We all have many moments when life seems incredibly complex and demanding. No matter how difficult things become there are simple ways we can learn to overcome the sense that we are going backwards. In this episode I respond to a listener question about how to manage our emotions and how to take practical steps to beat overwhelm.

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Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan Doyle with you.

Once again, welcome back friends to the daily podcast.

There has been a little gap for those of you paying attention.

I do apologize.

I've been getting back onto the speaking circuit, uh, really

happy to be in Sydney last week.

I think we had about maybe.

Uh, five to 600 people in the room, a shout out to everybody

who was there last Friday.

Uh, great to just be back doing what I really enjoy meeting so many great people.

It's a, it's a good thing in life when you can find.

At your lane, you can find the thing that you enjoy doing.

I think we all have moments

I think one of the real challenges in life is to try to maximize

them to try and get more of them.

And that's kind of.

Part of what this podcast is about.

I guess, sharing these kinds of insights and ideas that move us all.

A little bit forward and on that topic.

Uh, but actually before I jump into that, we should do our housekeeping.

Of course, please make sure you've subscribed always makes a huge difference.

I'd love it.

If you could do that for me.

Uh, hit the subscribe button and there's a whole bunch of links here.

There always is.

There's links to get a free copy of my book.

You can find out about coaching with me.

You can find out about how to book me to speak.

It's all there in the show notes.

And as always the last thing, if you could share this with people,

That would be a great blessing.

It's just, it's bizarre.

The number of people that are.

Uh, that I meet.

Who have been hearing this and it's always like it's, uh, it's,

it's, it's slightly confronting.

Cause I'm always thinking to my am I living up to this?

Am I doing what I teach But then, uh, then I kind of recollect myself and realize if

I'm learning one thing on this journey.

Especially in the last couple of weeks, when I asked you all for your, all your

questions and challenges that you're dealing with, you know, so many of us,

I just journeying and traveling through the same challenges and problems and.

What you're going to be hearing in this probably next, I don't know,

10, 15 episodes is going to be.

The questions from you guys.

I put out an email, some of you will remember put out an email just saying,

Hey, what are you dealing with?

What's problematic.

What's challenging.

What sort of things.

Would you like to get a little better at, and we're going to work

through these over the next couple of weeks, but in general it was a great

reminder that, uh, so many of us.

Uh, you know, uh, dealing with the same challenges.

So don't ever feel that, If life is challenging for you,

that it's because you're getting something spectacularly wrong.

It's challenging for you because life is challenging and those challenges

are trying to make us better.

And, uh, so let's rip into that.

I am going to talk to you about today's first viewer listener question.

Which is a question about emotional management.

So I'm going to read you the question.

So they.

The, the, the question was kind of like, they want to get better at

emotional management for themselves, but also to teach their own And because

I do a fair bit of parenting stuff.

And speaking on the topic of parenting.

You know, the, I guess the kind of bedrock principle of all

parenting is modeling, right?

We can never really expect our kids to do things that we're

not sort of doing ourselves.

Which is daunting, I guess, in some sense, but, uh, you know, when we're talking

about this issue of emotional management,

How do we do it?

What's a, what are some of the things.

Let me read this to, um, this lady said to me on, I asked her for some more

clarification about, Managing her own emotions or the emotions of her kids.

She said, look, I'd say both, but I understand that the key to teaching

my child to manage their emotions.

Is to learn to do this better for myself.

On a good day when I've had enough sleep, food and space.

It's easier to feel optimistic and comma.

But when things don't go to plan and I'm struggling to get through the day myself,

the overwhelm kicks in pretty quickly.

I think we can all relate to that.

She goes on to say, I'm finding this manifests itself as frustration and anger.

I don't want to be a stressed, angry parent and spouse.

I'd be interested to know what strategies you would recommend

to use in the heat of the moment.

But also how to start to develop a better mindset to tackle feeling

overwhelmed in the first place.

Can we not all at some level relate to that question.

You know, we're all at different times going to have moments where

we face feelings of overwhelm.

Exhaustion stress.

This question came to me from a lady in Australia.

But, um, I actually got another email just this morning from a lady in Idaho,

dealing with almost the same thing.

So.

That reinforces this principle that many of us are dealing with similar topics.

