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Are You Amplifying Your Overwhelm? Here’s How to Stop
Episode 25528th January 2025 • You Are Not A Frog • Dr Rachel Morris
00:00:00 00:20:14

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How to beat perfectionism, people-pleasing, conflict-aversion, and the many other things that amplify your sense of overwhelm.

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Mentioned in this episode:

Get Your Life Back
A practical guide to setting boundaries for professionals who can’t just ‘walk away”.

Transcripts

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Recently, we ran a survey asking people what keeps them awake at night.

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And we got an overwhelming response from hundreds of you.

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Mostly it was an overwhelming workload.

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And then the worry that you've missed something or made a mistake.

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A lot of people said they were worrying about their team, about team dynamics.

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They felt so responsible for stuff.

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And then when we asked, why can't you leave work at work?

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You talked about doing other people's work for them, not be able

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to switch off at the end of the day in case your team needed extra

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support from you, or feeling guilty because you've not done enough, or

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firefighting stuff all the time.

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So in this quick dip episode, I want to talk about the way that

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leaders in health and social care can actually amplify that own

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workload by that hone behavior.

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And when I say leaders, I mean, anybody who has any

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responsibility for anybody else.

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So as you progress in your career, you will turn into a leader if

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you are supervising anybody.

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If you're just someone that your colleagues come to for help and support,

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if you're a coach, a mentor, a clinical director, a senior partner, a line

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manager, you name it, you are a leader, whether you like it or not, whether

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you see yourself as a leader or not.

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And when it comes to workload It's just too much to do.

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There's no denying it.

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And it's not just in health and social care that this is

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happening, it's all over the place.

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Since COVID what let's have just ramped up, and it doesn't help

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with the economic climate and the lack of funding for various things.

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But in health and social care, there is overwhelming patient demand,

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people are going off sick with stress and burnout, people are leaving.

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So that just leaves more work for the people who are left.

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Now many, many people.

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In the answer to the survey said that one of the reasons they can't leave

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work at work because they're so busy during the day job at work that they

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have no time to do that management and leadership responsibilities.

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And we know that there's a lot of stuff which comes with that

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such as appraisals, once a ones, you might be organizing the rota,

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thinking about strategy, just general support for your team.

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All that stuff takes time.

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And it's very rare to be given enough time to do that.

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But on top of that, there are things that make this worse.

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This is a You Are Not a Frog quick dip, a tiny taster of the kinds of things we

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talk about on our full podcast episodes.

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I've chosen today's topic to give you a helpful boost in the time it

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takes to have a cup of tea so you can return to whatever else you're

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up to feeling energized and inspired.

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For more tools, tips, and insights to help you thrive at work, don't

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forget to subscribe to You Are Not a Frog wherever you get your podcasts.

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Now, most of us think that the reason that we are overwhelmed

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is completely external.

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It's just, there's too much stuff coming at us.

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That's quite a dangerous mindset to be in because let's face it, there's

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always going to be too much to do.

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And we know that we have no control over patient demand, about the

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stuff that other people give to us.

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So then we think that we have no control over the workload.

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If we think like that, though, what happens is we just work harder and

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harder and harder in order to do everything that's required of us.

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That leads to stress and burnout.

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It also means we don't have any time to look after ourselves

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to keep ourselves fit and well.

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And we feel like we've got no choice.

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We fill out that we have to do it.

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And the amount of people that say to me, if I don't do it, who's going to?

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When we are in the mindset that we just have to get on with the workload and

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there's nothing we can do to control it.

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It feels like we've got a big wooden box and that box is our

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finite time and energy and people keep giving us water balloons.

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These are the tasks that we need to do, and we're trying to squash

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these balloons into the box.

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Now.

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We think that we can just get more and more efficient and more and more

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productive, and yes, there's a little bit of efficiency that can be made,

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but as we know, when we try and go for too much efficiency, when we try

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and aim for too much productivity, then patients suffer, services suffer.

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And all that happens is that the quality goes down and we still feel overwhelmed.

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So it's rather like trying to squash these water balloons into a big box

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and we're trying to push them down, but they just keep bolting out elsewhere.

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And what happens is that either the water balloons exploding leak

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everywhere, or the box breaks and we can no longer do anything.

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I want to talk to you about a different way of doing things.

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And that is.

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As if you have the box and you've got some water balloons, but you're

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taking on less water balloons, and what small, these water balloons

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have less in them, so there's more time and space and you have the

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time and capacity to do everything.

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And the way you do that is by identifying the five ways

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of behaving that are actually amplifying your overwhelmed.

