Differently

Mindset Check-in: Strategies for Overwhelm

• Carla Reeves | Creator of The Differently Coaching Experience

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Episode Summary:
In this episode of Differently, Carla Reeves guides us through a powerful mindset check-in focused on managing overwhelm. Whether you're feeling burdened by responsibilities, commitments, or expectations, this conversation will help you regain control by shifting your thought patterns and realigning with what truly matters. Learn practical strategies to lighten your mental load, release pressure, and step into a more intentional way of living.

Key Takeaways:

  • The importance of cultivating a thought life and being the gardener of your own mind.
  • How to become aware of thought patterns that contribute to overwhelm.
  • The power of self-awareness in managing mental resilience.
  • A simple yet effective mindset shift: response-ability – the ability to choose how you respond.
  • Questions to ask yourself when experiencing overwhelm:
    • Where are you experiencing overwhelm in your life?
    • What thoughts are creating additional pressure?
    • Are these thoughts real and true, or can they be challenged?
    • Do you notice any recurring patterns?
  • Practical tools to reduce overwhelm:
    • Creating a Today, Tomorrow, Next Week, Next Month list to organize priorities.
    • Identifying one conversation that could relieve stress.
    • Writing down thoughts for deeper insight.
    • Releasing pressure and applying love to gain clarity.
    • Experimenting with following your energy rather than forcing tasks.

Resources & Next Steps:

  • Join our free Differently class on February 21st: carlareeves.com/freeclass
  • Connect with Carla by sending a message via the podcast show notes.
  • Recommended reading: As a Man Thinketh by James Allen.
  • Subscribe and leave a review if you found this episode helpful!

Call to Action:
If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend who might need this encouragement. Let’s spread the word and help others navigate overwhelm differently. Don’t forget to subscribe for weekly episodes that challenge the status quo and inspire a life lived with boldness and authenticity!

Thanks for tuning in – see you next week!

Learn more about Carla:
Website: https:/www.carlareeves.com/
Connect on LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reevescarla/
Connect on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@differentlythepodcast

Go to https://carlareeves.com/freeclass to get The Class schedule, sign up, and/or pass it on to a friend. Each month is a new topic. Come hang out and learn with us for FREE!
Go to https://www.carlareeves.com/getunstuck.com to download Carla's on demand journaling workshop + exercise to help you stop spinning and start moving forward.

Explore Coaching with Carla: https://bookme.name/carlareeves/lite/explore-coaching

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Thank you for listening!

Speaker 1:

I'm Carla Reeves, and this is Differently. Whether you feel stuck in survival, navigating a change or seeking more for your life, may this podcast be your weekly nudge to take a risk to build a life that is uniquely bold, authentic and in alignment with your deepest values. What if you worried less about the bumps in the road and instead got equipped for the journey? Get ready to rethink what's possible. Hey, welcome back to another episode of Differently. If you're new, thank you for checking this podcast out. We're so happy to see new listeners and if you're gaining value from the podcast, the greatest gift to us is that you share it with someone else who might enjoy it. Thank you. If you're already doing that, so grateful.

Speaker 1:

So remember last month, I told you we were going to start doing a monthly mindset check-in every month. So that's what we're doing today. This is it. Last month, we did this from the perspective of the new year and setting out with our goals. Today, we're going to do a mindset check-in around the places where you might be experiencing overwhelm.

Speaker 1:

So before we get to that, for those of you who are new, I just want to share a simple tidbit about my story. It's super simple. I spent half of my life checking the boxes to become what I thought I was supposed to be, and the second half of my life breaking all of that down so that I could be who I was made to be. And now I'm in the practice of living free, and it is a practice, and I've been helping people get unstuck out of survival and moving forward intentionally since 2010. So quick intro to the mindset check-in I'm on a mission to equip people in how to manage their mind and cultivate a thought life so that you can go all in on your own life, and this has been my journey and practice too. Cultivating a thought life might be a new term to you. It might sound strange, but it's about tending a garden like a gardener. I want you to think about being the gardener of your own mind. It's about learning to self-soothe. It's about learning to calm your mind and organize your thoughts so that you can move with intention instead of your thoughts running your life. It's about becoming aware and paying attention to your thoughts, their impact, and then beginning to use this God-given ability to shape and influence the quality, shape and direction of your life. I believe that this is the leader's superpower, whether you're leading your life, a family, your business, leadership comes in all forms. This happens to be one of the hardest things for fast moving, high achieving kind of people, but it's one of the most important, I believe. Kind of people, but it's one of the most important, I believe.

