know, I've helped countless clients deal with Overwhelm when it just seems like there's so much stuff stacked up against you and you don't know how to work your way through it. So if you ever had that point, this might be helpful for you. So when we are feeling overwhelmed, right. The first thing to do is to notice it. Right? But we have to lead with curiosity and not judgment. And so like in my story, you know, I was judging myself for not having the experience that a lot of the other software engineers had, and I didn't lead with curiosity. And how that actually worked out in that job over years is, you know, I had a unique perspective. Having not gone through computer science in school, you know, being kind of self taught, having some basic frameworks, but understanding how organizations work because I went through business school, you know, organizational behavior. So paying attention to those types of cues, focusing a lot more on process and being able to chart data was really helpful. You know, I was able to switch that job at some point to be more of a business analyst. So becoming the communicator between engineers and business in that particular organization is where I really thrived. You know, being an advocate for people in technology because it's people that work on the software, it's people that use the software, it's the people that are impacted by the software. So having that people focus from my schooling and background actually added a lot of different perspectives that was valuable on projects. Right. And so leading with curiosity is not, I'm not measuring up because I don't have this experience. It's what can I bring from my experience to this present moment to really help. And once you realize that everyone has unique experience and everyone has something that they could give that's unique that will make the project stronger because of that different perspective. Like that sense of overwhelm just melts away. And I do this a lot when I work with coaching clients. And that's one of the big powers of coaching, I think, is to have someone that can, you know, especially when you're in it, it can be really hard to think. But to help, ask questions, to kind of pull apart, like, what can you bring that's uniquely you to your work, to your life, to your family and friends and all that. So that's the first thing. Lead with curiosity. Ask questions and how you can help and not, you know, judge yourself on how you're not measuring up. So the second thing to really think through is you need to. And this is the counterintuitive part where you have to add more sometimes to your workload or schedule in order to find some relief. Right. And what do I mean by that? Like, if you are working 80 hours a week and you're feeling like crap and you're feeling stressed and you're feeling overwhelmed and you're feeling bad about yourself, really what you need to do is to add more rejuvenation, add more release into your day. And so you're like, oh, I'm. You're already working 80 hours a week. So it's, you know, basically I'm at work, I'm eating or I'm trying to sleep and I'm so stressed out I can't sleep or whatever. But, you know, so you have a really packed schedule and everyone always. And don't people always complain about how they don't have enough time? Right. That that's one of the indicators of maybe you're overwhelmed. It's like, I never have enough time to do this. But you really need to schedule time to exercise, to see the sun. There was times when I was working where I. I called it vampire hours because I would go into the office at like 7 in the morning before the sun came up, and I would leave at 7 o' clock in the afternoon or 8 o' clock at night or whatever. And the sun had already come down and I had not seen the sun in like a week because that was my work schedule. And that's terrible. But, you know, so are you getting walks outside? Are you, you know, having time to meditate? Are you having time to journal? Are you able to, one night a week for an hour, meet up with a friend and grab a drink and just kind of vent or whatever you need to do to really feel recharged? Right. And it's not. It's probably going to be more time scheduled than you think. And that's why it's intuitive. Because the last thing you want to do when you're feeling overwhelmed is to add, but that those things are the ones that are really going to help you and could help you relax enough to think, like, how can I change my situation? How can I shift this in a way that'll help me move forward? So super, super important third thing is when you're feeling overwhelmed, it's time to focus, refocus your priorities and then to focus on the priorities. So with coaching clients, a lot of times when I've experienced them or when they've said they're overwhelmed and I'm helping them out, in my experience as a coach, it's so much happened or they're reacting so much that they're not focused and driving their priorities again. And I'm going to say that again, right, they're that you really need to refocus on your priorities because you stopped focusing on your priorities that are driving your life forward. So it could be that you've had three more projects dumped on you because you had half your team fired. There's a lot of those types of stories going on. And so you're doing the work of five people and you feel overwhelmed because you have your project. You have all this extra work that has to get done that you've not picked up. Some of it might be operational. So it's like things stop working if you don't focus on it. And there's always going to be something that's more super important than the work that you need to do. And so you're just stretched too thin. But what you really need to do is you need to like, get a list of. Here are all the things that I'm working on. Here are all the things that are important to me. And things that are important to you should be that rest and relaxation and rejuvenate. Rejuvenate. Rejuvenation time. Coffee starting to kick in. So you definitely want to schedule that and you want to schedule that, that reflection time so you could be a little more curious. So the last two points that we talked about, but when you get a list of all the things you're responsible for, all the things you need to do, all the things that you want to do, then it comes down to you have a certain amount of time, you know, create a list like, what are your priorities? What are the things that you need you absolutely want to get done? And then start Those tough conversations of, hey, if I focus on my project, we don't have coverage here. And that's a management problem. So you can talk to your manager. If you're the manager, maybe you need to hire some help or delegate or rethink processes to kind of make things more efficient. You know, it's a diagnostic thing. But by re engaging on making your health a priority, on making your family a priority, and making the important projects that you're responsible for a priority, so you can say no to things that aren't those priorities. There is another way to get a handle on that. Overwhelm. And I had a time working at Walmart where there's. I was always. There's always tons and tons of things that were broke. And so it came down to where I had a list of what I was working on. Anytime anything got added on, I would take the person that requested it, go to my manager and be like, here's everything that I got to do. If I start this, something on this list that I'm working on is going to drop. What do I do? And lo and behold, manager will be like, yes, we really need to get this done. Or like, no, this is. Why are they asking you this? Let me handle this. You know, and so you can get a little bit of help there, you know, if you're in an organization. So that's the third point. Fourth