How to Break Free from Overwhelm and Decision Paralysis: 4 Powerful Steps

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to the Make Time for Success podcast. This is episode number 242. I have chosen for today's episode the.

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:09]:
Topic of how to escape overwhelm and.

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:12]:
Decision paralysis, in part because I didn't myself want to spend all day long trying to choose a topic.

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:20]:
What I did do was reflect upon.

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:23]:
What is the most common complaint that clients who are coming my way are talking about. And it really is this state of overwhelm, being frozen and not knowing what to do next. So let's go and talk about this issue together now.

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:44]:
Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped thousands of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so so they could begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn powerful strategies for getting your mind, body and energy to work together so that.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:06]:
You can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:14]:
Power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time for Success podcast.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:28]:
Hi there and thanks so much for.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:29]:
Being here with me on the Make.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:30]:
Time for Success podcast.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:32]:
Today we're going to talk about how to get yourself free of the feeling of overwhelm and the situation of being paralyzed by having to make certain decisions in your life. These are the two probably most common.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:49]:
Complaints of clients and followers of mine.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:53]:
And I really take this very seriously because these two topics can very much lead to problems with self esteem. Caps on self esteem.

Dr. Christine Li [00:02:05]:
And I just want to blow that.

Dr. Christine Li [00:02:06]:
Whole situation open with you. I want you to feel like you are on top of the world every single day, that there's nothing that can stop you, that there's no such thing as overwhelm anymore. And I really want to let you know that that is possible. It might feel like a pipe dream or whatever the phrase is for that kind of a thing, but I promise you this is doable.

Dr. Christine Li [00:02:31]:
But there are a lot of different.

Dr. Christine Li [00:02:33]:
Components that you'll need to adapt to bring into your life and practice in order to get to this very confident, very kind of continuously open and flexible kind of state. So let's get into some of these components right now. The first one is pretty basic, pretty commonly known, but I'm going to tell you how to really do this successfully. The first one is don't fall for the trap of procrastination. Procrastination is when we decide that avoiding something is going to keep us safe. Safe. That avoiding something is going to be the better option. That avoiding something is not really a big deal.

Dr. Christine Li [00:03:20]:
It's not going to hurt us too badly because we're actually afraid of doing the work, exerting the energy, moving forward. And that's why procrastination is such a widespread phenomenon. We feel that it really is harmless. Kind of. It's relatively harmless because we're afraid for our safety, we're afraid our energy is going to be depleted. We're afraid of the judgment of other people. But I'm here to tell you that procrastination is in no way going to serve your broader purposes, your purposes of being open and flexible. Because what procrastination really does is it keeps you in a state of not being your best self.

Dr. Christine Li [00:04:05]:
It keeps you in a state of hiding who you are, of hiding your skills, of hiding your intuition, of hiding your ability to take action and do it quickly and repetitively. It just keeps us feeling like we're on standstill. Literally, we're on standstill. We're stagnating. We are feeling somewhat embarrassed by the state of not moving forward oftentimes when we see other people moving forward even though they're scared. So I just want to remind you not to fall for the trap of procrastination. Just remember these words. Don't fall for the trap of procrastination once you decide.

Dr. Christine Li [00:04:46]:
Huh? I'm really tempted to procrastinate. I would love for you to take pen to paper and write down all the reasons why you want to move forward. Write down your goal in specific and explicit terms, and then write all the reasons you'll feel better when you keep yourself in action. So this is kind of a practice of being in action and avoiding the procrastination without exactly taking an actual step. But it keeps you in that place where the on switch is still on. You're still engaged with the world, you're still engaged with your future, and you're not fully procrastinating. And I think that's a very important transition point to keep yourself in. Because once we sink into procrastination, then our self esteem goes south, then our time leaves us, then we don't feel like we're good enough, and then our confidence drops and then we've created a mess without even meaning to.

