Be the boss of your overwhelm

Letting overwhelm get the better of us feels like ‘it’s all over us’. 

Recent months of change have shown us plenty of overwhelming experiences! 

As we traverse a ladder of overwhelm, at times we’re DROWNING; too much to do, too many commitments, so much on. 

Or we may be STRUGGLING. Learning new skills is an example. There’s so much information and many new concepts, it’s overwhelming for sure !

As we get a handle on things, we’re JUGGLING; a lot going on and we catch some, yet some things fall. 

To become the boss of our overwhelm then is worth the journey. 

We turn the tables on it; instead of being swamped, we take control, channel and redirect it. 

This leads us to UNDERSTANDING our own brand of overwhelm and what’s unique for us. 

Armed with this insight, PROGRESSING further, faster is possible. 

This is us ... ACHIEVING!

‘All over it’ is such a different place than the inundation of overwhelm. 

The more we’re the boss of our own overwhelm, the better. 

It’s a powerful place. 

To be able to facilitate better is one of this decade's critical skills for leadership

These elegant, collaborative and engaging capabilities aren't just for trainers, presenters or coaches.

Executives, business analysts, project managers, middle level team and people leaders and those new to managing and leading experience the benefits of being able to:
🌕engage with a group or team,
🌕draw information from that group, and then
🌕help them collaborate to achieve an agreed outcome.


Leaders can do so much better to create the right environment and set up the processes that will help that team work together and collaborate.

But make no mistake, facilitation is not ‘soft’ work. 

Better Facilitation will help you balance:
- Achieving outcomes
- Boosting engagement
- Driving productivity
- Encouraging contribution.

Make meetings and workshops better, engagement and collaboration better ... and results and impacts better.

Overwhelm that comes from the future

It’s not even here yet and we’re already thinking about it!

The workshop that’s next week. 
The presentation we have to finish. 
The job interview we’re preparing for. 
The proposal for the client. 
The book to read. 

It’s all in the future ... and our thinking about ‘that which is yet to come’ adds so much to our feelings of overload and overwhelm. 

Running scenarios, preparing options and imagining plan As, Bs and Cs : it all takes time, attention and energy. 

Check to see if you’ve started working on something before you’ve, you know... actually started working on it!

Don’t dismiss all that thinking as ‘nothing’ or ‘just’ thinking. It’s adding to our cognitive overload and our sense of overwhelm. 

No wonder we feel the burden of too much going on!

Catch yourself - and your team - if you’re heading off on a thinking tangent or going deep into a wombat hole that may take even more effort to get out of. 

Notice. 

Noticing where our attention and focus is - in the past, the present or the future - is a powerful behaviour. 

It’s a practical thing to do to reduce the feels when ‘it’s all too much’. 

Minute by minute - hour by hour

It’s how we make sense when nothing seems to make sense. 

As facts change and there is new data, we know more. As more information comes to light, the situation changes and we learn more. 

Then we act again. 

As we learn more from those actions, we act again. 

It’s one of the best reasons for getting into action sooner. Sooner than you think you should. 

You’ll get hindsight and be able to look back on what happened, on how it went. We can’t know everything before taking action, but we can make adjustments once we’re in action. 

Get going on that project or task. Things will look different again once you’re underway. 

Making things up as you go along

Not everything needs to be planned, controlled, organised and structured. Come on .. not everything!

We have an incredible resource in us: our experience, ideas and ingenuity. 

The thing is ... we may not trust ourselves to provide from that resource. 

Improvisation pioneer and playwright Keith Johnstone, says that we edit, censor and judge our ideas. And so much so, that our ideas may never make it out of our head! 

We jump in and criticize, stifling and stopping them from ever reaching the outside world. 

They may only ever live in our mind. 
It’s as if we don’t trust what we are really capable of. 

Sure, we may not have experienced the exact thing or have the exact answer from our history. 

But the resources of our mind are flexible, adaptable and malleable. We can make things up. Even as we we go along. 

We won’t know what we can do with our ideas unless we trust them. 

It may only take a few seconds - just long enough to put them ‘out there’.