So let me talk about what can we do?

Look, I had a few initial reflections that I want to spin through.

Let me try and frame this for everybody.

What is this question really about?

It's really about how we manage this complex, beautiful perplexing

aspect of what it means to be human, which is our emotional world.

What psychologist revert referred to as epi phenomena.

Um, that we experienced these feeling states, um, that are related.

We usually think to the environment around us and.

You know, how many times have we said something like you made me do this

You know, they cut me off in traffic.

Therefore I had to go home Uh, six box a cookie six boxes of cookies, right.

So it's very easy to feel that it's our environment.

That's creating these sorts of experiences, but is

that all that's happening?

Well in humility.

I don't have a complainant, but I've got a few things that,

uh, that I do want to share.

Look, the first thing I wanted to talk about was what are the factors

that are feeding into our experience?

I guess, of both emotional management and the concept of mindset.

So I'm going to suggest a few principles that I'm suggesting this because I want

all of us to cut ourselves some slack.

Okay.

None of us wake up in the morning and say to ourselves, you know what?

I want to have a really bad day.

I want to demonstrate and model really poor emotional management.

I want to be a.

Deeply unhappy.

I want to unstabilize the people around me.

I mean, maybe, maybe someone gets up like that, but we don't want to, we don't want

to hang out with those sorts of people.

So what are these factors that are feeding into it?

Because I think if we understand some of these factors, we can begin

to have a little bit of compassion.

Really convinced to this.

I think that.

Self-compassion rather than just being something that Oprah

talks about or turns up as a.

You know, as a little Instagram picture.

You know, self-compassion is a real thing.

So forgiveness is a real thing.

Yeah.

A lot of the times we're so hard on ourselves.

At least I have been, and I know many of you, it can be too at times, you

know, we, we want something different.

There's an end state that we're pursuing and we're not there.

So we get frustrated with ourselves and we want things to be different.

So what's feeding into this first thing, temperament.

We're all born created with a particular temperament.

You know, at least in the middle ages, they identified about

four key personality types.

Uh, St.

Thomas Aquinas.

Riding in the 12th century was one of the first to kind of delineate some

of those key personality traits, but it goes back further earlier, even in

classical antiquity, they were, you know,

You know, you look at Falaise you look at the early platonic schools.

They were very much aware of different.

Kinds of forces shaping people's character and behavior.

You know, the Greeks would say, there's a lot you could do about it, but they

were already pointing to the fact that, uh, that people were a certain way.

So one of the first things to understand is personality type.

At least the experts say this, and don't take this as upsetting or depressing,

but personality type doesn't tend to shift massively over the life course.

Uh, I think there's a great deal.

You can do.

I'm actually working a lot on myself at the moment because.

You know, there's aspects of my own personality that I wish were different.

You know, you meet some people and they're just so charming and just so you know,

interesting and relaxed and you go, oh my gosh, how good would it, Peter?

To be like that.

I look at karen my wife who came from a really fantastic family and she's just a

great human you know people when they meet her they um they absolutely adore her you

know this is her, she's got a personality where she just really cares about people

So, I guess what I'm saying here is one of the first things

that we really want to do.

Is have a gentleness with ourselves because of temperament.

Nobody gets to ride for free.

Even those people that seem so calm and relaxed, they have their moments.

I'm sure.

Right.

So we've got temperament flowing into our experience of day-to-day life.

Second thing is physiology.

And I want to be aware of this physiology for me, would IX would be the sum total.

Of how, of a feeling state, our physiological feeling state at any

given time, the amount of sleep we've had, our levels of hydration.

Diet and exercise all those sorts of things.

I've got a pretty good radar on fatigue.

Uh, I'm training for this 255 kilometer race at the moment.

I've probably never trained harder in my life.

I'm supposed to be cutting up to be lighter on the bike, but I've been

hitting the weights really hard.

So I'm just not Not a great idea, but I love the gym.

So I get Just do it.

And so.

The fatigue is a thing.

So I physiology.

Is going to affect, uh, emotional management.

So look in terms of strategies, we want to get across that one as best we can.

So physiology means really doing whatever you can reasonably do to be in the

best state you can reasonably be in as often as you can reasonably be in

So, you know, the other day, speaking in Sydney, I got back to the hotel,

like 11, got to sleep about 1:00 AM woke up at sort of four or five.