Speaker 1:

Mental resilience comes from slowing down, paying attention, understanding your own mind, recognizing the patterns of thought that show up again and again and derail you, calling out the lies, remembering who you are and what you're up to, so that you can choose instead of react, and do this on a regular basis. This is the practice in the book as a man thinketh, he says. As he thinks, so he is. As he continues to think, so he remains. That's by James Allen, an incredible book, by the way, managing our thought life. It's also biblical Proverbs 23, seven says for as he think it, for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. And Romans 12, two don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. And one of my favorite quotes by George Bernard Shaw says keep yourself clean and bright for you are the window through which you see the world. This all speaks to the incredible responsibility that we have to manage our thoughts. You can think of it as an obligation kind of thing, or you can hyphen the word response, dash ability, and it speaks to our ability to respond. It's a choice, and that choice might change your life in the very best way.

Speaker 1:

So for the mindset check-in this month, in my private coaching work, I've noticed a common thread with high achievers Often we find ourselves drowning in responsibilities, commitments and expectations of others selves drowning in responsibilities, commitments and expectations of others. When I work with clients, they are often expressing that they're just got too many balls in their air. They're juggling too many things at the same time and they're afraid something important is going to fall. As we dive in and understand what's truly going on in their mind, instead of continuing to muscle through it, mask it, avoid it, numb it, we really help them find where they hold power so that they you can begin making small little adjustments that you put you back in the driver's seat of your life, and I want that for you too. I'm going to share with you some of the things that I would do with a client when they're experiencing navigating overwhelm, and so these are some questions I'm going to give you that I would ask a client to kind of start to dive in and actually see what's going on under the surface.

Speaker 1:

So the first question is I want you to just think about, like, where are you experiencing overwhelm, what area of your life? What does it look like, what does it feel like? And then I want you to look at what thoughts have been circling in your head around that and just be curious. This is blameless discernment, no judgment, just being curious what's happening in your thoughts, because usually our thoughts are creating so much extra weight, pressure, overwhelm, that that's really the source that's really dragging us down and making the whole thing worse. The next question is are those thoughts real? Are they true? Can you challenge them? And the last question is are these familiar? Can you see a pattern here that maybe shows up every month or every time you're, you know, getting ready for an event, or every time a certain relationship in your life, something happens or somebody responds this way or asks you to do something? What are the patterns? Because the more you can understand your own mind, the patterns, and where this overwhelm starts to show up, the more you can get in the driver's seat and start to shift it. So if you're driving, you may have just been thinking about those questions, but I would encourage you to go back and get out pen and paper and actually write some of this out, because I think you'll get some really great insight.

Speaker 1:

So there's a quote, and I don't know the author, but it says we all carry a load. The heavy is in your head, and that's exactly what we're talking about here is that sometimes we can't change the load that we're carrying, but we can impact the heavy because the heavy is caused by our thoughts pressure that we add, urgency that we add, and so on. So a few more questions, and this is more tangibly to start to look at. First question where can you lighten your load? And this might be mentally, physically, spiritually. Where are you taking on too much? Where are you saying yes when you mean no? Where are you adding thought weight? That is making it all worse. And if you're feeling an enormous amount of pressure, you want to start to look and ask yourself is this real? Is there a hard deadline or is this one you have self-imposed? I do this all the time.

Speaker 1:

And the next one is if the overwhelm in your life had a message for you, what would it be? Listen closely. This is the work, and the more you do this, the more you're going to understand your own mind, the more you can use it to change your experience. Right where you are and when possible when you're feeling overwhelmed, if you can walk away, get quiet and calm the waters inside of your mind and body, you're going to have a better perspective about everything that's going on. Okay, practical tools and strategies. One is just my favorite prescription for overwhelm, which is release pressure, apply love, because usually, the moment we can release the pressure, everything relaxes and when you relax, you can see better. You have better perspective. You know where you need to communicate or cancel or delegate or delete, and then you'll know how to stand tall and take that next step. Okay, three more tangible ideas for you. This is one that I love to do. You can grab a piece of paper and make four columns and you're just good. The columns are today, tomorrow, next week and next month.

