Feeling Overwhelmed and How to Turn It Around

Brain Overload from Information Fatigue is Real

Feeling overwhelmed is a common malady in today’s frantically paced world.

Overwhelm, also known as info overload, infobesity, and officially as Information Fatigue Syndrome (IFS), can cause stress and hinder creativity, progress and growth.

It’s ironic that the very thing most often needed to counter the stress of information overload is usually the first thing that’s compromised when we feel overwhelmed: Progress.

Overwhelm Often Afflicts Creators

Creators are most often dive-in-and-do, doers. Creativity runs in our veins and spills over in all kinds of ideas for this or that project.

Subsequently, we get overwhelmed with ALL there is to do… all of the half-done projects, etc., and it siphons energy away and scatters it in too many directions.

When Assets… Aren’t

Our assets: creative, good intentions, lots of ideas, enthusiasm for life, creating and doing… busy-ness, can become our liabilities. When our assets become a liability, it’s time to streamline our focus.

Table of Contents

• Brain Overload from Information Fatigue is Real
  • Audio Article – Feeling Overwhelmed:
• The Problem with General Advice and a Disclaimer
  • 6 Common Causes of Overwhelm for Creators
• Why I Stopped Coaching People
  • For Change to Happen
• Are You Growing..?
• The Stress of Less Amidst More
• Feeling Overwhelmed in Boundless Abundance
• Infobesity is Real
• Overcoming Overwhelm is as simple as:
• Create First

Audio Article – Feeling Overwhelmed:

The Problem with General Advice and a Disclaimer

Before we go any further, this is an important disclaimer.

Ideas and opinions proffered for a general audience versus individual coaching, can never address every circumstance. As such, there are always exceptions to any general advice.

So as you read this, keep in mind we’re sharing our experience as well as that of others, not medical or clinical advice. Rather, as friends sharing with friends. Your experience may be different and if you need medical advice, please seek it from appropriate channels.

If what you read does not resonate at all for you, then it could be something else…or your dilemma could even be the opposite scenario to what’s described. So this is not advice, but rather, perspectives to ponder should you discover any resonate note.

8 Common Causes of Overwhelm for Creators

1. Consuming more than doing
2. Trying to do too much/too much to do
3. More ideas than time
4. Indecision and/or not knowing what to do
5. No focus, plan or purpose
6. Avoiding goal setting and tracking
7. Feeling stuck
8. Goals feel too far away and too hard

For example, if a cause of overwhelm is consuming more than doing, that’s directly opposite from someone who’s creating like a maniac and overwhelmed by the clutter of his creations. However, chances are, if you probe your own patterns with the objective curiosity of a child asking a million innocent “why’s”, you’ll see some correlations even in the opposites.

For instance, if you scan the eight items in that list above, there’s a common theme:

Overwhelm is an absence of focus on the right things.

One pattern we’ve seen over and again as coaches, strategists and observers of human nature—our own and others—is this:

Those who are struggling often spend far more time and energy talking about their struggle than on implementing solutions, and far more time resisting than doing. Perhaps that’s not you, but if you feel stuck or overwhelmed, start observing if it’s possible.
~LeAura Alderson, cofounder-iCreateDaily®

SOLUTIONS to 8 Common Causes of Overwhelm

1. Consuming more than doing
   SOLUTION: Don’t leave creative time to chance, schedule it in each day.
   
2. Trying to do too much/too much to do
   SOLUTION: Decide the next most important thing you can do toward your goals, and do that.
   
3. More ideas than time
   SOLUTION: Keep an Ideas Journal, then engage your top priority.
   
4. Indecision and/or not knowing what to do
   SOLUTION: Make a list of your goals, then decide which is the most important and do that.
   
5. No focus, plan or purpose
   SOLUTION: Identify your top 3 goals for today and do those first. Repeat this process each day and your motivation, focus and capacity will steadily increase.
   
6. Avoiding goal setting and tracking
   SOLUTION: To get where you want to go you must map out the journey there. Begin with the end you wish to achieve by day’s end. That becomes your day’s goal and the actions to take toward it.
   
7. Feeling stuck
   SOLUTION: Action and vigorous physical movement is a powerful tool toward helping you get unstuck.
   
8. Goals feel too far away and too hard
   SOLUTION: Focus on what you can do today and count your gains and wins at day’s end. Review these summaries at week’s end and you’ll see how it’s adding up. Focus on the gains not the gaps.

