No matter how calm we try to be or how much we try to simplify our lives we somehow always manage to get back to “busy”. Whether it’s a change of seasons, routines, or schedules…it never fails. If the environment around us is practicing “busyness”, we will tend to lean more towards “busyness”, as the environment around us influence us. Since most of the world practices “busy”, it’s inevitable that no matter how simple and calm we make our lives we will end up back at “busy.”

Busy does not equal productive however. With busyness comes stress and if stress lasts for an extended period of time, it can lead us to a stage of overwhelm. The difference between being busy and practicing a simple life is being able to recognize when you become busy, stressed, or overwhelmed and how you deal with it.

Being busy, stressed, or overwhelmed is NOT caused by what is going on in your life. Did you read that!?!?! You might want to read that sentence again because it’s very important. These things are caused by your thinking and perception. You interpret busyness as having too much to do. You become stressed when you think your circumstances are unfavorable. For example, you could feel busy but “on top of things”. You’ve got lots of work to do but you are efficient, happy, and meet all required deadlines. OR you could have a bunch of projects going on all with the same deadline. This is when you start to feel stress – when you believe the “odds are stacked against you” and are preventing you from succeeding. You then become completely overwhelmed when you feel that you’ve lost control of your circumstances. In the stress stage we still continue on with our activities but feel pressured to complete them in a timely manner. When you reach the overwhelm stage, your work or tasks may come to a screeching halt because you do not believe that anything you do will make a difference.

But none of these three things are necessary! Did you read that sentence? Because that one is super important too! None of these emotions contribute positively to your outcomes. Do you have routines you feel you could do in your sleep? Do you feel stressed or overwhelmed doing them? Probably not. But if one thing does not go as scheduled, you may be feeling a little bit of stress trying to deal with it. That’s because our brains love routines! It likes knowing what to do. When things are thrown out of sequence, our brains panic…which sucks! However, if we can learn to consciously recognize when we are busy, stressed, or overwhelmed we can then manage our mind.

Don’t wake up stressed! – Have you ever woken up only to immediately start thinking about what you needed to get done that day…and then proceeded to stress?? I’ve definitely been there! But it’s not necessary! Like I noted above, when you practice living simply you are able to recognize these thoughts and take appropriate action! You need to be able to stop yourself anytime you feel busy, anxious, stressed, or overwhelmed, take a deep breath and assess the situation, and then implement the appropriate interventions needed immediately to mitigate those negative emotions.

Find a Routine That Works! – Seasons change and sometimes routines do to and that’s ok! For each part of the day you should have some sort of routine. Do you have a morning routine and an evening routine (the most common for those of us with 9-5 jobs)? Do you feel calm and refreshed by the time you head out the door in the morning or is it hectic and are you running behind? You need to establish a routine that works and stick to it! It’s an easy way to make your mornings and evenings run smoothly and prevent your mind from freaking out. Now, it’s ok if you have separate routines for summer vs. the rest of the year or one for the weekdays and evenings vs. the weekend. You just need to create some repetition that your brain is able to recognize as such. If you want to read more about why routines are so important head to “The Power and Importance of Routines” I wrote about a few months back.

Plan! – Now while routines are great for the majority of tasks we need to accomplish each day, we can’t account for everything. That’s where planning comes into play. Have a project coming up that is due? A get-together on the weekend with friends you don’t see often? Have several projects you are juggling? You need some sort of planner, whether that be a physical planner or an electronic planner, to keep track of all of your commitments. You need to schedule out at what time you will work on each project and for how long you will work on it each day before moving on to the next project. If you are planning and are still stressed, you might not be planning enough.

Take Responsibility – If you expect to make any changes or progress regarding your mindset you need to stop blaming others. Take responsibility for yourself. If you place blame on everyone else, you’ll never break the cycle. If you want to make serious progress regarding your emotions and mindset, accept responsibility for yourself and your actions or lack thereof.

Find a Solution – When something goes wrong you can either stress, blame others, complain and/or go on a rant. We’ve all done it. However this behavior doesn’t solve anything! We basically just end up throwing an adult temper tantrum to express our frustrations. Next time you find yourself in a frustrating situation due to busyness, stress or are overwhelmed take a moment to pause. Before you let your emotions take control of you and further waste your precious time, take a deep breath and think of a solution. Unfortunately not everything goes as planned in life, and if you can find a solution to the problem you are having sooner rather than later, the better off you’ll be.

Perspective – sometimes we are blinded by our own misfortunes. We get caught up in everything that is going on in our life that we think it can’t get worse than this. Unfortunately, we lose perspective. By practicing gratitude one or more times a day (in the morning when you get up, before you go to bed, or anytime you become busy and stressed) suddenly nothing really seems as bad as it is. It makes you appreciate your current situation, redirects your mind from negative thoughts to positive ones, and may inspire you to help others who are less fortunate.

Remember that busyness, stress, and being overwhelmed just clouds our judgement. If we can recognize these feelings and intervene during the earliest stages we can really focus on solving the problem we are faced with, wasting little time. We can figure out how to break up multiple projects into workable pieces to complete them on time. We can create an effective morning routine that works for the entire household for that particular “season”. We can change our outlook to be more positive. All it takes is a little discipline to train our brains.

Being stressed or overwhelmed on a regular basis is not healthy. Unfortunately your brain has adapted to these behaviors and you won’t be able to immediately fix your mindset overnight. Actually, these interventions implemented simultaneously might cause a paradoxical reaction and send your brain even more into a panic as what you are trying to implement is something your brain is not used to. Implement each of these slowly. See how your mind responds. If you become overwhelmed with all the steps forgive yourself and try again tomorrow. The only thing you need to do to start making progress is to just start. You just need to start with one of the above actionable steps, implement it, monitor and tweak as needed, and then tackle another one. As your mindset starts to shift each of these items become easier to implement, making you more aware of your behaviors, emotions, and feelings which can further help you recognize, manage, and alleviate busyness, stress, and overwhelm. It just takes some discipline and patience!

I’d love to hear how others alleviate busyness and stress and if any of these tips helped you achieve calm! Leave a note in the comments if they did!