The truth about overwhelm.

“Why can’t I just get started?”

That’s the voice that repeats over and over, day after day, when you present yourself with a task with a renewed sense of motivation and inspiration, and yet still can’t make yourself move an inch.

Whenever you think of it, a suffocating dread washes over you and makes your head spin. The internal dialogue of “What’s wrong with me” and “It’s not even that big of a task” swim in your mind but you have no answers to offer yourself. Only a feeling of defeat and like you must be the problem.

Eventually, you detach from the self-criticism long enough to try to find a solution, even though the nagging shame still lurks within you. You might think it’s about how much work is involved or how difficult the task is, which isn’t untrue, but it’s not the whole picture. There is a reason a perfectly achievable task becomes a mountain you have no idea how to climb.

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It’s one of the worst feelings, when a simple task like taking out the trash or taking a shower become full of unresolved tension that roots you to the ground. It’s the same apprehension you feel before starting a huge home or work project, but how can that be possible?

The task looks perfectly manageable on the outside. But internally, it feels massive. You can’t even think about sharing this problem with anyone else because they will see it from the outside looking in.

“You’re just thinking about it too much,” they say. “Just get it done.”

And this dissonance exhausts you before you’ve even given yourself a chance to start. Your mind is racing and you don’t understand why. 

You even know what the first step is, per productivity advice on the internet that tells you to “start small.” But you just can’t seem to take it. 

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You aren’t alone when it comes to this. It’s the most common in people who are highly talented, future-oriented, and who have high standards for themselves. It’s ironic because you think you out of anyone are most capable of doing whatever you set your mind to, even if it’s a bit egotistical. But you're humbled when you realize that knowing exactly what to do doesn't guarantee you'll do it.

You see a kind of complexity for every little detail that a lot of people don’t. It’s a blessing, and a curse, in many ways. It’s what makes you an overthinker. And it’s easy to consider it an asset when it comes to creating insanely unique projects and bringing visions to life when the motivation is high and you flow right through it. But in other things, like the day-to-day tasks that go unfinished, it’s a liability.

If anyone understands, it’s me. I don’t think I know anyone else in my life who is a greater overthinker. I’ve amassed a 500 page journal to dump all of my racing thoughts, for example, because I couldn’t function with them all competing in my head. So please believe me when I say that it shouldn’t be this hard, and it doesn’t have to be. 

It’s not about the task in front of you. It could be anything at all. Rather, it’s about how your mind is relating to it. 

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These tasks aren’t as large as they seem, I promise. And it is possible to deflate them so that overwhelm stops paralyzing you.

These feelings of ache and shame aren’t in response to the task itself. We’ve established that the task matters to you and that you want to get it done. Rather, it’s a response to everything that comes before and everything that comes after.

Future problems and decisions attach themselves to the present moment. You have to make your peace with everything that happens until that inner loop is closed, and it’s more then you give yourself credit for. 

When the entire path is loaded onto the single starting point, then it doesn’t matter how simple the task is. It feels like a looming responsibility you don’t know how to begin.  

So, instead of the task being too big or you having too much work to do, it’s rather that you’ve front-loaded your decision making with a version of you that isn’t ready to handle that yet. You’re borrowing trouble, in a way. 

Imagine you need to clean the kitchen.

But when you think about cleaning the kitchen, you're not thinking about wiping the counters.

You're thinking about maintaining the house.

Then maintaining routines.

Then becoming a more organized person.

Then finally getting your life together.

The task stopped being just a task a long time ago.

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For example, pinpoint one task that you’ve been avoiding because every time you think about it you feel overwhelmed. 

Write down anywhere you’d like, whether your notes app or the comments below, what the next concrete step is. Literally the very next thing. For example, for taking out the trash, the next step is to get off the couch. That’s how small I mean.

Then identify all implications that you’re associating with the task at large. Does the trash bring up shame because it’s evidence that you let the house get messy again?

Does that start making you think about the dishes in the sink, and the laundry sitting on the couch? Then the promises you made to yourself about getting more organized? 

Those things are much bigger in comparison to the sole task of just taking out the trash, walking it to the dumpster, and replacing the trashbag–a five or ten minute task at most. But to you, it represents everything you don’t want to face right now. 

So try to notice this pattern throughout the week whenever a seemingly simple task feels like it asks too much of you, and pry a little deeper to see what’s hiding beneath it. 

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And, by the way, if you're interested in understanding the deeper patterns behind procrastination, self-doubt, and self-trust, you can join the newsletter here where I share additional lessons each week.

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Overwhelm doesn’t immediately mean that a task is too large. Sometimes it does, for sure, but there is a clear difference between a giant house project that needs to get broken down and something like wiping down the counters or making the bed. The overwhelm is coming from an emotional weight created outside of the present moment–whether that’s the past, or the future. 

And that struggle makes sense because of your high standards, your ambitions, and everything you wish for yourself.

But you don’t have to suffer. That’s not the default way of living, and it’s not a requirement of becoming who you want to be. Just because you’re an overthinker who can see much more context than your average person doesn’t mean that you’re not blind to emotional weight.

But once you build the skill to regulate that struggle, that raises a different problem that your ambition creates.

The moment a task becomes a measure of who you are, your priority shifts. It stops being about completing the task and starts becoming about protecting yourself from what failure might mean. And sometimes the very strategies meant to keep you safe become the reason you never move forward. 

If you want to dig into that specific pattern, then head over to the linked video about waiting for why we try to fix avoidance with the most harmful strategies.

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