One of the healthiest perspectives I have ever gained is that many times our stress level is in fact our own device.  I feel obligated to do so many things at once and if I do not finish them ASAP I will have failed.  However, the only one that expects me to do all these things is myself.  No one else, just me.  It is often my own perspective on what must be done and the time frame inside of which it must be done.  The deadlines are self imposed.   I have created an inflated expectation of what must be completed and I am allowing the unfinished things I see to drive my own stress.  It is in these times that I have two choices: focus or explode.

If you’ve ever been trapped under the pressure of too many things to do and very little time in which to do them, the immediate temptation is to try and figure out how fast you can move to do them all, then you know how I feel.  As soon as a I start something, I see something else, then jump to that.  Once I’ve jumped to that I see yet another thing and jump to the third thing.  This combination repeats itself over and over, almost endlessly.  This leads to the feeling of spinning out of control and anything spinning out of control at an increasingly faster rate will eventually come apart in an explosion of pieces.  Maybe not literally from trying to run from task to task, but effectively explode.

The other option is to focus.  I like to think that I am driven and hard working.  When the world seems overwhelming it is very motivating for me to hear someone doubt if it can be done so that my mantra becomes “Do not underestimate my capacity to work!”  Yet, this still requires me to focus.  In those overwhelming moments, I believe the only way to survive is to keep narrowing the focus finer and finer until it becomes manageable again.  Combining this narrow focus with a determined attitude and my defiant mantra, an incredible amount can be achieved.  I have learned to balance this approach with choosing the right priorities to drive the results that matter the most to me.  I have also learned to include an element of working in the immediate term on things that will create capacity in the future so that the overwhelming tide of tasks does not sustain.  In those moments where I choose my focus well based upon results and capacity increasers, the outcome is very rewarding and freeing from the stress burden.