Ep #73: Easily Reduce Overwhelm by Letting Go Instead of Holding On Too Tightly

episode summary

Ever tried to control every little thing during a crisis, only to end up even more stressed?

When we feel overwhelmed, it’s common to try to force a solution - only to end up feeling MORE overwhelmed. What if the best approach isn't controlling the situation, but actually doing nothing at all?

In this episode, we dive into how our natural instinct to take control in stressful situations can backfire and actually increase our overwhelm. This episode presents a fresh perspective on solving problems by letting go instead of forcing.

When you listen, you’ll learn:

Why women often default to control in times of stress and how this can sabotage our efforts to find peace.
Why forcing a solution can make you feel worse, and what to do instead.
Practical tips on how to embrace acceptance, let go of control, and find unexpected benefits in doing less.

Hit play now to uncover a new way to handle stress that could save you time, energy, and give you more peace of mind!

Featured on the podcast:
Ep #2| Control What You Can
Overwhelm Quiz

Listen to this episode on Apple or Spotify!

For the full show notes and transcript, head over here.

If you are sick and tired of feeling overwhelmed, I can help. I coach clients on 1 on 1 to create a more calm, relaxing, intentional life. The first step is to set up a complimentary discovery session right here.

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Want to learn more about me or my work? Head to my website at www.michellegauthier.com

Discover practical strategies to overcome imposter syndrome, manage time effectively, and cultivate a calm and positive mindset while setting boundaries and combating negative self-talk in high-stress jobs, all while learning how to say no and prioritize self-care on the 'Overwhelmed Working Woman' podcast.

Music Used: Pop Guitar Intro 01 by TaigaSoundProd, Licensed under CC BY 4.0: https://filmmusic.io/standard-licen

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CHAPTERS:

2:26 - The Path of Most Resistance

7:26 - What If I Do Nothing?

