Eliminating Overwhelm Part X: Take Baby Steps and Enjoy the Process

The other day I attended a seminar and the speaker was sharing ideas and tips he has learned over the years as a professional speaker. I could feel overwhelm start to build within me as I thought about what it would take to achieve the outcome he has achieved over his long career – and questioned if it was even what I wanted and envisioned for myself and my business.

Overwhelm, like any other emotion, is a message with something to tell you. If you take a moment to recognize when it starts to build within you, you can choose to acknowledge it and process the thoughts around it to come up with better, more appropriate thoughts and actions that will add value to your life.

I am not immune. My mind, like yours, sees the mountain and, without skill or the proper equipment, expects me to be able to climb to the top – today.

We see the outcome rather than the process and we become overwhelmed. Stress builds and, if not careful, we can become angry and frustrated with ourselves for not having the ability to succeed right now. It’s a brutal internal battle.

The process is the journey. It’s all the little, baby steps and developmental milestones that are required in order to achieve the end result. The journey is your life. If you are not enjoying the journey, then what is your life about?

The outcome is your vision which requires care to create in your mind before you can begin to set upon the task of achieving it. Vision provides you with the beacon and leads the way.

Often we haven’t even considered what we want for ourselves – what we envision in the perfect relationship or the perfect job. All we know is that we don’t have it.

Two things add to our sense of overwhelm, stress and hopelessness:

1. Our minds create unrealistic expectations about what it actually takes to achieve a particular result. It sounds like a lot of “shoulds” such as “you should have that by now” or “you should be able to do that”. Beating yourself up incessantly is a waste of time and energy; it is a huge source of anxiety and contributes to poor self-esteem.
2. Our minds fantasize about how life should be, how we should be, how other people should be… and we become attached to these fantasies being real, forgetting that they were created in our mind – they’re not real. Reality differs from these thoughts or fantasies and we become angry at reality because we feel entitled to have the outcome we have fantasized. This sense of entitlement to the outcome WITHOUT DOING THE WORK is a huge source of stress.

What can we do to change the way we approach life? Here are four steps:

1) You need to know what you want – not what you could or should have/be/do, but what do you really want? Commitment is an essential ingredient to achieving success. If it is something you really want, then you will persist and do the work required. Consider something you accomplished in your life that required your total commitment. Remember how engaged and dedicated you were and you succeeded.

2) Take baby steps to achieve your goals in life – whatever they may be.

Henceforth, I will consider each day’s effort as but one blow of my blade against a mighty oak. The first blow may cause not a tremor in the wood, nor the second, nor the third. Each blow, of itself, may be trifling, and seem of no consequence. Yet from childish swipes the oak will eventually tumble. So it will be with my efforts of today.

~ Og Mandino, The Greatest Salesman in the World

3) Celebrate results along the way. Each week or month or year, even each day, acknowledge your accomplishments. These are your milestones. If you cannot acknowledge your achievements, how will you ever know success?

4) Compete against yourself.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

~ Max Ehrmann, Desiderata

Others are working on different goals; they have different talents and abilities. They are at a different level of personal development. AND you cannot know truly what is going on inside the heart and mind of another. Many people have the illusion of success but that is all it is – just an illusion. Behind the exterior may be pain and indebtedness and unhappiness.

My friend, Karyn Greenstreet of Passion for Business, says, “What if you had the next twenty years to complete your goal?” In other words, think about the outcome over the course of time rather than having it all right now. When we are able to do that, it relieves the stress felt over expecting instant gratification and makes us think that perhaps we could in fact accomplish our vision if we really want it given an acceptable timeframe to get to the finish line.

The prizes of life are at the end of each journey, not near the beginning; and it is not given to me to know how many steps are necessary in order to reach my goal. Failure I may still encounter at the thousandth step, yet success hides behind the next bend in the road. Never will I know how close it lies unless I turn the corner.

~ Og Mandino, The Greatest Salesman in the World

Enjoy the journey!

Your partner for success,

Coach Julie ~ Nurturing YOUR Success