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And these five things are under your control.

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Now, a few months ago, I was talking to a large group of GP trainers

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and I asked them what was stopping them, giving their best at work.

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And they said, well, there's lots of different things,

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but it's mainly the workload.

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I just have too much to do.

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And when I asked them what they felt responsible for, the answer was

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pretty much everybody and everything.

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When it came to their trainees, they felt incredibly responsible for whether

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their trainee passed their exams or not.

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They felt responsible for the trainees' wellbeing, whether

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they were enjoying their job.

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They felt responsible for all the patients that the trainee saw.

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They felt responsible for the ways that other people in the practice

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interacted with their trainees and how happy they were at work.

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And when I ask them about what the consequences of that were for them,.

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I got answers like, well, they were coming home from their

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annual leave to, to, to mark the portfolios that been handed in late.

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They were bending over backwards to make life easier for their

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trainees at their detriment.

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And these behaviors just didn't work.

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It seems to make things worse, actually.

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So these GP trainers were falling into the trap of the

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first overwhelmed, amplified.

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That is over responsibility.

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That is feeding responsible for things that are outside of our control.

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There's no way that these trainers could be responsible for whether their

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trainees pass their exams or not.

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They were not in the exam hall with them.

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They could not write the answers for them.

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And there are so many things that would have affected that

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candidate's performance on the day.

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The trainer could not possibly take responsibility for that,

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but they felt that they were.

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As a consequence, they were rushing around getting very frustrated and

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not just feeling frustrated, but feeling very guilty when anything

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went wrong for that trainee, even if it wasn't their fault.

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And that's the emotion that we feel predominantly when things happen

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that are outside our control, but we're taking too much responsibility

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for those, we just feel guilty.

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And this adds to our workload as we just work harder and harder

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trying to effect everything.

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But no matter how hard we work, we'll just be ineffective, because

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if it's out of our control, there's nothing we can do about it.

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So they were just increasing their workload and their

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stress, when an actual fact.

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They weren't taking control of the things that they could do, such as

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setting proper deadlines for the portfolio, having the conversations

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they needed to with their colleagues when they weren't delivering the

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right training sessions, and setting boundaries with their trainees to help

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them survive once they've qualified.

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Now the way out of this over responsibility amplifier is to accept

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that we can't do anything about things that are outside of our control.

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And one thing that's really helped me is knowing the difference between

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caring about something and carrying it.

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Because I may care deeply about my trainees and their success, and

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if they pass their exams, But if I can't control the outcome, then

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I can't be responsible for it.

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I can care, but I can't carry it.

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I can't carry that load of responsibility.

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So working out the difference between caring about something

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and not carrying it is vital here.

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So, what is it that you care about deeply, but you can't carry?

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The next overwhelmed amplifier is actually making the opposite mistake, of

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not doing stuff that we could control.

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Like I mentioned before, setting boundaries saying no, having those

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difficult conversations, giving the feedback, and addressing the issues

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that, you know, you need to address before they just spiral out control

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and take you an awful lot more time.

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This takes courage and it takes a bit of skill.

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And a lot of us, if I'm honest, don't really know how to have

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those difficult conversations and we really fear conflict.

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So we avoid doing those things that we could do.

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We avoid addressing issues.

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And this just increases your overwhelm and your workload by letting

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issues spiral out of control, and they take an awful lot longer to

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source out further down the line.

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Uh, I heard a very useful analogy, which isn't entirely appropriate,

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but I'm going to share it anyway.

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Someone said to me once, well if you're going to be kidnapped, the time to get

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his way is the minute they grabbed you and they're pointing a gun at your head.

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You need to kick them shout and scream and run off, because you're much more

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likely to survive than if they stick you in the boot, drive you off to

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a place, and hold you in some sort of shed in the middle of nowhere.

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So the time to deal with issues is straight away.

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But we fear, we fear conflict.

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We feel the effects on the relationship.

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We fear their shorts and consequences, don't we?

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But in the longterm, It will increase our workload.

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It will increase our stress.

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If these things aren't addressed.

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So avoiding potentially difficult situations, avoiding conflict is

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the second overwhelm amplifier.

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What can we do about that?

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Well, firstly, identify the things that we could do something about

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and get upskilled, learn how to have those difficult conversations, get

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some coaching, get some training.

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And if he wants to find out more about that, we did a whole Frog Fest Virtual

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live training about This Time it's Awkward, how to have those awkward

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conversations, so you can check that out and we'll put all the links to

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our resources in the show notes.

