In the moments that you're feeling overwhelmed, however long those instances last, it can be quite the challenge to keep your focus on the present moment.
Multimillionaire Trainer and Author of Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, T. Harv Eker, spent many stressful years broke, hungry, and anxious to achieve his desired outcomes.
Not only was much of that journey unhappy, but it also did not contribute positively to his objective.
But when he discovered how to master his inner game to affect his outer game favorably, everything changed for him.
If you’d like to be able to cope in situations that are overwhelming too, you’ll enjoy Harv’s tips.
If you’re anything like Harv, your desk probably resembles what one would imagine a newspaper journalist or editor’s desk to look like.
It’s even evident on the faces of people who enter your office and go… “Oh my God! How do you know where anything is? How do you get stuff done!?”
Harv used to have that fight within himself, and I’m sure you can relate.
In his mind, he’d want to start every work day getting onto phone calls, attending to each voicemail, reading every email in his inbox, and just be grinding away until all the small things are done.
This was a habit for him for a very long time, being busy busy busy, and feeling overwhelmed as nothing ever concluded.
Do those kinds of things bother him?
Do they leave him feeling overwhelmed?
It definitely used to, but not anymore.
Why?
Because Harv focuses his attention on what he MUST do.
Some people feel claustrophobic or even panic-stricken by the clutter of folders and papers and minute tasks that have no end.
It’s like there are just not enough hours in the day to get through it all and to get, not even everything, but just anything done.
If this situation stops you dead in your tracks, it simply means that you get stopped way too easily.
Are you feeling overwhelmed?
If so, understand that it is because you simply feel overwhelmed, says Harv…
And not because you are overwhelmed.
The feeling of overwhelm stems from your mind.
It doesn’t come from your work.
It’s not the emails, or the papers, or the snail-mail, or the memos, or anything external.
It is nothing that’s outside of you.
It comes from what’s inside of you.
So what can you actually do to declutter what’s both inside and outside of your own head?
How do you lighten this load?
Well, Harv provides two tips to help you cope:
Focus only on what’s right in front of you at this moment, right now, and don’t be thinking about everything else that still has to be done.
“I still have to get through all this and do all that. I have to clean up all of this and I have so much to do. Oh my gosh!”
Geez, thinking like that would make anyone feel overwhelmed!
And although it’s ‘normal’ for most people to think that way, it is absolutely vital to learn how to manage just one thing at a time.
Harv insists that you simply must stop stressing about what comes next.
If you’ll find it helpful and time allows for it, use a quick guided meditation to ease your sense of feeling overwhelmed, he suggests.
We all have access to this great free resource called YouTube and you can easily do a search in the bar at the top along the lines of ‘guided meditation anxiety’ that will produce dozens of options.
What makes guided meditations particularly effective is that they take you on a journey out of your own thoughts, and the voice and visualization of the other person guiding you through this meditation helps to calm anxiety.
Most of the meditations you’ll find are between 5 - 30 minutes in duration, so there’s something for everyone.
And if you stop stressing about making sure every paper’s properly placed and every email's answered immediately, you’ll discover that you actually do have time to create calm in moments of stress.
Do yourself a favor by having a set of headphones on hand and don’t feel self-conscious about taking care of your own mental health, Harv asserts.
Start with your Big Rocks Calendar first.
It’s as simple as taking a monthly calendar and recording your priorities on it, Harv says.
If it means that you schedule in working out X amount of times each week, fantastic.
If it means taking smaller steps within bigger projects, excellent.
Important meetings go on your calendar too, great.
Your Big Rocks are the stuff you DO ‘sweat’, the things that are most important to you.
Not the multiple many hundreds of other small things you have to do such as answering emails or going to the mall that contribute to you feeling overwhelmed.
Those are for your small rocks schedule.
Schedule a morning block for answering emails and all the other little things that must be done.
Use a late afternoon block for the things that truly matter.
If you allow for emails and snail-mail and all those other little things to dominate the time in your day, you’re not being productive or effective and you definitely won’t get rich, says Harv.
You’ll also keep feeling overwhelmed because you’re not prioritizing anything in accordance with your goals.
People who are effective block their time. -T. Harv Eker
Rather than watch three hours of TV, use an hour or two at night to answer those emails that arrived earlier in the afternoon.
But, cautions Harv, make sure not to be doing emails past 10:00 p.m.
Don’t allow anything to stop you.
Not everything has to look and be perfect for you to succeed. -T. Harv Eker
Fling all the smaller stuff in a basket next to your desk and move forward.
Keep going.
Do what is necessary.
Most importantly, no matter the time of day, Harv insists that you place your attention only on what you’re doing right in that moment.
Remove your attention from what’s driving you nuts because it still has to be done as this will keep you in a frenzy of feeling overwhelmed.
And you’ll become less energetically effective, less productive, and much less successful, so don’t do it.
Learn to stay present with what’s going on right in front of you, right now. -T. Harv Eker
You’re alive NOW.
You have power NOW.
You have control NOW.
Not yesterday, not tomorrow, not 2 minutes from now.
How will you use your power?
What habit will you practice to be successful NOW?
Now is all you have, it’s the only time that’s real.
You can train yourself to maintain focus, plan ahead, and become super-efficient once you’ve made up your mind to set and achieve goals that are important to you.
You have a technique now to stop feeling overwhelmed in moments of stress - breathe, get back into the present moment and DO.
Remember, if overcoming procrastination is a struggle for you, there are several effective ways to build self-confidence that can help you in every present moment.
Learn how to tame fear so you can move forward, and all it requires is practice for the habit to take hold.
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Has your Mind ever wondered…
Picture a frozen person, paralyzed by fear, unable to take action because they cannot think, see, or feel beyond the thoughts generated by their own conditioned mind invading their being and making progress impossible.
Can this person breathe?
Can they move?
No, they can do nothing other than mentally flail about in limbo, stuck under a mountain of fear.
When you focus your attention on everything other than what you’re doing right now in this moment, you will be feeling overwhelmed every day.
You simply have to learn how to do one thing at a time, start it, and finish it so you can move on to the next thing.
Fear is absolutely 100% at the root of feeling overwhelmed because you fear you won’t finish on time, or you won’t meet all your obligations, or that nothing is in your realm of control and you have no agency.
And that fear is seldom about the present moment.
It’s more about the future and you have to realize the only place you have control is NOW.
You CAN create your future by design, by being fully present in this very moment.
With some planning and prioritization, you can kiss feeling overwhelmed goodbye for good.
And you can develop this skill with ease if you’re willing to replace a few habits that don’t support and empower your best life.
You can be unstoppable, and build wealth, and have time to do what's important if you develop your agency by following what T. Harv Eker teaches.
Use these tips for conquering the moments when you feel overwhelmed.
First, take a breath and do a guided meditation to help you get away from your own debilitating thoughts.
Then, schedule your most important ‘non-negotiable’ items on a Big Rocks Calendar to make sure they get the attention they deserve.
You have to learn how to stop being afraid to say no to the things that are less important than the things you must do to achieve your goals.
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