Toning Down the Overwhelm

Overwhelmed with Decisions?

Have you ever stood in your closet for an hour, just looking at your clothes and wondering what to wear? Or complained about how 'there's no food in the house' despite staring into a full fridge? It's that overwhelming pause that causes your brain to shut down in front of endless possibilities that I talked about with Paul last week.

In the last decade or so, various studies have come out suggesting that our decision making process gets tired as it's used – much like a muscle. The more decisions we make, the less we rely on our own rationality, which means we're less able to make complex decisions.

So, when you're looking in the fridge after a day full of making hard, complex decisions, you're much more likely to end up with a decision-making process that goes like:

1. See ice cream

2. Want ice cream

3. Eat ice cream

If you look at that same fridge after a relaxing Sunday, the chances are much better that you would make a more complex decision. Instead of short-circuiting from want to eat, you consider consequence and opportunities that require actual, mental work. That means there's a much greater chance of eating dinner, instead of having ice cream for supper.

Making too many choices makes choosing overwhelming, and that's the problem Paul and I had to work through.

The answer to the overwhelm

I'm not sure if your 'decision making muscle' can be worked out until it's bigger than Arnie's biceps, but I do know that habits can take the metaphorical decision-making weight off your brain. This allows you to keep that mental energy to use it where it's more important.

That's a big part of the reason why I default to black clothes these days. With all the decisions I have to make as a businessman, father, husband and coach, my mornings don't need to start with choosing what to wear.

For Paul, he'd spend too much time trying to figure out what's for lunch. He needed it to be healthy, light, and hold him over until supper, but wading through all those choices, then putting together a meal that met his criteria was not only taking up time, but it was taking up valuable mental resources. As those small decisions stacked up and met bigger decisions, like where he wants to direct his business and how he wants to tackle prospecting, and where he and his wife were going to go to dinner, and whether he should go out with friends on the weekend, or stay at home and do chores, they were beginning to get overwhelming.

But, with proper use of a calendar that dictates exactly what to do, and when, along with habits that carry him through those small decisions, Paul should be able to cut down on the number of decisions he has to make in a day.

That will give him extra stamina when he's trying to sort through his more complex problems.

A few tips on calming your mind

Before I go, I'd like to share a couple other ways you can cut down on all that overwhelming noise in your head that I shared with Paul after the call.

1. Stop switching your focus. Even checking your phone slows down cognition, making you less effective, and more tired at the end of the day.

2. Joy does not equal rest. Checking your phone feels good, but that doesn't mean it's a rest for your brain. And without that rest, your brain will begin to get overwhelmed.

3. Use external devices to clear your brain. Your brain's terrible at remembering, so stop asking it to keep track of everything you have to do. Checklists, calendars and other external devices will help you clear out your mind for what it does best – living, creating, and critical thinking.

*For more information on focus, and dealing with all those overwhelming thoughts, check out these two TED Talks by Mark Tigchelaar, and David Allen.

That's what I'm Thinking Thru.

So, what about you? Are you dealing with mental overwhelm?

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