How to feel ease and calm when life gets overwhelming

Hey hey there!

I hope you are having a wonderful week. First of all, thank you so much for all your love and support about my post last week. I appreciate this so, so much.

Now on to today… I’m so excited to talk to you about what I’m discussing today because it’s something I’ve really worked on in my own life and feel like a lot of us can use in our daily lives.

The topic today is how to keep a sense of ease and calm when sh*t hits the fan (because it does) and life gets overwhelming.

Let’s face it — sometimes things feel easy, relaxed, and organized, and then other times our to-do lists are out of control, there are never enough hours in the day, we’re under major deadlines, and everything just feels like it keeps piling up.

I totally get it. Right now, I’m working on launching my new group program and things are SUPER exciting but also very busy. I have so many moving parts to manage and my to do list is….well, long. But, I have to say, I’ve found ways to stay really calm (mostly) throughout it.

But it wasn’t always this way. Let’s flash back to two years ago…

Two years ago, I was creating another program called Food Freedom and to be frank, my stress levels during that time were sky high. I have a vivid memory of screaming at my boyfriend at the time (and I am not a yeller) because he did something that pissed me off and I just snapped. When someone on my team would deliver something late or do something “wrong”, I would respond in a not-so-nice manner, and I didn’t feel good about my behavior.

During that stressful time, I turned into someone who I wasn’t proud of. I swore that I would never let myself get that stressed out again. It just wasn’t worth it. I care about myself and the people around me too much.

So when it came time to get ready for this next launch, I vowed to do it differently. I promised myself I was going to create this program with ease, joy, and inspiration.

It’s not only part of walking my talk, but honestly, life is short and meant to be enjoyed, and I value how I FEEL on a daily basis more than anything else.

Here are three things that I have been doing to remain calm, grounded and relaxed during one of the busiest times in my business:

1. Realize that often times, we create our own overwhelm. Make decisions that enable you to feel less stress.

When it came time to figure out the dynamics of how I was going to create and launch my new program, I had to make some decisions around how “big” of a launch it would be. I felt through my different options and realized that if I did everything to the max, I would have had an incredibly stressful summer.

I knew without a doubt that I wanted to love my summer. I wanted to be able to take a Friday off to go to the beach, go for runs in the summer evenings, linger at long meals with friends, and be outside as much as possible. So I made certain decisions to do things a little “smaller” this year in order to enjoy my life even more.

I made a decision to grow a little bit slower in my business in favor of loving every day of my life a little more.

For you: take a look at how you may be creating your own overwhelm. Are you saying “yes” to too many social obligations that you don’t really want to go to? Is the overachiever in you taking on too many projects at work when this is unnecessary in order to succeed? Are you trying to move things along at maximum speed when it just feels like a constant struggle? See where you think you can opt-out of overwhelm by making new and different decisions. Remember that you are the creator of your own life.

2. Discover your bare essentials: the baseline level of things you need during stressful times to still feel good. 

When things get busy, we may not have time for that gel manicure, that 90 minute yoga class, or a two hour decadent meal, but it’s important to know what your bare minimum of self-care is. What are things that – even when life gets crazy – you know you NEED in order to still feel good.

I recommended choosing 3 to 4 “bare essentials”.

Right now, mine are: lots of sleep, movement at least a few times a week, easy, healthy food, and having fun with my friends

If one of these goes, I don’t function very well.

For you: what are your bare essentials? If all else falls away, what are the 3-4 things you know you need? Make sure you’re making time for these simple things and you’ll wind up feeling a lot better.  I wrote a whole post on this a while ago for you to check out, too! 

3. Schedule your to-do list.

This is one of my favvvvooorrite things to do that has majorly helped me. Sometimes when we look at our to do list, we freak out and think there’s no way this can all get done. It all feels so overwhelming. What I do now is, I schedule in my to do list which means I look at everything that needs to get done, and instead of just keeping it in a list and gradually checking things off, I block off times in my calendar for each task. So maybe I block off an hour called “write blog post for this week” on Tuesday morning. Then I block off two hours for “brainstorm week one content of group program” on a Friday afternoon.  I do this for every thing that needs to get done, and I treat all of my tasks as meetings.

This method allows me to see exactly when each thing is going to get done and what I’ve noticed is that once I get everything into my calendar, I realize I have more than enough time to do everything. And my mind feels settled knowing when each thing is going to get done.

For you: Do a brain dump into a master to-do list – with everything that needs to get done in the next few weeks – and then schedule everything in your calendar. Block off when you’re going to do each thing in your calendar, that way you know that it will get done and exactly when. This is incredibly freeing to your mind!

I hope these three tips will help you stay calm and relaxed when life gets super busy.

In the comments below, I’d love to hear: how do you stay calm when things get crazy? what are your favorite tips? which one of the tips I mentioned are you most excited to try?

Love,