The Mindset Mentor - The Cure for Overwhelm

Episode Date: November 6, 2024

Ever feel like life is coming at you way too fast? In today’s episode, I dive deep into what it really means to be overwhelmed and share my go-to strategies for breaking free from it. Overwhelm isn���t just mental; it takes a serious toll on your body and health, too. I’ll show you why stress stacks up and how a few simple shifts can put you back in control. Think of this as your ultimate guide to handling life's pressures without feeling stuck or burnt out. Ready to beat overwhelm and finally feel in control? Let’s do this! Want to learn more about Mindset Mentor+? For nearly nine years, the Mindset Mentor Podcast has guided you through life's ups and downs. Now, you can dive even deeper with Mindset Mentor Plus. Turn every podcast lesson into real-world results with detailed worksheets, journaling prompts, and a supportive community of like-minded people. Enjoy monthly live Q&A sessions with me, and all this for less than a dollar a day. If you’re committed to real, lasting change, this is for you.Join here 👉 www.mindsetmentor.com My first book that I’ve ever written is now available. It’s called LEVEL UP and It’s a step-by-step guide to go from where you are now, to where you want to be as fast as possible.📚If you want to order yours today, you can just head over to robdial.com/bookHere are some useful links for you… If you want access to a multitude of life advice, self development tips, and exclusive content daily that will help you improve your life, then you can follow me around the web at these links here:Instagram TikTokFacebookYoutube

Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another episode. And if you're out there and you haven't read my book, Level Up yet, it is actually on a discount on Amazon at this moment. It's 33% off. So if you go there, the physical copies, which is the hard copy, and also the soft copy are both 33% off. So if you want to check it out, go ahead and check it out. Today, we're going to be talking about being overwhelmed, how you're overwhelmed, why you're overwhelmed, and how to actually overcome the overwhelm that you feel. And let's be real, with all of the things that happen nowadays, it's very easy to get overwhelmed.

Our lives move faster than ever before. There's no humans that have ever had their lives move as fast as ours do. Now, I'm sure that our ancestors' lives were way more stressful, but as far as the constant movement, the constant stimuli, all of the stuff that's going on, notifications all day, work demands, social pressures, children, all of those things, we rarely unplug at all. We have all of this technology that's constantly just sending stuff to us on the phone. We have phones, we have computers, we have TVs, we have people, we have, like I said, children, we have work, we have computers, we have TVs, we have people, we have, like I said, children, we have work, we have all of this. And it's very common that if we're not taking a step

back, getting out of our own heads, all of that, that we can become very overwhelmed. And overwhelm is actually, too much of it is very terrible for your body. Overwhelm activates your body's stress response, which means that your body actually reacts as if your life is in danger. And so what it'll do is it will flood your body with cortisol, with adrenaline, which is helpful for the short term if you have a tiger rushing after you, but it's damaging when it's constantly elevated. And all of this chronic stress and overwhelm can lead to really long-term health issues. It can be, you know, weakened immune system, inflammation, all kinds of stuff. And there's actually a study that was done in 1991 by, it was called a Whitehall study, and people that found with higher stress levels

had a greater risk of developing heart disease and mental health problems compared to those who didn't. And so it's not just mental overwhelm, it's physical overwhelm and it takes a toll on your body. So it is very important for us to figure out how to stop being so overwhelmed. And the research highlighted that stress isn't just in your head, it affects everything from blood pressure to your digestive system to your sleep, all of that. So if it's left unchecked and we don't do anything about it, the wear and tear in your body will be real and it can be dangerous as well. And so it's very easy to constantly be doing something every second of the day with all that's going on.

But our brains and our bodies weren't meant for this world that we've created. Our brains and bodies have not caught up to the world that we've created because our technology and our lives have moved so fast. We're better suited for the planes and just hunting and gathering, not constant stimulation every single second. And so when we have social media, we have 24-7 work culture, hustle culture, constant notifications, it's naturally for our natural rhythms of life to be hijacked. And so let's dive into overwhelm and then how to overcome overwhelm that you have. When you look at overwhelm, what does it actually mean to be overwhelmed? Because if I ask you and 20 other people what it means to

be overwhelmed, everybody else is going to have a different answer. But overwhelm is basically, if you take a step back, it's the body saying, slow down. It's like, dude, I ain't got much more left. Can you just chill? And so when you feel overwhelmed, it's basically like the warning signal or the check engine light in your car turning on. It's saying, hey, you're asking too much of me. And the answer is not to just push harder. It's to listen to these signals and to try to stop yourself from being overwhelmed. The brain and the body are constantly swamped with the demands that you place on them. And these demands can be cognitive, they can be emotional, they can be