And so coming back home, I was a bit weary, you know, there's certain times

when we have the best intentions, but life gets in the way, but.

I want all of us to be thinking about this stuff.

Right.

Am I eating right?

Am I trying to get some sleep.

You know, a lot of people seem to have really terrible habits

around their nighttime routines.

I have this bizarrely strict.

Kind of nighttime routine around the use of technology and all sorts That

I keep trying to make sure that on.

Doing everything I can reasonably do to be in the best state I can reasonably being.

And then the feeling you have when you're.

Now you really hungry and you go through a MCAS drive through, and

then you spend the rest of the day going, what was I thinking?

What was I And then, you know, you don't feel great.

And then, because you don't feel great, you respond to things in a particular way.

So what have we got?

What have we got coming into emotional management, self regulation.

Uh, and mindset.

We've got temperament.

We've got physiology.

Then we've got what's going on in the environment itself.

You know, in the last few weeks I've had quite a few people.

Who have given me questions, which, which we'll talk about the next few episodes.

Around toxic environments, difficult people.

So the next thing that's going to trigger I up aspects of our mindset and emotional

management will be the environment itself.

So we don't want to maximize the impact of the environment

by blaming it for everything.

So it's not a great strategy to go.

Well, I would be this I'd be completely peaceful and relaxed, and life would

be different if this was different.

Well, your options are at that point, there's always ever three.

Strategies you have around your environment.

These are, I've been teaching on this for a while.

Three options.

Number one.

Uh, change it number to leave it.

Number three, accepted.

So the environment that surrounds you, like, so for this lady here dealing

with, you know, just her own fatigue and being overwhelmed at times.

The environment is going to at times, trigger that most likely.

But you can't leave that environment.

You're a parent.

You just don't get to go.

You know what.

I'm done.

I've had enough.

I'm out.

I'm checking out.

So we don't get to leave that we can either accept some things.

I think that's often overlooked.

Sometimes we can accept, you know, this is where I am right now.

Um, you know, for example, it's, I'm in this season of parenting, I've

got to give myself to this season of parenting because it's where I am.

It's what I have to do.

So we give ourselves to that season.

We have to accept it.

And then of course, there's this option to change it.

So we want to look at things in our environment.

People relationships.

So we putting up with things we shouldn't put up with.

Can we, what can we do to change our environment?

So if I'm coaching people often be looking at this going,

okay, let's talk about this.

What, what is within your power to change?

What can you, what can you communicate to the people in this environment?

What could you say to them?

You know, that would help them understand that, uh, you need

things to be a little bit different.

So we've got temperament, we've got physiology, we've got the environment

itself, which we can accept.

We can leave or we can change.

And then secondly, sort of related to the environment question is.

Our beliefs about what is happening.

You say, this is the environment itself.

And then there's our beliefs about what the environment means.

You know, Tony Robbins would always say that they're, you know, nothing

in life has any meaning, except the meaning that you give it.

That has some very deep.

Philosophical roots and we don't necessarily have to agree with it.

Because.

If you take that statement, that nothing in life has any meaning,

except the meaning that you give to it.

That would put you in the territory of believing that, that

all of reality and experience is constructed by our perception of it.

So there's no objective reality, right?

So you can see how that gets problematic.

If you take it all the

I think what he is pointing us towards is something useful, which is.

You know, life is happening all the time.

Circumstances are happening all the time.

But we do have enormous power about ascribing meaning to So when I spoke

recently, I had a group of about 500 parents I spoke to recently, and I

talked about when they're dealing with a really difficult child or they're dealing

with really difficult circumstance.

Then you have to remember that in that, in that strain and striving

and struggle and difficulty.

A couple of other things are happening.

We're actually growing.

We're actually being invited.

There's a civil Tanium invitation.

To growth.

To becoming better people to becoming more compassionate, more kind.

Uh, now I get that.

It's not easy.

So whether you're, so if you're not parenting, you can apply this to just

about anything, any difficult circumstance in your life, any adversity in your

Can you reframe, can you go?

This is not what I desire.

This is not pleasant, but what else could be happening here?

