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iAlign #85 - Overwhelmed Is A Sentence You Keep Repeating · The iAlign Podcast with Flint Mitchell

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: You're listening to the I Align podcast with Flint Mitchell, where I provide stories, resources, and tools for ambitious builders who are ready to gain control over procrastination, overthinking, and distraction.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: I told a mentor one time that I look up to that I was overwhelmed.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: And he said the most annoying possible thing back, which was, yeah, I'd probably feel overwhelmed too if I told myself I was.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to argue with him.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: I had a real list, I had real deadlines, responsibilities, a genuinely heavy, like 80-hour work week, which was a big week.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing that shot me up in that moment, which is I keep a handful of people close precisely because they operate at a level that makes me feel still like a child figuring out how to use a planner.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm a pretty high output guy.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: So when one of them tells me that overwhelmed is a sentence I'm choosing to repeat, I don't get to wave it off as him not understanding the load, right?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: He he can empathize.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: These are people caring more than I am, not less.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: So here's my thesis.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I know it lands wrong at first, but a lot of the time, I'm overwhelmed is not an objective readout of your circumstances.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's a frame, it's a mental environment that you put yourself in and a sentence you keep saying inside of it.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day, it is actually a choice to perceive your environment as overwhelming or not.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: There are integral lower-level fear responses, sure, things that you don't necessarily have control over, but still, those are influenced by the conditioning that you have in any given moment.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the way that you speak to yourself, the way that you view your environment, what's going on, the responsibilities you have, influences your state, your like steady state responses to those things.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: I used to believe that being overwhelmed was honest math.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like this much on the plate equals this much drowning, one-to-one, no story involved.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people believe exactly that.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the question I could never answer with that math is why two people carrying the identical load can feel so completely different.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: One of them calm and moving, and the other one just frozen and behind and just in chaos and anxiety.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: So when I look at the people that I admire, the pattern is impossible to miss.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: It is never that they have less to carry, they have vastly more.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's that not one of them walks around narrating himself as the man being crushed by.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Not only that, they have tools and resources and procedures in place in order to offload the stress when it becomes too much.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: They've prepared for it emotionally, they've prepared for it environmentally, they've prepared for it in their perception and the way they view the world.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like the way they operate is different.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not inhuman.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's something that is completely and entirely possible by you as well.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And for a while, I thought that the fix was just to do less.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Just cut the list, drop things, lighten the load.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that helps a little bit when you're genuinely like at capacity, you can't focus on that many things.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: But I never touched the real problem because I'd still cut the list in half and then hear the same voice going, like, this is too much, you're still behind, right?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'd overcommit myself.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's like this negative feedback loop from hell.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: The load might have gone down, but the sentence stayed the same in my head, the exact same.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I started paying attention to what those people actually do differently.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it's quieter than you'd think.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you're telling yourself this is too much work, while also telling yourself that you're capable of handling it, one of those two voices is still telling you that it's too much.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the one running the show.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: The people I look up to have simply stopped feeding that voice.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's really what it is.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: It is a choice.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: It is a conscious choice.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: And when you make that conscious choice, you also affect the subconscious way that you approach these problems.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And when you approach it this way, it changes your frame of how you approach overwhelm in general, which is instead of how do I just white knuckle through this thing, it is how does my environment influence this?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: How about the people that are around me?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: How about the type of work I'm doing?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: How about my perspective on the work that I'm doing?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: How about the focus of my environment?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: How about the way I'm scrolling?
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: It becomes this holistic equation that looks at your entire life.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: How do I handle emotions?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I have this stressful relationship going on.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I don't have a therapist or a counselor or a coach to support me in this thing.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have the proper resources.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I don't know how to go through this learning curve.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: This learning curve is something I've never done before.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: I must need some help.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: You look at the thing that is overwhelming you from a holistic and performance perspective, which is to take into account the entire equation and not just like how much you can grit your teeth and use willpower to just like force yourself through a wall.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that environment includes the way that you perceive the obstacle.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you start to approach it from this holistic and larger lens, you start to tune all of the variables and not just the ones that are like willpower and grit your teeth and lock in.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: And when you start to tune all the variables, you start to see immediate changes to these moments where you used to be extremely overwhelmed because the environment has changed and because your perspective of the environment and of the problem has changed as well.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you can genuinely take this all the way to the extreme.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what I like to do, right?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Dr.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Viktor Frankel, in the Nazi concentration camps, he recognized that a man is not determined by his environment, but by his decisions, by the way he perceives the world around him.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: So obviously, I have never experienced anything like that.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: But I can be influenced by a man who walked into the worst existence that man has ever created in the Nazi death camps, who said, even in this moment where there is depravity and it is the worst that humans can experience, I still have a choice to determine my perspective on this subject.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: I still reserve the right to choose how I perceive my environment and my situation and myself.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: I choose if I am overwhelmed.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that is half the reason why I keep these particular people close in the first place.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, they haven't been in that kind of situation, but they have built massive companies and endured lots of stress and supported many individuals or employees or whatever it is.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: They have experienced higher loads of stress than I likely have experienced with regard to certain areas of our life.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: So look at exactly that.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's an environment variable that I tune.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're probably around people who are potentially telling you that you're doing too much or that you're underperforming or that you should be overwhelmed.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, you feel overwhelmed.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: I surround myself with people who go, oh, yeah, that that's quite a bit.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing about it?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Not like, wow, that's a lot.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, you're stressed.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: You should be like, of course I would feel stressed if those are the people that are around me.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Of course I would feel stressed if those were my influences, if that was if I was scrolling social media and I was surrounded by content of people who also feel overwhelmed.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: No, what you consume becomes your reality.