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One thing you could do if you're worried about compensation

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is just get really curious.

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Say, well, I'm curious about what happened there, which meant

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that this behavior happened.

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Just state what happened.

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Make sure you ask for their perspective, ask them how they thought about things,

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or even get them to write their own performance and ask them how that went.

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And then there'll be much easier to address things with people.

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So the first two overwhelm amplifies the firstly over responsibility,

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second avoiding conflicts or difficult conversations.

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Now the third one is getting stuck in the urgency trap.

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So many people told us that they spent so much time firefighting

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urgent stuff for other people.

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And just doing stuff that came up, that they had to do their

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regular work in the evenings, outside of the normal working time.

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Cause they just didn't get anything done.

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And the urgency trap.

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Is where everything seems urgent and important, and it becomes

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so stressful that we can't see the wood for the trees.

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And then the stuff that's urgent seems to trump the stuff that's important,

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and this is particularly stuff.

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Other people.

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And this is where the people pleasers in a surface.

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We don't want to upset people, but you don't want to say no.

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We want to help, we want to be supportive.

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But it's a profoundly, stressful place to be, and we end up ignoring

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those important tasks that we really, really need to get to.

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And again, this just increases our workload.

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The way out of this is to learn how to prioritize powerfully.

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And we used our shape, the prioritization grid to do this.

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But even if you've just spent 10 minutes writing down what the really

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important things were for you, what your priorities are, the things that you know

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would move the needle massively for you, you'd know what you need to focus on.

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But then the issue is saying no to that stuff that you know,

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you're not going to focus on.

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And the fourth overwhelm amplifier.

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Is getting stuck in rescue mode, taking the rescue at mentality.

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Several people in our survey say that the reason they couldn't leave work at

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work is 'cause they spend a lot of time doing other people's work for them.

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And as leaders, every bone in our body wants to support our

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teams, be a good human being.

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And often we interpret that as just taking over for people,

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fixing it for them, doing their work when they're overwhelmed,

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or helping them out when they get stuck and often doing it for them.

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The problem is that this rescue mentality is actually a very

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toxic form of leadership.

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Why?

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Because it keeps people stuck, disempowered, gets them into

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unhelpful victim patterns.

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And the problem with being in the victim mentality is that's quite

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comfortable because you don't need to make too much effort.

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You can blame everybody else.

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So we end up in the stance.

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We end up stuck in the drama triangle.

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So taking the rescuer mentality means that again, our workload is

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massively increased as we just feel.

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We've got to do everything for everybody else.

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And as a consequence, we don't let anybody grow and develop, solve their

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own problems or learn for themselves.

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The way out of that is to instead take a coaching approach.

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Now, we teach a lot of coaching techniques and teaching models

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but you don't need to, to a massive long coaching course

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to take a coaching approach.

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You could just ask somebody well, what could you do about this?

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What have you already thought of?

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How could you solve this for yourself?

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What I did is you have?

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And leave the ball in their court.

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But there's one more, and this just trumps all at the And actually

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it's at the root of everything.

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And those are the three toxic tethers.

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The three behaviors that mean, we can't say no or set boundaries, or

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when we do set boundaries, we just crumble in the face of pushback.

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And that is perfectionism, people pleasing, and pre living.

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Perfectionism means that we can't possibly leave anything undone.

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We've got to get to the bottom of our to-do list, because if we don't,

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that means we're not good enough.

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We're not, we're not perfect.

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And the thought that we're not perfect quickly leads to the thought

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of, well, I'm not good enough, which quickly leads to I am not enough,

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and that is the basis of shame.

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So many of us feel shame when we have to set limits around our time and

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our work, and so we don't do that.

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We want to believe that we are superhuman.

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And we can cope with everything.

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People pleasing.

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We hate upsetting people.

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We feel guilty even if we're not responsible for stuff.

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We feel guilty if we can't see everything for everybody.

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Now, this is hardwired into us.

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Our amygdalas will detect a threat if we upset people so we've very,

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very quickly default to guilty.

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I've realized that most healthcare professionals have got a

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massive chip on their shoulder.

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It's a guilty chip.

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We so quickly take on the blame for everything and feel guilty for

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stuff that's way out of our control.

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And what happens then is we work harder and harder, we try and

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do something about it, adding.

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So our workload.

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And then a third toxic tether is pre living stuff, thinking what

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will happen if I get complaint?

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What if this goes wrong?

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What if I've made a mistake, what if I've missed something?

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We pre live stuff that hasn't even happened yet.

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Mark Twain said I'm an old man.

