In this episode of You Are Destined For Greatness, Shane Jacob Unlocks the Entrapment of Overwhelm
Overcoming Overwhelm: Horses, Humans, and the Power of Decision
Welcome to this week's You Are Destined For Greatness, coming to you from our hay yard here talking about horses and humans, and today the subject is ‘Overwhelm.’
I hear a lot about overwhelm. You know, we all experience overwhelm one time or another to some degree or another. But I hear about it a lot. And here's the deal: a lot of times we're thinking we have just so much todo.
We just have so much to do. You know, I was just sitting in the barn the other day and just thinking—just staring at, you know, the sky or at a horse or at the wall or something. Somebody came by and they're like, "Hey, what you doing?" I'm like, "Oh, I have so much to do." You know, and they could have just said, "Well, why aren't you doing it?" You know, because I wasn't. I'm not sure I would have appreciated that comment then.
The Nature of Overwhelm
But here's the thing with the overwhelm. It's a state of confusion, indecisiveness. We feel like we have no closure, and everything keeps adding on and adding on and adding on, and it just feels like it's crushing us down. We can't get anything done. So what's this all about?
So here—there's a couple things. By the way, check out the podcast. We go into more depth in the podcast on overwhelm. You might want to check that out. But anyway, here's a short version of a couple of things that might be helpful for you. And here they are.
Overwhelm Is a Choice
First of all, overwhelm is a choice, okay? Hard as that may sound, it's the truth. It has nothing to do with how many things are on our to-do list. Nothing. It has to do with what we think about those things.
We could have three things or 3,000 things. If we had 3,000 things, somebody could come by and say, "That's nothing, I have 6,000 and I'm fine with it." We have to understand that it has nothing to do with our circumstances. It has to do with how we're thinking about those things.
Indecision Is the Real Culprit
The next thing is, when you really look at what's going on, people—what we find is that, and you'll find this with yourself—is what happens is there's so much indecision. It's really a matter of indecision.
And so, well, the question is: if it's that simple, then why aren't we making all these choices?
One big thing is this: we don't want to make the wrong decision. I mean, who wants to make the wrong decision? Look at what it could cost us—the consequence is the wrong decision. And we don't want people to think that we made the wrong decision. We don't want to fail because we made the wrong decision. And so, we need to have all the information so we can make sure that we get the decision right.
Well, you know, a lot of time that isn't serving us because those things are still adding up.
Two Keys to Beat Overwhelm
The key here—one of the big keys to overwhelm—two things that I'm going to leave you with today is:
First of all, understanding it's the choice. It's not caused by outside forces, and it's not caused by the number of things on your to-do list. That's one.
Second of all is, as we learn how to make good decisions quickly, we knock those things off and we stay out of that indecisive, wasteful time of what I call indulging—making the choice to indulge in overwhelm.
Because nothing really good's happening there, okay? You don't wanna be there.
Thanks for being with me. Remember, You Are Destined For Greatness.