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And not consume just food, that too, but like visually and intellectually and emotionally.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm overwhelmed stops being like a voice that shows up in your head and it becomes the place that you live because it is your life.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're enveloped by it.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so here's your objection, right?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a good one.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not gonna dodge it.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: You're thinking, that's easy to say.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: But my plate is actually too full, and this is not just a mindset thing.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: The work is real, and you might be right.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the honest move is to take a little bit off your plate, but notice how much of the overwhelmed feeling is the repeated sentence and not the actual task in front of you.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Per my example, the people I admire carry more than I do and do not say that sentence.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's not because their lives are empty or like they have tons of room and they're sipping margaritas at lunch.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: They're working really long days, doing really cool things, building large missions, but they don't narrate their lives the way that you do.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: They don't tell themselves they're overwhelmed.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: They say, This is potentially too much for me to do in this amount of time.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: What should I do about this?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: How do I prioritize more effectively?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Not, oh my God, I'm so overwhelmed.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'll never get through this.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's like, okay, I'll get through this.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: What should I do about this?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: How do I go through?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: How do I move forward?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: How do I filter?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: What should I filter out?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: How do I prioritize?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: What's the next thing I should focus on?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: How do I delegate the rest?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: So go back to the annoying thing my mentor told me, the one I wanted to fight in that moment.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: I was I was overwhelmed.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I thought.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: And he told me I'd feel overwhelmed too if I kept telling myself I was.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I hated that because it was true.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: You are carrying a real load, but somewhere in the middle of it, you also picked up a sentence or a series of sentences, and you have repeated them so long it started to feel like a fact instead of a choice, but it's still a fucking choice.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: It is a choice to feel overwhelmed or to not.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And this can be influenced, once again, in small, easy ways.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: I have posted notes.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think you probably see them in maybe the mirror behind me, right?
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: I usually have many of them, but this is a new office, so I only have a couple, right?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: But one of them is straight up just like building things takes a long, long time.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, I forgot.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm not gonna build it all today.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna build a piece of it today.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I shouldn't be overwhelmed by the thing, the fact that my 50-year mission isn't in front of me right now, right?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna take a long, long time.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: The next one literally says, overwhelm is a choice.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: I get to choose, even in the moments where I'm in crisis mode, and I have them, I'm I'm human, I have deep anxieties, insecurity, all these things that show up as well.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh, does feeling this way serve the larger mission?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Does it make my life better?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Or am I just allowing myself to pity myself?
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like in a deep moment of anxiety, a deep moment of overwhelm and insecurity, I could look at myself and be like, God, I'm just breaking down.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: But then what happens?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't do the thing I want to be doing.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm in this emotional state.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And the reality is like, yes, you need tools that regulate and recenter and put yourself back in a position where you can be a little bit more conscious about this decision.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Once you've used those tools and you're in a place where you can think a little bit more logically, the next logical question is, okay, yeah, I've been in this place of overwhelm for this last hour, right?
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: I've diffused it a little bit, but I need to get back to the thing that I want to be doing because action is going to bring me forward, not spinning my wheels and overthinking about the situation.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wait a second.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Do I need to be overwhelmed right now?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is this a predetermined state that I must experience?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Or is this a choice for me right now?
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And if it is a choice, and it is, could I choose to be less overwhelmed by deciding, right?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: By deciding that this shouldn't be as overwhelming, and you might have a bunch of resistance to that.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: I get it.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: But literally in the moment, just being like, you know what?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't as big of a deal as I'm playing it out to be.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Or, or if you can't do that reframe, then the other one is does feeling overwhelmed make it easier or harder for me to do my work to take action?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: The obvious answer is it makes it harder.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, well, if the change that I want to create or the action I want to take would be easier if I was less overwhelmed, then what is the point of being overwhelmed?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: There's one.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that can feel unsatisfying, but the reality is, I have seen this in people who have run really successful companies and really big projects and manage many, many people, and I've seen it in literature and I've seen it in philosophy.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Human beings have the capacity to determine their emotional response to a given situation after their initial primal emotions.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: You get to choose if you continue to spiral into overwhelm after the initial reaction or not.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: It is your choice.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: And if you choose to support yourself and to look at the environment and tune it such that when your plate is full, you don't feel the same level of overwhelm.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: What happens?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: You give yourself a higher probability of taking the actions that you want to and a higher probability of not taking the actions that you don't.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is how you influence your scrolling behaviors at like the root level.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: This is how you influence your consumptive behaviors.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is how you turn days of distraction into days of productivity.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: So if that resonated with you, subscribe to this channel, follow my account.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: And if you would like to increase your competency, your capacity to choose not being overwhelmed over being overwhelmed and leading toward action that would push your life forward toward goals that you want to be pursuing, reach out to me.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: I can help you.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Peace.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you enjoyed that episode.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you've been told your entire life that you're smart and you have potential, but you continue to see yourself not do what you said you would do again and again, and it's made you stop trusting in yourself or that you will ever achieve that potential, I want to help you.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Together, you and I will implement a core value-based system that will help you become decisive and focused.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to feel the relief from the weight on your shoulders because of the decreased noise in your head.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Strength each morning because you trust yourself to turn lost avoidant hours of your life into forward progress.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Peace, when you no longer have to hide how you actually spend your time.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, pride in yourself when you close your eyes every night before you go to sleep.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: If that's of interest to you, click the first link in the show notes, fill out the 30 second application, and grab a time on my calendar.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Spots are obviously limited because of my time and availability, but if they fill up and you're a good fit, I'll make sure you get on the wait list.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: I look forward to speaking with you.