Feeling Overwhelmed

Edmund Burke once wisely said that nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little. The perfect name for this is procrastination.  Some of us are better at it than others, mainly when it is something that makes us feel overwhelmed.  This could be cleaning out the messy garage to starting an exercise program to lose weight.  If we see it as a task that is too much to handle all at once...we shut down totally, just as we do if we feel we are not doing enough to get the job done.  

There is a way to get the job done without this hopeless feeling that it will never happen.  The good news is that it does not take a rocket scientist to accomplish this feat.  It is called "breaking it down."  For example,  if each weekend we took a small section of the garage to work on, depending on how large your garage is, it could be completed in a month.  It may be only doing a little.  It is a little at a time, not giving up and seeing progress being made.  

My fitness trainer has taught me how to start with lower weights, times and reps in order to build up to what I want to accomplish.  In my own head, walking or biking for 15 minutes was just simply not worth it.  But it is!  It is a beginning and I can build on that.  There has to be a foundation to start with in order to increase your activity and not get injured, which I know will set me back in decreased activity based on the injury.  

Diet is the same thing.  I do not like to use the word diet.  There has to be a way to eat in moderation so that I am not depriving myself of things that I enjoy.  For some people it can simply be starting with giving up soda.  For others, it may be watching the portion control and increasing water intake.  I know that when I do this consistently for two weeks, I can lose weight.  It is a slow process to lose it, but it gets the job done the healthy way. It becomes a life style, not a diet.

Once Oprah Winfrey spoke from her heart to her audience and told them that if there were a pill out there that you could take to lose weight, do we not think that she would be taking it, no matter what the cost of it would be?   Of course, she would.  This should bring any of us back to the real world.  There is no magic solution.  

We all know what we need to do, even if a part of you wants to avoid it by running away kicking and screaming.  That becomes the avoidance or procrastination part of what we don't want to do for fear we will fail.  Doing nothing is as big a part of failure as taking on too much at one time and not getting anywhere. 

Instead of being overwhelmed by the size of a task set before you, take one small action at a time.  These actions add up.  Others will start to notice.  You can celebrate your work when you know that you have achieved your best, step by step. You will know that it will be the right thing to do.  The saying that, "It just feels right," will be repeated over and over inside your head and heart.  Try it and see.