physical. And so with the cognitive load, you're thinking too much. With the emotional load, you're worrying too much. With the physical load, you're doing too much. All of those things contribute to overwhelm. And so think of them as like each one of the things that's, whether it's a cognitive, emotional, or physical thing that we have that's going on. It's like taking a backpack and throwing a rock in there. Eventually, once you have too much of them, the weight is just unsustainable. And so here's the thing. It could be that your body is overworked. Sure. But I would recommend, I would guess that very few people listen to this podcast is that your body is overworked. Most of the time, what it is that your mind is overworked

and you're working and you have your mind just constantly worrying and thinking about the past and thinking about the future and think about all the things that you have to do. And it's just constantly going, going, going. And that can burn a lot of calories as well. There's a study that's done that's found that chess players can burn up to 6,000 calories

a day playing chess. 6,000 calories. That's twice as much as the average human. I'm sorry, that's three times as much as the average human. But their bodies rarely move. So it's literally this mental load. Their brain is just on overload as they're constantly playing chess. So how is this possible when you look at it?

When you look at burning 6,000 calories from doing almost nothing, it's because your mind is part of your body. And it is making your body overwork as well. Your brain is essentially about 2% to 3% of your body's weight, but it's about 20% of your body's energy that it consumes every single day. It's the most energy consuming organ in your body. And so waking up and checking your phone and checking your emails and checking your texts and checking Instagram and checking TikTok and checking Twitter before you ever get out of bed and then chug a cup of coffee as soon as you get out of bed, your mind and your body are just like, it's too much. You got to slow down a little bit. Your mind never really

has a chance to kind of ease into the day. And so, you know, I was on a call the other day. I was on a Zoom call for one of my coaching sessions that I do. And someone had said, this is making me overwhelmed. It's making me overwhelmed. And when I listen to people talk, I listen to them on two levels, what they say and what's behind what they say. And when you look at someone saying, it's making me overwhelmed, when you say it is making you overwhelmed, it basically makes you a victim of something. It makes you a victim of it. And so it's making me overwhelmed. It's just kind of like, I can't do anything about it versus shifting it. And a tiny little shift is I'm making myself overwhelmed. And we will be right back. And now back to the show. And it's a tiny shift. I always try to shift people's words before anything else because a shift in words is a

shift in perspective. And if I say it's making me overwhelmed, I'm a victim of it. If I say I'm making myself overwhelmed, well, then I can actually change it and I can change the situation. And so I'm less concerned about what you do. And I'm more concerned about your story that you're telling yourself these things because the stories that we tell ourselves change our reality. I can't handle this is different from saying I'm learning to manage this. And so these words that we use are really, really important. And so she had said, it's making me overwhelmed. And it was like, work is making me overwhelmed. My relationship is making me overwhelmed. My schedule is making me overwhelmed. And I was like, okay, let's take a step back. None of those things are making you overwhelmed. You are making yourself overwhelmed. Can you agree with that? She was like, yeah, I can agree with that. And so I was like, okay, when you say it is making

me overwhelmed, my relationship, work, all of these things are making me overwhelmed, it makes you a victim. And it means that when you're a victim, you can't really change your circumstances. When you say, I am making myself overwhelmed because of my relationship. I am making myself overwhelmed because of work. I am making myself overwhelmed. I understand the circumstances can be challenging, but when we take responsibility, it empowers us to know that we are the ones that can make change. Overwhelm is it's happening to me and I'm stuck, but if I'm creating this, then I can unstick myself. And so the first thing I want you to do, if you think about being overwhelmed, is start listening to your words. Listening to your words, changing your words so you put yourself back into a place of power.

That's what's important. When it's external, you can't change it. When it's you, you can change it. And also puts you in the driver's seat. It changes the way that you look at your life and it puts you in the driver's seat of I can make a change. And so overwhelm also very rarely comes from what you're doing. It almost always comes from what you're thinking about what you're doing. And so overwhelm is when you have 40 things on your to-do list. Why are you overwhelmed? Not because of the 40 things on your to-do list. You're overwhelmed because you're thinking about having to create a plan for all 40 of them and then how you're going to get all 40 of them done at the exact same time when you know you can't do all of them at one time. You know you can only do one thing at a time.

