The Overwhelmed Mom's Guide to Overjoyed

“Why are you listening to that?” Michael questioned me.

It was a Clubhouse room about how to have difficult conversations. I was listening to find struggles my clients are dealing with so I can help them find solutions.

Here’s one I clipped:

“My question is, what if the person being inconsiderate of your time is higher on the hierarchy chain than you?”

That's a rough one.

The conversation then turned to sleep deprivation. Moms face this challenge all the time.

Today I don’t want to focus on all the reasons why moms feel overwhelmed. 

Let me just summarize by saying in the last year we’ve gone from dealing with a pandemic to explaining to our children the injustices of what’s happening in the Ukraine.

Let’s focus on addressing some questions that will move you closer to overjoy.

How do you recognize as a mom that you're overwhelmed?

I mentioned in here that for me the brain fog starts rolling in. What is it for you?

The goal here is to recognize it in ourselves before we start hearing about it from those closest to us. Here are a few things to look out for:

• a numb, hopeless sensation
• thought that life is just “too much” leads to bouts of panic or anger
• Freezing (not know what to do next)
• Trouble sleeping
• You’re always sick
• Can’t focus

Do you have a fixed mindset?

I believe another useful tool for moms is to get a different perspective on overwhelm. I don't know about you, but sometimes I get caught up in the details of my day. I am sure you have similar experiences. 

Adopting a growth mindset, a concept by Carol Dweck, can move you out of that overwhelm and into joy.  The idea is to shift our thinking from a place of “I’m just not enough” to “How can I do this differently”

Here are a series of questions you can ask yourself when you feel overwhelm setting in:

1. What happened?
2. What was your strategy?
3. Why did you choose that strategy?
4. What happened when it didn’t work out?
5. Describe what’s been going through your head since then…
6. What have you learned that will help next time?
7. What new strategies can you try?
8. How will you deal with thoughts that will keep you from trying it

I’ll give a personal example. 

I have often said "I am not techie." As a solopreneur, I don't want that to stop me from growing my business. After dealing with my hacker situation, I had to reset my MacBook Air back to factory settings just last weekend. It took all the patience I had and a lot of help from Apple Support, but I'm now happy to say I got it done!

If you reframe your thinking and try to look at it as a challenge instead of an obstacle, then you might be able to move on. .

Where’s the white space?

Create buffers or some whitespace throughout your day. What’s that?  The time you have between appointments or work. 

It allows for a few things. The first advantage is that you can say that something takes longer than you anticipated. For example my goal is to be more active on my social media platforms. Creating content always takes me more time than I expect it to, so it's good for that purpose.

Additionally, it can serve as just a break. Suppose you're running on schedule. Basically everything is going as it should, but buffers allow a little break. You don't have to eat lunch at the desk anymore, and you can go for a walk or let your dog out. Perhaps you've been sitting at your desk for eight hours and now you get bathroom breaks. 

Let’s wrap this up. We talked about recognizing the warning signs, adopting a growth mindset and finding white space to move you into a state of joy. I’m hoping next time I listen into conversations I’m more overwhelmed with the amount of joy I find in those spaces.