When things start to go a little sideways, human nature can often be to just try to grasp on and take control and force the outcome that we want. Today, I'm going to tell you why that's not always the best answer. You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less. I'm your host, ichelle Gothier, a former overwhelmed working woman and current life coach. On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's working woman experiences, and in each episode, you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease and relaxation to your life. Hey friend, thanks for joining today. Today, we are talking about two situations where I have recently created a situation for myself where I went from feeling overwhelmed to even more overwhelmed before solving the problem, and so I want to talk to you today about how to cut out that middleman, that middleman of making yourself even more overwhelmed before you solve the problem and instead go straight to the solution. As women, we often have a tendency, when we're feeling stressed or overwhelmed, to try to control something, and that, in and of itself, isn't bad, but what I found myself doing was really forcing things and trying to control outcomes, and in doing that, just made myself feel worse and more overwhelmed for longer and then finally eventually solving the problem. So today we're going to talk about why, as women, we gravitate towards control in times of stress, how forcing outcomes actually increases our overwhelm - so trying to force a solution that doesn't work increases our overwhelm - and then eventually we get to embracing acceptance and letting go and making peace with situations, which is the quickest way to feel better. So those are the three things we're going to talk about today. I'm going to tell you two stories about how I have recently taken the path of most resistance and caused the most overwhelm for myself possible w ithout meaning to. I'm sharing this with you so that, hopefully, you can not do that. You can catch yourself before you create that situation for you. Okay, so here's what happened in my situation.
Michelle Gauthier:
2:26
My kids and I went to Europe this summer - I think I've already talked about that on the podcast. We had this wonderful two-week-long trip, got to do all this cool stuff, and the day that we were leaving, we were leaving from my dear friend Simonetta's beach house in Italy and taking the train to Nice to fly back home to the US, and on the way to Nice, I kept getting texts from American Airlines that our flight was going to be delayed, delayed, delayed, which was okay. That's annoying, but that was okay. But eventually, by the time we got to Nice, our flight had been canceled and rescheduled for Monday. So this was on a Saturday, so two more days.
Michelle Gauthier:
3:04
So immediately, that unexpected change put me into this first step that I want to talk about, which is what can I control? So I've got a whole episode on what you can and can't control and how focusing on what you can control is a good way to solve a problem. So it started off with good intentions. I called American Airlines. What I essentially found out pretty quickly was you know, we're in France during the Olympics, our flight was moved to Monday and there were no seats on any plane going anywhere that could get us back to the US sooner than that. So that took like five or ten minutes on the phone and I controlled what I could control, which was asking the question and finding out what my options were. So that was okay.
Michelle Gauthier:
3:53
But then where it went sideways is that I just got it in my head that I was going to force an outcome. So I was going to force some kind of solution and we were going to get home. So, bless this woman from American Airlines, who, by the way, was nice throughout this entire conversation, we spent 90 more minutes on the phone and I was asking her, okay, I had a map of Europe on my phone that I was looking at, I'm like, okay, what if we fly to Amsterdam and then we try to get to the US? Okay, no, not, that doesn't work. What if we fly to Barcelona and then we try to fly to the US? So she checked every idea that I had and, after like 90 minutes, the best solution that she came up with was us flying to London, spending the night, taking like a 5 am flight from London which isn't in the right direction if you're trying to get to the US, then back to Madrid, spending all day in Madrid, and then taking a night flight to fly to Toronto, and then from Toronto to St Louis, where we live. It was ridiculous and it would have gotten us home probably like 12 hours earlier than our newly scheduled flight, which was an easy flight to Philadelphia, fly home, no big deal.
Michelle Gauthier:
5:07
And it was at that point that I realized, why am I forcing this? Why don't I just take a look around me and be like oh okay, I have my two teenagers here with me. I can call my clients and let them know that I'm delayed and we have to move our sessions from Monday to a different day that week. None of them will be upset with me. I can ask my brother to watch the dog for one more day. I can tell the handsome man friend to please pick us up on a different day. Like it was really no big deal when I stopped and thought about it.
Michelle Gauthier:
5:39
So once I kind of let go of trying to control the outcomes and force something that wasn't gonna happen, the second I sort of put that message out into the universe of like, okay, I'm just gonna accept this, all these amazing things started happening. So I'm hot and sweaty and frustrated and I decided I'm going to walk to a nearby hotel because it showed that they had rooms online. I tell the woman I'm traveling with my two kids, our flight got canceled, we need a place to stay tonight. I'm obviously hot and sweaty. She shows me right to the room before I even paid, turns down the air conditioning to show me how cool it is in there, gives me a glass of water, says we have tickets to this local beach that you can use, etc, etc. It's like everything started opening up the second that I just let go of control and we ended up having the nicest, nicest two days. We went to the beach, we just rented bikes and rode around. It was the perfect ending to a wonderful trip and it was exactly what we needed, and I would have missed it and forced us to fly all night in various directions and countries if I had just stuck with my
Michelle Gauthier:
6:50
'I am going to solve this' solution. I am going to force this problem to be solved. So the reason why I really want to share this with you today is because I think that a lot of us, especially when we are accomplished women who are used to being able to get things done - sometimes things come up where the best option is to do nothing or just to accept what the situation is. It's not always the case. Like, for example, let's just pretend that we had to get home for, like, a family wedding or something. I might have taken that crazy option, but we didn't.
Michelle Gauthier:
7:26
And so the real thing that I want to teach you today on this podcast is to, number one, notice when you find yourself taking that first step of trying to take control when something feels unexpected or overwhelming. Again, not a problem, in fact, that's a great step. Look at what's in your control, take some steps, but then don't forget to stop and ask yourself wait, what if I just accept this? What if I just do nothing? Is there any way that this solution could be better than the solution that I had thought of? And, honestly, I wouldn't have chosen to have a two-day delay, but it was one of my favorite parts of our trip. So if you can pause and ask yourself, even in a work solution, a work situation, could this option where, let's just say, I don't know, there's a reorg and your team changes, or something like, could this solution actually turn out to be good or better than the original one that I was trying to force? Okay, Michelle's Do Less for More Success tip for today ties in exactly with this episode, and the tip is - let's think back on that story that I just told you throughout this podcast.
Michelle Gauthier:
8:47
I could have saved myself 90 minutes of my life if I had just paused and asked myself the question, do I actually need to do this? Would it be better to do nothing? So today I challenge you, somewhere in your life, to ask yourself that question. When you're rushing around to do something, ask yourself, wait, is there any way that I should just not do this or just accept what it is? Even if the answer is no, it's better. Like, for example, this morning my daughter missed the bus and it kind of threw our whole family into a flurry of okay, let's jump in the car, etc, etc. But I found myself pausing and thinking, okay, are there any other solutions? Is there anything that I could do to make this less stressful? And the answer in this case was, not really. I'm not going to let her stay home from school the whole day. There's no secondary bus coming, none of the neighbors are driving to school that I could ask just to give her a ride. So I'm just going to go ahead and do it, but just pausing and checking to see if your solution is the one that you want to do, sometimes you'll find that actually I don't need to do anything about this and save yourself a bunch of time. So give that a try, just somewhere in your life today.
Michelle Gauthier:
10:01
Today we've been talking a lot about making yourself more overwhelmed, not on purpose, by trying to force outcomes. If you've been feeling overwhelmed and you can't exactly figure out why, I have this awesome quiz on the homepage of my website, which I will put the link in the show notes where you can take the quiz and figure out what is causing your overwhelm. And not only does it tell you hey, here's the problem, it also gives you three solutions that you can do to try to help yourself feel less overwhelmed. So if you're feeling overwhelmed and not sure why, take that quiz and find out more. Okay, have a great week. See you next time. Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast. If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthier.com. See you next week.