The biggest solution to overwhelm is to take positive action. Action dislodges the blockage to progress and releases more energy for you to put to good use until you become addicted to positive progress as a way of life and a daily habit.
~LeAura Alderson, cofounder – iCreateDaily.com®

Most People Aren’t Willing

I was trained as a strategic intervention coach. The reason I became certified in that specific form of coaching offered by the Robbins Madanes company is because I witnessed Tony Robbins, one of the founders, conducting amazingly transformative sessions at his events.

Tony is truly a master at coaching and has helped thousands of people shift from being stuck in overwhelm—amongst other things—in very short order. That’s what I wanted to do… what I’ve always wanted to do: help people find solutions to their problems and discover their infinite well of potential, resilience and resourcefulness.

With this style of coaching I could help people resolve their problems quickly and efficiently, without years of obligatory sessions to accomplish. That spoke to my heart and soul. However, several things became apparent very quickly.

Tony’s audience was there for change and growth… had invested time, money and sacrifice for it, so they are primed and ready.

For Change to Happen

1. People need to be ready for change. Many of the participants at Tony’s event were so very ready for growth and change. They spent thousands of dollars to be there; took days off work to spend day and night in exhaustive hours, to change, heal and grow.
2. An environment that fosters change. An auditorium of thousands of people ready for change sets up a vibration and environment for change like no other.

Obstacles to Change

• Identity is in the story of the past. Most people aren’t truly ready to let go their pain identity. They’re attached to telling the same story over and over as who they are and as they try to live forward by the rear view mirror.
• Knowledge doesn’t guarantee action. Like fitness, everyone knows what to do but few actually do it. People have to be willing to pay the price for what they want—to do the work—even when it’s hard.

It’s no secret that our entire allopathic medical system is built around the fact that people would rather pop a pill to feel better than to change their diet. Obesity and the diseases it feeds, including cancer, diabetes, and a surfeit of other maladies can be simply remedied through diet and exercise.

This is not an accusation… this is not blame.

Rather, it is just about of the human condition and evolution. It’s how we grow. We each have things we know we should or should not do… “But _____”. You can fill in the blanks with the excuses you habitually make for not doing the things you know would be better for you to do. And vice versa; for not doing that which you wish you would do.

Most people are not yet ready to change… to do the work necessary to achieve what they want to achieve. Are you?
~LeAura Alderson, cofounder – iCreateDaily.com®

What’s one thing within your control, that if you but changed it, your life would be better?
~LeAura Alderson, cofounder- iCreateDaily.com®

Are You Growing..?

Progress… growth… momentum… ascension… learning… movement. Life is growth. Growth is the definition of life.

Feeling stuck, is often an indication of being out of alignment with your life purpose. Feeling overwhelmed may simply be a signal from our essential selves. When your soul wants to get your attention, how can it break through the noise and congestion of each day? By nudging us from within.

Alignment with purpose brings more life… more energy, creativity and happiness.

Twinges of guilt and conscience, aspiration and higher yearnings are connected to soul and there to guide us not deride us.
~LeAura Alderson, cofounder- iCreateDaily.com®

Anxiety and Overwhelm

Another symptom of overwhelm is anxiety. Anxiety involves spikes in cortisol, the ‘fight or flight’ hormone. That’s revealing, right? Anxiety is another way our souls have of getting our attention.

Anxiety is sometimes a symptom of needing to move. In the case of anxiety from overwhelm, it’s a feeling of stagnation… of  sinking in quicksand, of not getting anywhere, and the reciprocal biological reaction of wanting to flee.

Overwhelm demands that we stop consuming and start doing. Progress… forward momentum, is the number one antidote to information overload.
~LeAura Alderson, cofounder – iCreateDaily.com®

The Stress of Less Amidst More

When we feel overwhelmed we’re spinning in circles like the dog chasing its tail. It’s definitely not fun but it is remedial, and actually, in fairly short order.

Dogs that chase their tails are either playing or agitated. Most agitation is simply a lack of exercise, movement or growth. What dogs exhibiting signs of obsessive-compulsive behaviors typically really need is the same as humans: good nutrition and ample exercise.

Agitation in humans, can signal being off track with purpose.