Dr. Christine Li [00:05:46]:
So if you happen to be procrastinating now, give yourself a hug from me to you. Give yourself a hug from you to you. And decide you know what I'm Just gonna take pen and paper and figure out what my next plan forward is. Because you have a next plan and we're going to get to more of that soon. Just say to yourself, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do. The plan of that sentence alone should protect you from further procrastination. It's interesting how simple it can be when we let it be simple. The reason it feels dramatic and complicated is because we are entertaining all of these sometimes nutty beliefs about how dangerous the world is and how dangerous productivity can be and how dangerous other people can be and how fragile we think we are.

Dr. Christine Li [00:06:37]:
Those are some wild beliefs and they're really not serving your best interest, your self esteem or your productivity and your goals. So let's put some fuel towards your goals and your self esteem and your future and take all the attention away from the stuff that's tempting us regarding procrastination. All right, so that was a lot for step number one, which was don't fall for the trap of procrastination. The second big thing that you need to remember is that if you're feeling overwhelmed, you need to clear the decks. And I believe that's a ship term that I don't know why you would need to clear the decks. Maybe there's a storm coming, maybe there are pirates. I don't really know the history.

Dr. Christine Li [00:07:19]:
But you want to clear the decks.

Dr. Christine Li [00:07:21]:
If there's an emergency. I don't mean to give you the sense that this is an emergency, but overwhelm is kind of a state of shutdown. Overwhelm is a state of seeing everything that you have to do on your to do list and having your ego and your mind and your body shut down in quotes because they're kind of refusing to move forward because they sense you sense that there's some sort of danger ahead. And when your body senses danger, it tends to put you on alert. It tends to make you feel a little antsy and nervous, and it tends to create this feeling of overwhelm. So we want to steer clear of overwhelm just as much as we want to steer clear of procrastination. Because overwhelm is also not your friend. Overwhelm is kind of a liar.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:11]:
If you have a friend who tends to lie, I hope you don't. But overwhelm is dressed like a friend, but then acts like a liar. Because overwhelm is here to tell you you don't have to move forward.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:24]:
You're too overwhelmed, you're too nervous to move forward. You can wait.

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You're not ready for this.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:31]:
You have so much on your plate.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:32]:
Oh, my God. How could you even think about moving forward? That's what Overwhelm sounds like.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:37]:
But the trick with Overwhelm is that.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:40]:
You want to dismantle Overwhelm entirely. You just want to clear the decks, and you want to say to yourself, you know what? Although I feel the pressure and the urgency of needing to have all the irons in the fire all at once, I hope I'm using these idioms correctly. I think I am.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:58]:
You're going to tell yourself it is.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:00]:
Safe to focus on one thing at a time. Even if it feels like I'm jeopardizing something, even if it's just a belief that I have, I'm going to remind myself that everything is fine. I'm always okay, and it's always good to retain and nurture my focus. And the way to retain and nurture my focus is to stay focused on one thing at a time. So we basically tell our old friend Overwhelm, you know what? I've got this. You could go and hang out on the porch and drink your favorite drink, but I'm going to sit here and focus on this one thing that I've decided is enough. It's enough for me right now. It's enough to get me out of Overwhelm.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:45]:
And that is really good. That's actually of really high value. Even though when you look at your to do list, you might think, oh, this is nothing.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:51]:
This is too small a step. I want you to encourage yourself that.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:55]:
Any movement that keeps you moving forward is good enough, is of high value, is great for you. It's great for your emotional wellbeing. It's great for your mind. It's great for your body, because your body doesn't feel afraid anymore. So that is wonderful. All right, so the key to clearing the decks and clearing yourself out of Overwhelm is to focus on one thing at a time. But also, I'm going to add a little tip here. You want to give yourself points along the way where you celebrate your success.

Dr. Christine Li [00:10:31]:
Oftentimes when we're overwhelmed, it's because we're not finishing anything, and we're definitely not celebrating anything because we're feeling like crap. We're feeling like we can't handle anything. So when you start to focus and when you start to limit what your eye is looking at and when you start to really nail the projects that you're working on, when you finish them, when you even just get a little Bit ahead, you want to decide. This is time for celebration, right?

