Ah, that feeling of being overwhelmed. I know it well. As someone who loves to juggle many balls, there comes a point when the balls start falling! I become overwhelmed by my own enthusiasm, ambition and the golden sparkle of possibility.

So what to do?

One of the skills we learn in coaching is “naming what’s present,” which simply means being willing to articulate what we see happening, whether that be the tone of voice we notice, an expression, or the way that a process is moving – or not.

This practice of naming what’s present, done without judging, develops our powers of observation and our precision for description without judgement.

How does that relate to overwhelm? It reminds me of an exercise offered by writer/coach Lynne Cazaly on what to do when you’re overwhelmed. She suggests that you redefine overwhelm. It’s easy just to say, “I’ve overwhelmed” and throw your hands up.

But what is present as you feel that overwhelm? Can you describe what’s really going on? Is it that you’re not certain what your next steps are? Did you just get overloaded with information because you’re listening to a lecture and can’t capture everything that seems important? Are you watching the news and feeling overcome with deep sadness or despair? Or as is so often the case for me, am I so excited/overstimulated by the possibilities that I can’t focus on one thing to do next?

S…l…o…w.. down and ask yourself a few questions.

Lynne created a grid with three columns to support slowing down and redefining overwhelm. The first column: What happened? In this column, you write down what actually happened that triggered the feeling.

The second column: I felt. In this column you describe as precisely as you can what you’re feeling – maybe it’s that overwhelmed feeling, or maybe you’re noticing that it’s sadness, or confusion. Specificity helps us to gain clarity.

And the third column: What was it really? Here’s where you can redefine that feeling of overwhelm and then begin to manage it, and yourself different questions.

Once you’ve gained more clarity by naming what’s present in the bundle of feeling that we call overwhelm, you can start to make decisions.

I find it helpful to use these pruning questions with the reminder that this is for the time being and the next time, I can make a different decision.

Here are some more questions that can be helpful. What matters most to you? What can you say no to? What are you doing now that’s working? Can you do more of that? If you only focused on one thing, would what that be?