point is to reframe importance. And this is a big one. And I'm not sure if you've ever seen the movie Clerks, but the main character, Dante, like, goes in on his day off and he's like, I wasn't even supposed to be here today. But he's got this attitude and spirit that the whole thing would just fall apart if he didn't follow the rules, if he didn't show up, if it wasn't him there to make it happen. And so often when we're overwhelmed, we overestimate our importance in making things work. And I know that sounds kind of harsh, but it's also kind of true if you think about it, where so many times, especially in large organizations, it's not cool to say, but people are replaceable. There's no one link that's going to cause the whole company to crash down. And so when you can get out of the, like, I'm the one that only one that can do this, right? I'm the only one that's going to show up to make this work. I'm the only one that cares here. I'm the one that is Making sure that we don't let people down. Like those types of thoughts. And you can say like, the organization will survive if I go home and sleep tonight after working for the last 24 hours, you know, that can really help release some of the overwhelm when you're like, I'm not alone. Right. And this is also more about engaging your team, engaging your community, engaging, you know, peers in the industry. If you're working alone as a solopreneur, you know, the work that you're doing individually isn't so important, so you don't have to take it so seriously. That's kind of another way to say it. And also, I mean, not to discount that it's not helping people, that you're not making a difference in the world. But, you know, we all also can choose how we spend our time. So that, that's kind of the important thing. And reminding people in my coaching sessions that they have a choice, that they can maybe test those ideas on how vital. You know, I mean, if you're a doctor, of course, you know, there could be people's lives on the line, but so there are like cases. I'm not saying that this is a hundred percent ironclad rule for everyone, but yeah, you know, even, even then there's room to be like, okay, like if we communicate, we can make this better. And it's not gonna, it's not me being alone fighting it. It could be a team of people figuring it. Out. So. All right, so speaking of coaching sessions, below you'll see that there's an opportunity for you to have a one hour strategy session with me as a high performance coach where we go in your life and you know, there's an application process and part of this hour of free coaching is you agree for me to be able to post snippets of it on YouTube in this coaching moments series to help inspire others on how to solve problems in their lives and to really help you build a plan and get you moving at the end of the day too. So it's a win, win. You know, I get to showcase how awesome you are, how coaching really works. You walk out with some strategies and a plan at the end of that hour to go and crush whatever goals that you have in your life. And so the application process will walk you through five different areas of high performance to get you thinking about it and prepare me for that one hour strategy session on what we need to focus on to really get you moving going forward. And then also, yeah, I also use it to weed out people that are not taking it seriously. So I don't want to waste my time. I don't want to waste your time. So if you're really looking for change in your life, you're like, I feel overwhelmed in my job or in my relationships or as my role as a mom, parent, doctor, whatever. Check out coaching, right? It can really having a structured conversation can really help you break through and come up with some ideas and generate a plan for you to really overcome and advance. So check that link below to sign up. Fill out the application if you're like, hey, I really want coaching, but I'm a little shy or I have some things I don't want out on the Internet, which I totally get. There's also an option for a private session that's $197 and then afterwards we talk about coaching and you grab a coaching program that will get applied to that. So that's cool. But either way, choose your option below. I want to talk with you soon. And now we're going to get back to the last point and how to handle overwhelm. The last and probably most profound way to handle overwhelm, we hinted at it with rejuvenation and recharge sessions, is to really double down on your physical health. The first thing that generally will be given up in my experience personally, and dealing and not dealing with, but coaching people, is that you stop exercising, you stop eating right. You know, if you're working, overworking, you're probably doing convenience foods or eating at your desk. You're like trying to get quick things. Maybe you're snacking a bit more because you're so tired or you're emotionally eating. So you know, you're always hitting the candy bowl because you need a little like pep because you just are freaked out and not knowing what to do. So you really want to make sure you're eating nutritious foods. You really make sure that you're active and moving your body again. Walking, seeing the sun, those types of things, drinking enough water, getting enough sleep, you know, all of those types of things. If you are doing all of those things and still feel overwhelmed, you know, how could you push your body more? Because when your body is worked out, say you sign up for a marathon like I, I did during that time and you have a 10 mile run that weekend right after you're the happiest you ever be and you have no, you know, worries. You're not thinking about the future, you're not thinking about the past, you're just thinking about how am I going to eat lunch? And what? You know, your mind is so much more free. When your body is wore out and exhausted, you can really let out some of those emotions. And so that's why it's one of the tenets of high performance. We talk about physicality and energy quite a bit. That's part of that strategy call I was sharing with a little bit earlier that you can get when you click below. But those are like five different things to look for and improve upon when you are in overwhelm. It's to lead with curiosity and not judgment, especially for yourself. It's to make sure you've scheduled release and recharge sessions during your day. It's to refocus your priorities and then to then focus more on your priorities versus everyone else's. It's to reframe how important you are in making this all happen and to engage your community. That's probably a better point. Engage your community there and then just double down on your physical health. And, you know, most of the time, if you can work your body and engage your social network, you know, so you don't feel alone, that'll take care of like 90% of overwhelm in my experience as a coach. So again, if you're experiencing overwhelm, make sure you take me up on one of the strategy session options below, whether it's free with the option to put some of it on YouTube or private again for 197. I'd love to see y' all in our next and final video in this coaching Moments series. Before we get to actual coaching moments with folks, I'm talking about doubt and self doubt. And you know, so many people show up or want coaching because they realize they have that, that negative talk in their head that's bouncing around over and over and over again. And you know, I've had that in my career. Share that experience and the technique that I stumble upon. That's really helpful with that. So make sure you join us next week. Looking forward to sharing that with you. And this is Sean Butner saying, live with more joy, more personal growth, more impacted communities. Talk soon. Sam.