And so I want you to understand that's what overwhelm is. It's just this cognitive, it's this emotional, it's this physical overwhelm, this too much that's going on, right? And you go, okay, I need to take a step back. I need to chill for a second. And so now I want to teach you guys like seven different steps that you can go through when you notice that you're overwhelmed to actually calm yourself down and to work through it and to stop being so overwhelmed. The first one, if you've been listening to this podcast for a long time, you know, I almost always recommend this, is breath, right? Give your mind and your body a break for a minute. Like just chill the hell out

already. It can be three minutes. If you don't have three minutes to meditate, you need three hours to meditate, to be honest with you. It will eventually catch up to you if you don't slow down. We were not meant to go, go, go, go, go nonstop. So when you do deep breathing, which is usually like the one I like to do the most is usually about four seconds in, eight seconds out. It's just four seconds in through the nose, eight seconds out through the mouth, and then just do it. Set your timer for three minutes. Just do four in, eight out, four in, eight out. After three minutes, go on about your day. This deep breathing activates what's called the parasympathetic nervous system, which is, you know, when you look at the sympathetic nervous system, that is your fight or flight response. When you look at the parasympathetic nervous system, which is, you know, when you look at the sympathetic nervous system, that is your fight or flight response. When you look at the parasympathetic nervous system,

that is your calm, cool, collected, rest, restore part of your nervous system. So if you're overwhelmed, you're pretty much in fight or flight. That's for sure. So how do we get ourselves out of it? The fastest way to get ourselves out of overwhelm is to breathe. And so that's the first thing. Even if it's just for a few minutes, just slow down. Deep breaths will shift your body into a state of relaxation, which allows you to make better decisions. The second thing that I recommend as well is one thing at a time. Imagine that you come over my house and I cook you dinner, right? And I give you steak and I give you a baked potato and I give you rice and I give you salad. Nobody is going to look at that and become stressed out because they're trying to think about taking the entire thing and fitting it in their face, right? You're not

overwhelmed because you know, how do you eat the entire plate? One bite at a time. That's exactly how it should work when you start looking at your to-do list. Look at your to-do list, figure out what needs to be done, get better with time management, and realize only one thing can be done at a time. And so don't stress out about having to do everything at one time. The people that I find that get the most stressed out with to-do lists and with planning and all that, they want it done. Once they figure out what needs to be done, they want it already done, but it's not. And the second thing is they start looking at all of the things that they want done, all 27 of them. And they think I need to take action on all 27 right now. It is absolutely

impossible. And it is proven even with multitasking that multitasking is not possible. I've done episodes before it on the past. It's called single tasking. And all you're doing is your tasks switching from one thing to another. And it leads to worse results. And it also leads to less, more distraction while you're doing something. And it just, just I've done episodes on multitasking does not work, but you're thinking I need to do all of these things at one time. And so, you know, multitasking feels efficient, but it leads to more stress, at least lower quality work, all of those things. So what I recommend is that you do one thing at a time, right? How do you help yourself? Well, that's what number three, the third thing that I recommend to help you with

overwhelm is to do this with your to-do list. When you make a to-do list, I want you to prioritize that to-do list. So you can make a to-do list and there's 29 things that need to be done today, right? What I want you to do to simplify all of it, because you're not going to get all 29 done today, is I want you to circle and put number one, number two, number three. Put a number one next to one of them, put a number two next to another one, put a number three next to them. And these are ranked based off of priority. I want you to take an index card and I want you to write number one at the top of the index card, number two, and then number three. And then leave your to-do list where it is, put it in a drawer so it's out

of sight, whatever you need to do. And then all I want you to do is look at that index card and focus on cranking out number one. If nothing else but number one gets done today, that's a win. If nothing else but number two gets done today after number one, great. Number three gets done today, oh my God, that's amazing. And so what I would recommend is taking your to-do list, prioritizing it, putting number one, two, and three on an index card, and then focus on that. Because a lot of times when you come up with a massive to-do list, and then at the end of the day, you've been working all day and you feel like you got nothing done. The reason why is because you weren't focusing on the things that were of the highest priority. You were just focusing on getting things knocked off the list. So that's number three. The next one,

stop doing so many things. There's a lot of people that say yes to everything. Stop saying yes to everything. Stop saying yes to everyone. If you're a people pleaser, this is one thing that you really need to work on is boundaries with us. Do less things, but do those less things better. Don't try to be a jack of all trades. Find something that you love, try to master something. And simplifying your life doesn't mean doing less. It means doing more of what matters most. And so what you want to try to do is try to align your actions with what is most important to you. And that will minimize a lot of stress and a lot of dissatisfaction that you have. One of the things that might be overwhelming you is that you're going to a job that you hate and

you've been going there for eight years and you've hated every single day of that job. Well, yeah, that can feel really overwhelming, can't it? And so I would recommend, like I always tell people, instead of you being a jack of all trades, like I don't want to be somebody who their knowledge and their skill set is like a mile wide and like two inches deep. What I want my skill set and my knowledge to be is like two inches wide, but like a mile deep. I want to know and have, I want my knowledge and my skill set to be deeper than almost anybody else in the world at this thing. So what is that thing for you? So stop doing so many things and try to do a couple things, but try to do those couple of things really, really well.

