Overcoming Overwhelm

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I know first-hand what it feels like to reach a breaking point with the pressures of life. When you have so much on your plate, so much to do, so much stress that all you can to do is come home and veg in front of the television. Or when you are in a meeting and you are completely checked out, unable to focus on anything.

Here’s five strategies to counter overwhelm.

  1. Recognize it – with some appreciation. Overwhelm is a biological stress response. It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. The recognition of being overwhelmed is a sign of self-awareness. Fighting it only adds to your stress. Appreciate that a conscientious, sensitive person is susceptible to being overwhelmed from time to time. Resist the natural reaction to get overwhelmed by being overwhelmed.
  2. Step back. When overcome with stress, it is important to step away from the situation to get some perspective. If you can’t step away physically, give yourself a five-minute mental break. You might need a day on a weekend to turn off your devices and take a complete break from the demands in your life.
  3. Investigate it. Resist the tendency to escape to devices, television or other vices, and instead take the time to reflect on any changes you need to make in your life. Get into nature for some relaxation. Call a trusted confidant. Do some journal writing. Sit quietly and practice listening to your inner knowing. What important values have you been neglecting? Pay particular attention to what you need to say NO to and what you need to start saying YES to.
  4. Break it down. Make a list of everything that is creating the overwhelm. Once you have written a list, separate it into three categories: (a) what needs to be done this week; (b) what needs to be done after this week; (c) things you need to say no to. Then pick the three things that need to be done today and have a “small giant” success.
  5. Plan a new structure. Start with defining what matters to you. Create space between a request and an impulse to say yes to prevent overwhelm in the future. And next time you get overwhelmed, appreciate that you are still learning.

Ambition, Renewal, And Why Rest Is Essential To Achievement

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When my father, who was once a nationally ranked gymnast, coached me in high school track, his approach to training came from University of Oregon’s track coach Bill Bowerman. The legendary running coach, Arthur Lydiard, who presided over New Zealand’s golden era in world track and field during the 1960s, had mentored Bowerman. He introduced Bowerman to a philosophy of training that revolutionized American track and field in the 1960s.

Bowerman’s approach to training had been the same as virtually every other American long-distance running coach: push hard until you are exhausted. This philosophy was based on the belief that the harder you trained, the more progress you made. The results revealed severe limitations. Prior to Bowerman, Americans were virtually absent in the world long-distance running realm.

After returning from New Zealand, Bowerman began exhorting Oregon runners to finish workouts exhilarated, not exhausted… His credo was that it was better to underdo than overdo. He had learned from Lydiard that rest was as important as work to keep a runner from illness or injury. Bowerman realized that his runners’ training was more effective when they allowed ample rest between hard workouts. He trained and raced his men to seasonal peaks but would back off before they crashed. To incoming freshman he preached: Stress, recover, improve…

While commonly accepted now, the idea of alternating hard days in distance running training, was revolutionary at the time. And it didn’t go down so well with the coaching community. When Bowerman first articulated the hard-easy method, he was widely despised for it. Kenny Moore, one of his legendary athletes and author of Bowerman and the Men of Oregon, wrote, “The anthem of most coaches then was ‘the more you put in, the more you get out.’ In response to Bowerman, coaches were morally affronted. His easy days were derided… called coddling.” Moore adds parenthetically, “His common sense approach is still resisted by a minority, and probably always will be.”

Bowerman’s response to his critics was to “crush their runners with his.” His “Men of Oregon” won four NCAA team titles. Over his legendary career, he trained thirty-one Olympic athletes, fifty-one All-Americans, twelve American record-holders, twenty-two NCAA champions and sixteen sub-four minute milers. During his twenty-four years as coach at the University of Oregon, the Ducks track and field team had a winning season every season but one, attained four NCAA titles, and finished in the top ten in the nation sixteen times.

Bowerman also developed the first lightweight outsole that would revolutionize the running shoe. With some latex, leather, glue and his wife’s waffle iron, he created a durable, stable and light Waffle sole that set a new standard for shoe performance and helped him co-found the Nike Corporation. My dad bought me a pair of those original waffle running shoes. It was an amazing shoe at the time. Bowerman also ignited the jogging boom in America. How that happened is another great story.

Since Bowerman’s success days at the University of Oregon, the physiological foundation for the “hard/easy” system has been validated. In short, physiology has verified what Bowerman learned and applied. The trick is first to provide enough but not too much stress, and second, to allow enough recovery to replenish energy stores, heal and adapt.

