Are you feeling overwhelmed? Well does this sound a bit like you?

‘I want to change career, maybe start a new business, but I still want to take good care of my partner and our children. My home is a mess, nothing is organised and what about that hobby that I really want to start? How do I fit that in…’ This sounds like you’re feeling overwhelmed.

There’s so much to think about and so little seemingly time to do it all. No wonder so many of us start feeling overwhelmed. We have all these ideas of what we want to do, but we can’t do it all. Can we?

Well, we can look at how you can start to streamline your life so that you can start to do the things you really want to do, as well as the things that you feel obliged to do. So here are five things that are good starting points to tackle this feeling of overwhelm in your life.

1. Take time out to tackle feeling overwhelmed.

1. You are stuck in a cycle of continuing to do the things that you do on a routine basis. This makes you feel overwhelmed. Therefore, you have to find a time to stop and think. Make a specific time for this. Plan when would be the easiest time to do this with minimum interruption and place great importance on this. Make some time to reflect on what is happening right now that is going well for you. Then think about what you want to change. You might find it difficult to think this through for yourself, so ask a friend. Join them for a cup of coffee and have a chat. Let them know what you are stuck with and see if they can help with ideas. All you are looking for at this time is ideas of things that you can do differently.

2. Brainstorm

2. After you’ve taken some time to reflect, you’ve already honoured the importance of having time to yourself. This is an important step. Well done. So hopefully you now have some ideas, loads of them. Write them down. This is essential too. It is thought that those that write down what they hope to do are more likely to do what they have put down. So write down all the ideas – no matter how ridiculous or unobtainable they sound at this moment. In fact, I would say the more ambitious the goal the better, it will help with your motivation to get there. Great, you should now have brainstormed loads of ideas of things that you want to do. But now I feel more overwhelmed – you might say. Well, let’s go to the next step.

3. Focus

3. Now we are going to pick one of those things. ‘But how can I ?’ you might say. ‘I’ve now got a whole new list of things that I want to do.’ That’s true, but usually there is one thing that is most important at the time more than all others. You can find ways to check what is the biggest thing you want to start with. You could rate them all from 0-10. Or you could choose the one that you feel would have most impact at this time. You can pick the thing that is most significant to accomplish at this time, or that would have most impact on other things you want to do. Whatever measure you decide – use this to select the main thing that comes highest in this rating.

4. Plan

4. Then next make a plan for every day, and each day make a specific time to work towards the thing that relates to the most important thing at the moment. Choose a consistent time every day and stick to it, finding the time of day that this will be easiest to stick to. So now you should have the thing that you want to do which is most priority in your life right now, and  you have planned the best time to work towards it every day.

5. Do something to stop feeling overwhelmed.

5. Then the last thing to do is to implement to stop the feeling overwhelmed. Make a date with yourself each day to work towards your main priority. Don’t beat yourself up if you miss a day. Be compassionate with yourself, and then continue again the next day.  And it doesn’t matter how small. Just try not to do anything else other than the task you had booked for yourself. The more regular you do something towards your goal, the more it will become a habit to do each day. And then it will become easier to do. Also, if you work on something each day, you will start to see results. This will make the feelings of overwhelm feel less as you are starting to see the benefits of working towards your goal. And therefore you will start to feel better about yourself.

So if you do these things, you would have now found some space to STOP and THINK about what you want to do. You would have written down all your ideas and then chosen the one that is most important to you right now. Then you have made a date with yourself every SINGLE day to do something, no matter how little towards that goal, to get moving and start to see results. You can only start where you are. And finally, you may then be able to see the space to be able to move on towards your next great idea in your list.