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Are you an aspiring leader who knows you have more to offer, but you can't seem to get ahead?
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Do you frequently feel overwhelmed and undersupported? Listen to the Overcome to Become podcast as we talk about actionable tasks and mindsets that you can apply to begin leading yourself.
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Hi my name is Angela Buckley, your host and author of the Strength in Nature Leadership series. I'm a mother, consultant, triathlete and author. In Overcome to Become I share with you the science fact and experience proven lessons I've learned in my own leadership journey to beat burnout. Thanks for listening.
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Hello. Welcome back. We are here on episode two of season 2 of Overcome to become. My name is Angela Buckley and I'm so happy to be here with you this evening. As I record this episode, we are going to be talking today about mental overwhelm and what that looks like and how we can overcome.
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So last time we talked about the physical elements of overwhelm and burnout and how that looks for athletes, but then also translating that into the workplace and everyday life. But this week we really want to focus on a little bit more of the mental elements of that. What does the fatigue look like? What are those warning signs? And what are the some of some of the things that we can do to begin understanding how we overcome that, how we beat that, how we make sure that we don't get back to that point. So similarly, we talk about overwhelmed.
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Being such a big thing that creeps up on us because we don't take the time to rest, we don't take the time to basically cross train our brain and our emotions, and we have those same elements when we talk about physical endurance and burnout. And So what can we do to talk about including?
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Recovery elements into our day-to-day so that we don't ever get to the point where we are overwhelmed.
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Let's take a look.
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Obviously, you've heard me say it before. Water is my favorite. Good, healthy nutrition absolutely supports our mental health and as we.
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Continue to dive into the neuroscience. We begin to really, really understand how nutrition plays such a critical part in our mental health and our mental Wellness. And then we haven't talked about it yet this, this episode or this season, but 20 minutes outdoors, we're going to talk a lot about how important it is to be outside and how that actually helps reduce our cortisol levels.
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Which in turn helps us not feel so anxious. Not be so antsy, perhaps, when you're feeling like you are being stressed out.
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So let's take a look at some of these elements that we can take a look at.
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Mental overwhelm feels like anxiousness. Mental overwhelm can feel like fatigue. It can feel like indecision, and that's a real thing. Indecision is a thing that becomes decision fatigue when you have to make too many decisions or there's too many options in front of you. All of these things can lead to overwhelm and then that constant bombardment of it, and certainly we have seen that.
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In the last couple years, again I'd like to highlight the importance of supply chain in our world and the amount of decisions that people who have been working in supply chains have been required to make just as a part of their day-to-day. It's some it's one thing to rise up to the occasion, it's another thing to have that introduction of no rest for the weary. It's not OK when we get to that point, rising up to the occasion our bodies are built to.
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Have these pushes and recovers, right? That's what that fight or flight syndrome is all about. It's all about getting out of the danger zone quickly and then you have time to recover. But the last couple of years have shown us that we have not figured out how to recover. And So what are the things that we can do physically and mentally in order to get to that point?
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We'll be talking significantly about boundary setting, but one of the things that we can do is making sure that we are willing to say enough is enough and we walk out the door at our allotted time. Maybe you don't do this every single time, but definitely you need to set some boundaries for yourself, set some boundaries for your organization and understand that you can say it's OK. I was busy and now I need to rest. I'd like to talk about guarding.
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Your energy, so energy does not just come from itself, it comes from our nutrition. It comes from resting. It comes from the people that are around us, that pour into us and support us. And we need to guard that in order to use it judiciously to help the people that are around us and in fact to complete our jobs.
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OK, so we've gotten some energy. Now we guard the energy. How do we continue to focus that? We focus that by saying we have boundaries. We focus that by saying, OK, I can work late on Tuesday because I have nothing. But on Thursday I absolutely have a family commitment and I am unwilling to give that up because it hurts too much. And then you work with your colleagues, coworkers to try to figure out who can work on what.
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Nights. How do we balance this out so each of us are able to take that rise to the occasion Cape, but then also hand it off to the next person when it's necessary? Working through some of those things can really create a powerful team, but also identify which boundaries work and which boundaries do not work.
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So boundary setting will be something that we talk about more as we talk about community and where to end that in the upcoming seasons. When we talk about mental overwhelm, we also talk about that fatigue. But I also think there's an element of hopelessness associated with overwhelm, where you feel that nothing is going to change and So what is the flag for you?
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What do you hear when you when you think that nothing is going to change or it's always been that way or?
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No one is listening to you. How do we start taking steps to move forward and find hope and maybe clear the slate, have the conversations that are necessary in order to overcome this feeling of mental overwhelm.
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Hope is such a powerful powerful emotion. We saw this at the beginning of COVID, where people were running to grocery stores and buying toilet paper. People were buying out elements of the store. That was hard for me to fathom. And the negative side of hope is fear. But hope gives you energy. Hope brings you joy. Hope gives you the the concept of moving forward making changes.
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And it allows you to push some of the negatives to the side, not to ignore them, but in order to identify what changes you can make in order to move forward. So if you're feeling overwhelmed in your daily life and you feel that nothing is going to change.
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If you're feeling overwhelmed in your workplace and you feel that nothing is going to change.
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One of the questions that you can ask yourself to get your mental game back in after you've already talked about some of the physical things that are associated with it is to talk about hope and looking forward and saying, OK, I have a privilege of being here and what do I want my future to look like when we're in overwhelm? Generally what we're saying is that we don't want our future to continue looking the way.
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It currently is. So we have to create that vision for ourselves, and then we have to start communicating and figuring out what we need to do to get to that vision. So overwhelm has these elements of decision fatigue. It has elements of boundaries. It has elements of physical fatigue.
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But it also has an element of fear that it's always going to be like this. And our opportunity is to create the hope that it will not always be like this. And then the action plan that is necessary for us to take care of our own life and to take action into our own hands in order to set those boundaries, create that goal and move forward. So those are the things that I wanted to talk to you.
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This week about mental overwhelm some of the topics that we can talk about specifically addressing.
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The mental element of overwhelm. If you want to learn more about the physical elements of overwhelm, please take a listen to last week's episode. Make sure that you are getting your rest, make sure you're drinking enough water and in the future we'll talking about some of the nutrition that specifically helps our bodies and our minds overcome the overwhelm. Thank you very much. My name is Angela Buckley. I am a mother and a triathlete and aspiring PhD student. I love to put many of these tips.
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Into play, even for myself in my own day-to-day. And if you are having success, please drop me a message either here in the notes or in my Instagram. Or if you'd like to learn more, scoot on over to our leadership development courses that can be found at strengthandnature.com. And there is specifically a course called overcome the overwhelm. Thanks so much. Have a great day.
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You've just concluded an episode of Overcome to Become, a leadership podcast focusing on leading yourself first. Thanks for listening. I'm Angela Buckley with creatively efficient author of the Strength in Nature Leadership series. To learn more about mindsets and leadership, follow me on Instagram @creativel efficient.
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