Speaker 1:

Often, overwhelm is caused because we collapse everything that's on our plate into like feels like we have to do it all right now, today. So if you can separate this into categories, you're going to create some space in your mind and some relief, because it's not all today, and then you can really focus where you need to today. The second one is often with clients. When they're overwhelmed, it's because they've been putting something off, avoiding a conversation or maybe procrastinating, and often that involves communication. So if you could just, is there one conversation you could have today that would relieve some of this pressure or overwhelm or avoidance that you've been feeling? And the third one is to take the questions that I gave you. Pull out a notebook and really go deeper, really sit with the questions, listen for the answers. You're going to get some deeper insight there. You might bump up against the obstacle of just feeling resistant, of letting anything go on your list. Be curious about that too.

Speaker 1:

This is highly common and this isn't about giving up or letting people down or doing a bad job or not being as effective. It's really about making small steps within yourself to realign your life so that you can show up more healthy, so that you can have boundaries that allow you to have more space in your life and reduce the overwhelm. And this isn't a luxury. It doesn't involve pedicures and spa days. It's really self-discipline, and the self-discipline is important because there's something more important in your life that requires you to show up and do this work. So if this doesn't work for you or you're still feeling overwhelmed, this is what we do.

Speaker 1:

We've been helping people, like I said, since 2010,. Get unstuck and moving forward intentionally. We have different ways we can support you. It could be a burst of coaching, something small or a deeper, intensive, and the great thing about asking for help or working with someone is that you can relax. You don't have to figure it out. You don't have to know how to do this. We know how and we're going to guide you to a fresher perspective, a calmer mind, so that you can move forward in your life.

Speaker 1:

I have one more strategy for you, but I want to share something with you. First, we hosted our first free, differently class in January. We had a great turnout, and we're putting together February's class, which is gonna be about managing overwhelm differently. It's gonna be on Friday, february 21st. Would love to have you there. You can get all the details at carlarevescom forward slash free class, and there'll be a link in the show notes too. Thank you for hanging with me this long. I want to give you one more strategy that I love to use. The next time you're feeling overwhelmed with a long to-do list, I want to dare you to try something different.

Speaker 1:

I've been experiencing experimenting more and more with trusting and following my energy. So, as an entrepreneur, I always have a to-do list. I always have goals, and sometimes my energy doesn't want to do what my to-do list says I should do, and sometimes we just have to push through and do the thing. That's okay. I'm not talking about those moments, but I'm talking about the moments where you actually do have some flexibility, and the way I do this is I'll, instead of doing the thing I have to do, I'll scan my whole list and kind of get a feel for where does my energy want to go. What do I, what am I excited or want to do? What feels easier to do in this moment? And I often discover as I do that doing that other thing informs something for that thing I had to do. I discover new information that makes that thing I had to do easier. Sometimes it makes stuff on the to-do list go away entirely. It's really, really powerful and I get back in the flow of my creativity instead of forcing myself to do things, and there's just greater peace, greater energy, greater clarity around everything. I encourage you to experiment with it.

Speaker 1:

And lastly, send me a message here on the podcast. Right at the top of the show notes you will see a message that says send Carla a message. Click that and say hello. I would love to hear from you. Tell me what you love about the podcast, what you'd like to hear about, what you don't like. I would be so delighted to hear from you and I want to leave you with one last quote from James Allen Self-control is strength, right thought is mastery, calmness is power. I'll see you next week.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Differently. It's been an honor to share this conversation with you. You know, one of the keys to living fully is to take action when you're inspired to do so. I hope you found that spark of inspiration today and would you help us spread the word. Did someone you know come to mind while you were listening? If this episode could impact someone you know, please share it and pass it along. New episodes drop weekly, so tap that subscribe button and join us next time as we continue to challenge the status quo and get equipped to live life differently.