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:02]:
You don't have to wait for the.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:03]:
Big graduation or the end of your dissertation or, or some gigantic milestone. You could just celebrate because you're not frozen anymore, you're not in overwhelm anymore. And I think that's really important. It's really healthy to treat yourself nicely.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:19]:
All right, Third point is about decision paralysis. If you are stuck in overwhelm, stagnating, because you have a lot of decisions or maybe just one big important decision to make, I want to remind you that being stuck in the middle of a decision is likely because somewhere, somehow.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:43]:
You feel the demand to be perfect.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:46]:
Correct, efficient, something like that. One of those terms has got to fit because otherwise you'd be moving and making decisions and being flexible and open. So there is something that you feel you need to rise up to. You feel you need to meet the standard of, again, things like perfection, correctness, being right, being, you know, just the exemplar of something. But it turns out that stress prevents you from making a decision and that not making a decision decision keeps you.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:23]:
From moving forward at all.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:25]:
And it actually generates a whole bunch of excess extra stress. And who needs extra excess stress? I'm going to say nobody really needs that. So I want you to remember the next time you feel paralyzed by a decision, this conversation, I want you to remember that nobody's perfect. That oftentimes it's perfectly fine to just find your way and not be the exemplar of perfection and correctness when you're doing stuff. Or what is important is that you remain in motion, that you decide, okay, for now, I'm going to choose A over B. Because when you make that decision, life moves on. You get the information that you need. You might find out that A is the wrong choice.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:15]:
But then, guess what? You're flexible enough to say, okay, now we're going to work with B. So never feel like it's the end, because it's never the end until it's really the end. And we've got so much life to live, let's not spend it paralyzed, right? We have so many fantastic possibilities and skills to play with and to experiment with and so many decisions that will bring us great, great new avenues and people and experiences to enjoy. So let's not say that decision paralysis is the one that we're going to choose, because the kind of stinks, all right? And if you are in a state of decision paralysis, remember, the key here is you want to argue for your success and not for your correctness, that you're going for eventual success rather than perfection all along the way. And remember, in order to get eventual success, you have to keep.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:22]:
Keep moving.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:23]:
All right, last point that I want to discuss here is that you want to remain connected to yourself. I think overwhelm and decision paralysis cause.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:36]:
Us to separate from our whole being.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:39]:
We start to split off into the stressful self, the not good enough self, the procrastinating self. And all you need to do to return to yourself. And it requires a little bit of practice, though, is doing some breathing, doing some connection to your goals, doing some journaling, doing some reconnecting to your whole self. Your whole self, when taken as a whole, is extremely powerful, is extremely brilliant, is extremely open and flexible. And when we split off into these different selves and we start feeling embarrassed and ashamed and not good enough, that's when procrastination and overwhelm and stagnation rule. But when we make it a practice to say, I'm always good enough, I've always got options, I'm never gonna stay stagnant, then you really get all of your options in front of you. You get all of this time to play. You get all of this room to experiment.

Dr. Christine Li [00:15:45]:
And I think that's a beautiful thing. So if you are in overwhelm or in decision paralysis at the moment, my heart is with you. I want you to know this is a very temporary state. And I want you to know that there is so much more in you and so much more that can come from you if you allow yourself to move away from the framework of keeping yourself safe and, and reminding yourself that you are safe, that there's so much more success for you ahead, that you really are always capable of protecting yourself.

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:21]:
We're no longer going to be worried.

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:23]:
About that at base. We're going to think to ourselves. I'm more interested in just finding out how much I can expand, how much success can I enjoy? Because it's going to blow your mind when you really start playing on that playground. All right, I'm going to say farewell to you right now. I hope you enjoyed the four major points for escaping overwhelm and decision paralysis. As per usual, I have a free downloadable worksheet for you to help you journal out your own thoughts and help you to remember what I've said in this episode. And you can get that free download by going to maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/connection. Again, it's maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/connection because connection is always a Great answer.

Dr. Christine Li [00:17:18]:
Have a great week. I'll see you next week. Bye.

Dr. Christine Li [00:17:22]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success podcast. If you enjoyed what you've heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also Visit our website maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com for past episodes, show notes, and all the resources we mention on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name Procrastination Coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making Time for Success.

Dr. Christine Li [00:18:02]:
Talk to you soon.