What else could be the meaning here?

All right.

So this, these are the kinds of inputs that shape mindset.

Mindset is something you have to practice.

I really believe that I have to work so hard at this.

If you ever made me in-person, I'll tell you some of the things

I have to do on a daily basis.

To try and keep myself on a path of growth and development.

I was listening to Joe Rogan this morning.

And he, he talked about this process.

He has where he sort of talks about all his old beliefs.

And he says there's like a folder on his desk.

And in that folder is what he calls old BS that he used to believe, or the

BS that he used to think, the negative mindsets and beliefs and things that

he thought about himself in the world.

And he said there's like a folder there, but he just refuses to ever open it again.

And I'm saying this because mindset, which is the last part of the question here, how

do you develop a better mindset to tackle feeling overwhelmed in the first place?

Look, he would be my summary.

You want to do the practical stuff first?

All right.

So we don't want to massively empower our environment and say, well, everything's

being driven by my environment.

Everything's just, you know, it's the worst thing.

And I can't do anything about it.

We want to look at what can we change?

What can we accept or do we need to leave certain aspects of our environment?

Where's our physiology at?

Are we sleeping?

Right?

Are we eating right?

What can we do practically to get ourselves

So, you know, look for me.

Oh, you know, training and eating.

Right.

And trying to keep on top of all these things does help me.

To be in a more balanced, regulated state.

As often as possible.

So we want to do those practical things.

And, uh, and just start, right?

Like if you're listening to me going, oh, well, you don't know where my

environment's like, I go, you know what, but you can do something.

You can, you can go to bed 10 minutes earlier tonight.

You can eat something slightly better today.

You know, he's a website cost me, I think, like $15 a month called RMR real

meal revolution, which I use because of the training component that I do.

I need to eat particular.

And I just use this thing and I just make sure that I buy and prep

what we need as a family, what I need to be able to do what I do.

So it's a little thing.

It's a small step.

It just means that I'm not 5:00 PM or 6:00 PM going, well, I wonder

what I'm gonna eat tonight and just eating whatever fills the gap.

Right?

So you have to actually do practical things.

You got to look into your life and go, what are the things

Uh, causing this to be worse than it could otherwise be.

What can I do differently?

And finally the mindset piece that's just work.

The mindset piece is maybe this is helpful to ask yourself better questions.

I always say that to people, ask yourself better questions.

If your mindset's toxic, you go, go ahead.

What else could be happening here?

Where's the invitation?

What is the reframe?

How could I make this better?

How could this be different?

So we get better and better and better at sort of reframing and

training our mindset friends.

We have to train our body.

You know, so far today.

I got up at four, I ran two hours and then, you know,

then an era in the gym, right.

There's a reason, you know, that I try and keep pretty fit

because I have to do things right.

So we w I work

And I'm not saying you should do that.

I'm just not to that degree, but I'm saying if you want a different mindset,

you've got to go to work at it.

You got to start to write things down.

You gotta start to journal.

You got to start to reframe the realities that you're facing

or what else could this mean?

Friends?

All I can tell you is, is that there's a reason why some people.

Live really amazing lives.

And sometimes some of us can end up just trapped in cycles of dysfunction and

craziness, because you've got to start to Look at the pieces that are driving

it and say, which ones can I change?

Right.

This is the part of the podcast where I finished.

Otherwise I just keep repeating myself and I just had an espresso

before I came into the studio.

So a.

What does that bad boy kicks in?

I could go for ages.

All right, please make sure you've subscribed.

Because the next few weeks is going to be great.

We're gonna have a lot of these conversations with some, um, you know,

some great questions from people.

Uh, make sure you go and check out the YouTube channel will be a link here.

I'm doing short videos on this.

And, uh, if you want to book me to coach, do some coaching with me, um,

for business or personal staff, you want to book me to speak it's all in there.

Um, and yeah, check out the links because Karen is running a master

class for women, which is just amazing.

So I've got to put links in that there, if you're hearing this sketchbook

at Karen's masterclass for women.

Uh, it's pretty amazing.

So do that.

All right, everybody.

God bless you.

If you wanna get in touch with me, jonathan@jonathandoyle.co dot C O.

God bless everybody this has been the daily podcast and i'm going to