I left a meeting with one of my mentors recently with a page of fabulous next steps for my coaching, workshop, and book business. There were probably 10 actionable items noted on the page, each one of which was the tip of a project iceberg. I left the meeting in full overwhelm. It's not as if I'm underutilized these days!

I took the page back to my office and put it on my desk where I could see it while I did other work. Now and then I would look over at the page and feel awful. Before the afternoon was out I realized a few things about me and that page.

First, I realized that I wished I was "the kind of person who" could knock off some of those items in no time flat. Someone who could devote a couple of hours one evening and crank out high level results for, say, half of the items on the list. And then do the other half the next morning. But I am not that person, and I felt diminished by my less than favorable comparison.

Then I realized that:

• I had completely imagined this brilliantly efficient person who could work oh-so-much-faster and better than I can.


• As soon as I had invented her, I went into a compare-and-despair routine, which did not support me to take any action.


• Since I had invented this character who was a better me than I was, I could also make her disappear. So I made her disappear.

At that point, my resistance fell away, and I could finally take on the list for what it simply WAS: some potential projects for 2006. I stopped being overwhelmed.

Now I could actually do something useful. My first order of business was to identify which projects I wanted to take on, period. And then to prioritize: which tip of which iceberg would be first in line. And my second order of business was to schedule some project time into my calendar for Iceberg #1. At this point I became energized.

Very often, what's at the heart of feeling overwhelmed is resisting your limits. A panicked lawyer client with pneumonia, sick children, and a huge trial coming up expected herself to pull all-nighters as she had when she was in college. Once she accepted that she was no longer as "invincible" as she had been in her younger, simpler circumstances, she was able to get over her panic, plan how to use her limited resources strategically, and get going.

What personal or structural limitation are you resisting? If you can accept the real limits of your circumstances, chances are good you can move beyond feeling overwhelmed and get back to work, which is where the breakthroughs happen.

A steady diet of feeling overwhelmed is not good for you.

Copyright 2006 Sharon Teitelbaum. All rights reserved.