8 Ways the Feeling of Overwhelm Can Help You

The feeling of overwhelm…

You can call it mom guilt, but…no matter what you do, overwhelm makes you feel like you can never get ahead and never get it right.

You’ve tried endless planners, setting goals, all the Pinterest hacks for simplifying your life—but no matter what you try…it never sticks.

You start all excited because you love planners…but it ends up not really working at all.

I’ve totally been there myself—several times actually. You can read more about one of those times in,  I’m failing as a stay at home mom.

Overwhelm Helped Me Simplify Life

And although I still wrestle with overwhelm from time to time, I’ve learned the RIGHT way as a foundation for simplifying my life. It’s a completely different way to live so that I can crush that overwhelm and see progress.

Instead of trying to figure out how to simplify my life—Marie Kondo, REAL Simple, decluttering, planners, etc.—I needed to do something else first.

I needed to change my mind—change my perspective.

It all happened when we lived in our garage for three years. (I’ll share a little more on that later in this post.)

A different mindset showed me that while I felt like overwhelm was ruining my life, there’s actually something good that comes with the feeling of overwhelm.

And if you’re not exactly convinced that this overwhelm thing can actually be good—here’s eight ways the feeling of overwhelm surprisingly can help you overcome.

So let’s talk about that a little.

8 Ways the Feeling of Overwhelm Helps You

1. The feeling of overwhelm gets your attention.

It captivates your attention—sometimes it outright demands it by interrupting life as you know it. Think about it this way, overwhelm has got your attention because you’re reading this right now.

2. It always has purpose.

It is a signal that lets you know something needs to change—there’s friction. Although this may seem like “Captain Obvious”, it’s worth noting.

Likewise, at first you can’t always see the reason behind the overwhelm.

But…overwhelm is actually working in your favor despite the way you feel at the time.

3. You get a fresh start.

How many times do we think, I wish I could have done this or done that differently? Well, overwhelm gives you that opportunity—to do something differently.

4. It simplifies your life.

Often when faced with the feeling of overwhelm you get to simplify your life—make things clear. You get to determine what has importance and what doesn’t. Sometimes overwhelming circumstances eliminate choices that previously caused you confusion as to what was important.

5. Overwhelm helps you find your people.

When you’re struggling with overwhelm, it becomes pretty clear who are “your people”.

It’s those people who cheer you on and help you be a better you—even when you don’t believe that you’re capable of overcoming. These are “your people” they love you, encourage you, and they even call you out when you’re doing something that isn’t good for you.

6. You become healthier as a mom. 

Overwhelm adds pressure that you can’t ignore. You have to do something and that pressure drives you to figure out how to change things and then making them happen.

Entrepreneur and best selling author Marie Forleo says, “Everything is figureoutable”. The process of figuring things out helps to crush that overwhelm while creating a healthy lifestyle that is easier to manage.

7. You gain confidence.

Once you figure out how to do one thing then it gives you confidence to figure out the next thing. If you’ve done it once, you can do it again. And with experience, you learn what works and doesn’t work for you.

8. The feeling of overwhelm grows perseverance in you.

There’s actually two types of perseverance that overwhelm can develop.

Growth perseverance—intentionally looking for the good in the overwhelm and in the process you discover how it’s making you better.

Coast perseverance—you just accept things as they are and wait for it to be over soon.

Can you see the difference? Growth perseverance develops a proper perspective of failure. What type of perseverance would you rather develop?

The Hidden Source of Overwhelm

The feeling of overwhelm can feel like it’s ruining your life at times. Like I mentioned before, I figured out the source of overwhelm when we lived in our garage for three years.

But it wasn’t obvious. In fact it totally caught me off guard.

I was busy thinking that if I could just find the right planner, that I’d finally get ahead. My time was spent on looking for it too.

Meanwhile, my husband and I decided to do a 30 day self talk challenge. We committed to individually looking at ourselves face to face in the mirror and reciting biblical truth to ourselves—twice a day.

We thought it’d be good for us individually and as a couple, but we literally had no idea…

About halfway through those 30 days…the truth…started to show up in the mirror. The whole picture. The source of my overwhelm, was that I was believing a whole lot of lies in my mind.

Overwhelm Starts With Your Mind

Through the self talk challenge, my husband and I discovered that overwhelm, to put it simply, starts with your mind.

And this is a big deal, because…

Your mind influences your feelings.

And…your feelings determine what you do—your actions.

Another way of putting it is kinda like this example I saw on FaceBook recently—did you see it? Although…I’m going to change it around slightly.

Just like if you look at yourself in the “mirror of life”, when you feel overwhelmed, what do you tend to focus on the most?

Seems obvious, right?

You see the bite out of the apple.

Life…it’s like this apple. It’s taking a bite out of you. Or like you’ve been given a bad deal—a half–eaten apple.

But if you look at the whole picture you see that  there’s more to “the apple” than just the overwhelm—actually a lot more. There’s opportunity—there’s a whole lotta good.

What if the feeling of overwhelm was for your good?

Just like this analogy, with a shift in your perspective, your mindset, you can start to see the whole picture again.

Have you ever considered that the feeling of overwhelm can help you? What would happen if you started having that perspective today?