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I've known many troubles.

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Most of them haven't happened.

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And pre living stuff leads to fear.

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What if they do think badly of me?

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What if they think I'm not good enough?

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And so we work harder and harder and do more and more in order

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to avoid guilt, shame and fear.

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That adds to our workload.

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And adds to our stress.

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So we have a choice.

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We can continue thinking that our overwhelm and stress is entirely due

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to the external workload that's coming at us, and try our best to do it all.

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That way lies, overwhelm, stress, guilt, all that sort of stuff.

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And it's very hard to break out of that cycle.

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Or we can decide that there are things that we can do about

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our overwhelming workload.

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At the very least, we will decide not to make it worse ourselves by avoiding

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these five overwhelm amplifiers.

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Because we are in control of the way we think and what we choose to

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do and what we choose to take on.

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And here's the thing.

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Your wellbeing is directly linked to this.

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The biggest reason I think for healthcare professionals feeling

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stressed and burning out and having their health and their wellbeing

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suffering is because they do not have the time to attend to their own needs.

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If we solve overwhelm, I think we still have wellbeing because we

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all know what we need to do to keep ourselves fit and well, to practice

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that necessary care that we need to.

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So can I suggest that next time you are in that mindset of

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overwhelm, you look for where you are, exaggerating it for yourself.

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And firstly you note, okay, which overwhelm amplifying

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behavior have I fallen into?

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Is it over responsibility, the urgency trap, is it rescuing, is it

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avoiding conflict, or is it those three toxic tethers of perfectionism,

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people pleasing, and pre living?

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Write it down, identify it and just go, oh, that's interesting, there's

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a bit of over-responsibility.

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Next, write down what emotion you're feeling.

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And I bet you there'll be some guilt, some shame, or

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some fare at the bottom of it.

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It might also help to write down the story that you're telling yourself.

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I should see that extra patient.

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Because otherwise there'll be cross with me and the

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receptionist will think I'm awful.

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Or I really must check my emails at 11 o'clock at night, otherwise

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my colleagues might think I'm checking my responsibility.

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What are the toxic stories you're telling yourself?

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And then I'd like you to write down.

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What happens when you believe those stories, and what

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consequences it has longterm?

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And then write down the reason why that story isn't true, or actually

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another story that's more helpful.

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What are the long-term reasons why you might be choosing

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to set those boundaries?

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It might be, you know, there's no point anyway, because

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you're not in control of it.

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It might be that, you know that the rescuer mentality is actually

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very toxic in the long run.

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Write down the longterm reason why you are going to choose to stop with

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the overwhelm amplifying behavior.

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Now there, of course, are some mistakes that we can make in all of this.

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The first is just blindly accepting that all the work that's coming at

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you is just what you've got to put up with and not ever talk to your

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organization about what's going on, and asking them to put some limits on it.

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So by all means, have the conversations that you need to

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do to address what's going on.

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The second is trying to address this stuff when you are.

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In the midst of the overwhelm.

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It's really, really difficult.

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I did a podcast recently called you.

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Can't organize your way out of overwhelms that if you are right in

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that situation right now, and you just can't think straight, and we can't

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think straight when we're stressed, the best thing you can do is rest.

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Take a rest, take a break.

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UN.

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Start to think about this stuff when you're back in your parasympathetic,

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when you've had a good night's sleep, when you've got a bit of

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brain space to think about this.

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And by all means, find a friend, talk about it, discuss it, get some

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coaching, ask people what they think.

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And finally, don't wait until you are not overwhelmed to have

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time to look after yourself.

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You need to put in the wellbeing stuff right now,

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even when you don't have time.

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Because believe me, you'll get your time back, you'll be pleased you did, and

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you'll be in a much better mental state to be able to deal with all of this.

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And don't forget to get the help and the support that you need with this.

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We've got loads of stuff available.

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You can join the Shapes Academy.

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You can do our Beat Stress and Thrive course.

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We've got some short courses on boundaries called Get Your Life Back.

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So all of those resources are in the show notes below.

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So recognize that when it comes to overwhelm, you do have a choice.

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Not over everything, but you have a choice over some things which

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will be making your overwhelm and stress much, much worse.

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And that sorts and quite difficult to hear.

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And I'm really not trying to minimize the issues that are out there.

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But there is no Knight in shining armor that's going to

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come riding and rescue you.

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There are small things that you can see yourself.

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And honestly, They'll make a load of difference.

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So go, well, good luck with all of this, let me know how you've got on and

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I'll see you for the next quick dip.

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