Challenged or Overwhelmed

Challenged

When you are challenged does it make you feel overwhelmed or does it spark excitement? We deal with challenges in different ways, some have strategies while others might just feel lost. See if you recognize any of the following reactions.

Some people will:

• thrive when a challenge comes their way
• will do their best to get out of it
• work harder and try to catch up and adjust
• give up halfway
• totally freeze up and don’t know where to start

What is Your Strategy when You Get Challenged?

The strategy I have learned and what works for me is to take a step back and look at the situation. After that I list everything I need to do. Then comes the hard part which is prioritizing and realizing that there is no way I can get everything done. Belive me, I have tried.

If you are a list person you probably already do this and also love it. However it is easy to get overwhelmed seeing this big list staring you in the face every morning. It has to be broken down into smaller steps. Depending on what you do, if it is work or private, you can still be helped by getting better organized.

NLP and Challenges

You can work from two ways. We call it chunking up or chunking down in NLP language, which stands for Neuro Linguistic Programing. I prefer to chunk down which means going from a helicopter view working my way down to deails. If I were to start with the details I quickly loose sight of the big picture.

So I start with looking at my year what I want to accomplish. After that I break it down to 6 months and from there every quarter. This makes it easy for me to plan each month and once I have that I break it into 4 weeks. Then each week, preferably Sunday evening, I make a quick overview and scetch out the week. I try to never add more than 3 things each day to keep from getting overwhelmed. The secret is also to be flexible and able to change your schedule depending on what happens.

This is an easy overview whether it is a project or just life in general and how to deal with it. If you want to be able to feel good about yourself make sure you start listing a small task to get the momentum going for the day. It is very satisfying to be able to check off that first task every morning and you decide how small or big it should be.

Revision

A word of caution is not to look at your big list of things on a daily basis, you only look at what you need to get done that day. If you have the time and have one more thing you want to get accomplished, well that is just a bonus. On the other hand if you realize that one of the tasks was too big, just divide it up. It doesn’t mean that your plan failed, it just needs to be adjusted.

I revise my weekly plan on Sundays and look at what I want to get done and what I need to get done. At the end of each month I check and see where I’m at and revise it accordingly monthly and every quarter, after six months and a year.

Getting Things Done Without Being Overwhelmed

Most people have a dream but don’t make a plan to make it happen and it usually ends up being just a dream.  If you want to learn a new language for example, why not make a plan for it? Take 10 minutes each day and within the week you have an hour of study. Start small, slowly scale it up and plan it out. It is the only way to get anything done.

Want to Write a Book?

A lot of people want to write a book and have this idea that they need to take six months off, stay in a secluded place in order to be creative. How many have the luxury to do that unless you are already a successful writer? If you want to write a book why don’t you start with 15 minutes a ‘day. After about 4 months, if you’ve been doing it five days a week, you have enough material for a book with about 20,000 words. This means writing about 250 words in 15 minutes.

If you want to start drawing you should make it easy for yourself and make sure that you have all the stuff ready available for whenever you have 15 minutes. In this way you can sit down and take a break and draw instead of getting in front of the television or other media. If we don’t schedule it, it is not going to happen and it will stay a dream.

What is Stopping You?

What are some of the things you are dreaming of and what is stopping you from going after it? How can you make your dream a reality? As you can tell this is a subject that is close to my heart and I will even give a free webinar on August 4 about our internal resistance and what really holds us back.

Fia Hobbs

Face Your Fears, Live Your Purpose

www.fiahobbs.com

www.stresstostrength