The Most Important Thing to Do When You’re Overwhelmed

For a few months in my 20s, I struggled to leave my apartment. Depression and anxiety felt so heavy, it was nearly incapacitating.

One thing that stands out from the fog of that period is something my mother-in-law told me (or maybe she told my wife to tell me):

Just take the next step. Don’t try to fix everything. Simply do the next thing.

That helped me enormously because it helped me to remember that I had agency over the next thing during a time when I felt overwhelmed by everything.

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by everything?

All the demands, the issues, the pressures, the responsibilities, the list of things to be done…

It can cause fear, worry, indecision, frustration, avoidance, apathy, and paralysis.

Focus on the Next Point

One of my sons has played competitive tennis for years. When he was younger, he struggled to manage his frustration when matches weren’t going well.

I remember one time when he started to unravel, the official, an older gentleman, walked over to my son standing on the baseline and calmly explained:

Do you know the key to managing yourself in tennis? Just focus on the next point.

In other words, don’t worry about what just happened, don’t worry about the entire match, just do the next right thing.

We still occasionally see that official at tournaments and thank him for advice that changed the mental and emotional trajectory of my son’s play.

It also solidified my mother-in-law’s advice, which applies whenever we’re flooded with overwhelm.

Next point. Next step.

In my last post, I wrote about the three essential strategies for doing the important things that you might otherwise neglect. They are keys to making time for what matters most.

Sometimes what stands in the way of doing what matters most is overwhelm.

Start Close In

The best way to get past overwhelm is to take the next step, focus on the next point, and start with something manageable.

A wonderful poem by David Whyte called Start Close In begins like this:

Start close in,

don’t take the second step

or the third,

start with the first thing

close in,

the step

you don’t want to take.

When we are overwhelmed, we’re prone to looking at all of the steps needed:

• All of the meetings on the calendar
• All of the issues to be resolved
• All of the things that are wrong
• All of the work required
• All of the time it will take
• All of the energy it will consume

It’s best to start close in with the first thing, even if it’s a hard step to take.

What’s your next step?

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