So that's number four. Number five helps with that as well is stop doing things that you don't love and do more of the things that you do love. If you're mentally resisting things that you don't love and do more of the things that you do love. If you're mentally resisting things that you don't want to do, of course, it's going to overwhelm you. And so what I would recommend that you do is make a list of all the things that you're passionate about, all the things that interest you, all of the things that you love to do. Make a list of all of the things that make you happy. Look at it every single morning and then plan out how you can get those happy things done. I've said it many times in the podcast before, but one of my friends was one of the first 10 people at Facebook and was fired a few months before they went public. And when they went public, he missed out on like $180 million because they took the stock back when they fired him. And so he went into this depression.

And then the way he got himself out of that depression was he made a list of things that made him happy. Everything that makes him happy from tiny little things, like just snuggling with his dog to huge things, right? And he would wake up every single morning and he would look at his happy list and he would try to put as many of those things into his day. And the quote that I'll never forget until the day I die is he said, I would not, I decided that I was not going to be depressed anymore and I would not leave my happiness or my depression to be left up to chance. And so when you incorporate activities that you enjoy, one of the things that happens is your brain actually releases dopamine and dopamine

actually buffers cortisol in your brain. So your stress hormones actually get lowered when you have more dopamine in your life. And so that's why I recommend doing things that you love. Even if it's just like, hey, take five minutes and watch some comedy on YouTube. If you laugh, that releases dopamine. That dopamine will make you feel less stressed out. So that's number five.

Number six, train for stress tolerance. And so what I mean by this is a lot of times people that get too stressed out or too overwhelmed haven't really trained themselves to know what stress and overwhelm feels like. And so one of the things I recommend for people is when you work out, work out really intensely and get your heart rate up. And then when you have your 60 second rest, if you're at the gym, maybe you can't do this. Maybe you can if you're facing a wall or something. Get your heart rate up and then give yourself those 60 seconds. Put your timer on, close your eyes, rest, and try to get your heart rate back down. So it's like stress,

de-stress, stress, de-stress. And you're training your body on how to de-stress. This is one of the reasons why I think ice baths are so good and cold plunges is because you get yourself into a really stressed out state and you've got to calm it all down. So you get used to calming yourself down. This is one reason why I think saunas are really good as well. And so for me, I have an ice bath and a sauna at the house. I like using both of them to calm my nervous system down and try to regulate my heart rate when things get really stressful. Ice baths, those can be really stressful. Can I calm myself down? Saunas, your heart rate can go crazy when you're in 180 degrees and it's 100% humidity. So it's like, can I calm myself down? Can I mentally and physically

be the calm in the eye of the storm. By practicing controlled stress through exercise, through cold exposure, through all of this, builds resilience within yourself. So you teach your body how to handle stress in manageable doses. So then in real life, you know how to work through it. It's like training for real life is basically what it is. And then the seventh thing that I'm going to give you is to create something that's called a stress journal. Whenever you get stressed, write it all down on paper. What you're stressed about, what's going on, all of that.

There's a couple benefits to it. Number one, you become more aware. And number two, you get it all out of your brain. And so when you journal these things, what you do basically is you exercise your thoughts, which reduces your mental load. And then once written and you can see them physically with your eyes, you can objectively assess them and say like, is this really worth worrying about? And you can say, okay, it's on paper. Now I'm seeing, okay, this made me stressed out two days ago too. And then this made me stressed out yesterday. I'm noticing a pattern. Okay. Maybe I should start to remove myself from these stressful,

overwhelming situations now that I'm starting to notice a pattern. So it's really important to keep a journal that shows like when you're stressed out. If you're someone who's overwhelmed often, if you're stressed out a lot, if you get anxiety often, journal through them, put them down on paper. You're going to start to notice patterns with them. And then once you see anxiety often, journal through them, put them down on paper. You're going to start to notice patterns with them. And then once you see those patterns, you can say, okay, I know when I get myself in that situation, it stresses me out. I'm going to avoid this situation. And so that's what overwhelm is. And that's seven different ways to help yourself not be as overwhelmed. In the end, just remember that overwhelm is a message from your body and your brain.

It's not a permanent state. It's your body and your mind asking for adjustments, asking for some rest, asking you to put more balance into your life. And so you should listen to it. You should honor it. You should make small adjustments so that you're not always in that state. And over time, these shifts, when you make these little tiny shifts, they will massively transform how you experience your life.

And there'll be less stress, there'll be less overwhelm, less anxiety that comes with this well. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories, tag me in at RobDialJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And with that, I'm gonna leave you the same way I leave you every single episode, making sure mission makes somebody else's day better.

I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.