Action is the remedy for a better life. The ultimate purpose of consumption is to convert input to output, be it information or food.
~LeAura Alderson, cofounder – iCreateDaily.com®

Feeling Overwhelmed in Boundless Abundance

Feeling overwhelmed is often just brain overload from information overload. We are children of the “information age”, and like kids in the candy store, we’re often consuming more than we need and more than our brains can handle.

Today, we buy book after book, and course after course, before we’ve applied the lessons from the first.
~LeAura Alderson, cofounder – iCreateDaily.com®

Living in an era of abundance… abundant food, abundant information, abundant access… abundant resources…abundant freedom, requires that we parent ourselves in consuming what we need, when we need it. Anything else can quickly lead to overwhelm, and can lead to analysis paralysis, inaction and even depression.

A successful life includes learning to manage our energies through quality input and productive output.

Prosperous free societies require the citizens to manage themselves. Those who do, prosper and succeed. Those who don’t fall victim of circumstance with increasingly diminished freedom.

In a free society, it is our choices — and our attitudes — that determine our freedom.

Prosperous free societies require that citizens manage themselves. Those who do, prosper and succeed.
~LeAura Alderson, cofounder- iCreateDaily.com®

Infobesity is Real

Don’t binge on information. Adult up and discipline yourself to take in what you need, then use what you’ve consumed.

The burden of mental consumption weighs us down and presses upon our shoulders and our psyche. Convert information to action, knowledge to wisdom, and food to energy and strength.

Chances are you don’t need another how-to book. What you need most is to take action on what you already know. Even if you don’t think you know enough yet, the best learning comes from doing. Create first, before consuming anything and observe your days improve.

“Let’s connect humans to be co-creative rather than consumptive.”
Zach Bush, MD, microbiome educator, thought leader

Creation is the Antonym of Consumption

^[1]https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/consumption?s=t

You are wiser than you know, and that next book or course (or article ?) is still piling information from the outside in. Give your inner wisdom a chance to get a word in edgewise… take a break… a reprieve… an extended meditation away from consuming content and information and media.

Reversing overwhelm is often as simple as taking a break from consumption. Instead, get vigorously busy in creating something toward your goals. Do one action daily toward your goals. Creation reverses overwhelm. So long as you balance creating with the business of creating, you’ll be moving increasingly toward greater success.

To consume is to procrastinate and delay doing the work that will fulfill you by virtue of emptying yourself into your creative endeavor.

Don’t binge on information. Adult up and discipline yourself to take in what you need, then use what you’ve consumed before going back for more.
~LeAura Alderson, cofounder- iCreateDaily.com®

Overcoming Overwhelm

How to overcome overwhelm begins very simply:

1. Stop consuming – unrelated—or too much—content, social media, news, negativity, unhealthy food, etc.
2. Start doing – create one thing daily toward your goals.

For more on the terms used in this article:

• Information Overload^[2]https://workplacepsychology.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/information_overload_causes_symptoms_and_solutions_ruff.pdf
• Infobesity^[3]https://www.bain.com/insights/infobesity-the-enemy-of-good-decisions 
• Information Fatigue Syndrom^[4]https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs201/projects/1999-00/technorealism/glut_consequences.html

“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you’ll be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”
~Rudyard Kipling, writer, poet, novelist, 1865-1936

SOURCE: Rudyard Kipling, in an “Interview with an Immortal” by Arthur Gordon for Reader’s Digest, 1935. Often misquoted to Nietzsche, the original transcripted interview can be found in the 1967 Kipling Society journal reprints as “Six Hours with Rudyard Kipling.

Create First

Heed the call to create, and that call will come again. Be the ‘first responder’ to your ideas… to your creative impulse, and you will have increasingly more of those come to fruition. 

Do not cover it up with the input from others… from the media… from the news feeds and timelines. When the seed sprouts, breaking through the soil as it stretches toward the light and life, we do not shovel more dirt over it.

Create first and foremost. Do not enter the stadium of bread and circuses. Do not allow the distractions of the masses to derail you.

They do not define you… unless you immerse in them. Set your goals and stay the course.

See a favorite Lindsey Stirling video and the concept of “the arena” at the end of this article.

CREATE FIRST

Create first and foremost.
Do not bury your creativity
in the dirt of the day.

Do not cover that tender idea
sprouting to life.

Create… because you must…
because that is who you are:

A CREATOR!

~LeAura Alderson, iCreateDaily.com®

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