As in the outdated “no rest system” for training distance runners, I wonder if we aren’t living our lives these days with an outdated belief that doesn’t take into consideration the importance of rest and renewal. In today’s world, with its unyielding emphasis on success, productivity, and efficiency, we have lost the rhythm of balancing between effort and recovery. Constantly striving, I see so many people exhausted and deprived in the midst of great abundance. How many of us long for time with friends, family, important relationships, even just a moment to ourselves, as we constantly look down at our devices and strive to achieve more? We now find ourselves compulsively checking for messages from work while in the midst of our vacations and times when we need to be connected to who and what really matters.

My challenge for you is to create some structured time over the summer to rest, attend to what is important to you, and make room for whatever you would call renewal. Whether it’s a two-week break, a one unproductive renewal day per week, or an hour a day to just to rest, take the time to simply walk in nature, spend some time hanging with kids, or sit and read a novel. Carve out some time to rest your body and mind, restore your creativity, and regain your natural state of inner peace and well-being.

We are clever people, efficient and high-powered, but in our fervor to get things done we are forgetting the simple art of living. Let us resolve that we will begin today to take a little time to relax, to be idle, to go more slowly and be more attentive to the world around us. Let us take time to be still, to be present, to notice the beauty in this world, to watch the sun go down behind the hill.

Renewal and relaxation aren’t a luxury. They, along with hard work, are a necessity to a life well lived.

Bill Bowerman knew the importance of rest in training Olympic athletes. We can all learn from the legacy he left us.

Nine Questions That Will Change Your Life

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For the past twenty years my work has been devoted to helping leaders, at all levels and in all walks of life, realize and express their true greatness in the cultures where they work and serve. I have been fortunate to work with thousands of leaders from around the world and it has been a remarkable journey thus far.

I have learned from the conscious, authentic leaders that they need more than techniques, tools, and strategies to be a successful leader. The best leaders I have met understand that they also need to grow as people. They understand the importance of character, integrity, wisdom, maturity, and caring. They understand that great leadership starts with being a good person. It is that simple and that difficult.

When asked what life experiences prepared them for leadership, rather than management training seminars or MBA programs, leaders say such things as, “coming to terms with a life-threatening illness”; “spending a month in a silent retreat”; “recovery from an addiction”; “facing the death of a family member”; “raising a family”; or “investing in a long-term coaching or psychotherapy experience.”

Leadership is not an event. It’s not a noun. Leadership is a verb, a life-long process, a journey of coming to know yourself. You don’t get promoted to being leader. You have to earn the right to be called one. There are no effective tools, only tools that allow greater effectiveness by the person using them. Without a tool-user capable of applying the tools consciously, there is no lasting effectiveness. For this reason, the user’s development and maturity are just as important as the development of techniques and their objective excellence.

One of the ways you can mature as a person and thus prepare yourself to lead, is to make room for reflection and contemplation in your life. Below are nine questions that, when reflected and acted upon, will deepen your personal leadership presence.

  1. How much is enough?

Normal body cells grow, divide, and die in a relatively orderly fashion. When cells start to grow out of control, it’s called cancer. Rather than dying, cancer cells continue to grow and form new, abnormal cells. When the human instincts of ambition, achievement, and material success are unbridled, they become cancerous. How much work is enough? How much money is enough? How much success if enough? Work is a tool to create and sustain the quality of life that we most desire. All action, including work, needs to be measured against your values. How much do you need to sustain a good life?

  1. What do you do that you love?

Authenticity is where ability and passion intersect. What do you do that fulfills you? What fills you up? What do you do that brings you meaning? Often people get trapped doing what they are very good at but not passionate about. While these efforts may bring rewards, they don’t bring fulfillment or meaning. What brings you deep satisfaction may or may not be found in your paid work. When you discover work that you both love and are good at, count that as a blessing. Where in your life do you do what you love?

  1. What is your gift?

Every one of us has a unique talent. As the Celtic writer John O’Donohue put it, “You were sent a shape of destiny in which you would be able to express the special gift that you bring to the world. If someone else could fulfill your destiny, then they would be there in your place, and you would not be here. It is in the depths of your life that you will discover the invisible necessity that has brought you here. When you begin to decipher this, your gift and your giftedness come alive. Your heart quickens and the urgency of living rekindles your creativity. When you can awaken this sense of destiny, you come into rhythm with your life…” What is your destiny? What is your gift?

  1. Who do you love?

“I need somebody to love,” sang the Beatles, and they got it right. Devoting yourself to someone and experiencing the full range of the anguish and ecstasy of love, makes you a better person. To love requires courage, vulnerability, compassion, and presence. All these are not just qualities of a good lover. They are qualities of a good person. And they are qualities of a good leader. The decision to love is always a risk, and it is in taking that risk that one meets the full life. In leadership, if you cannot connect, you will be incapable of leading. Embracing love, in all its challenge and splendor, will teach you to live and to lead.

  1. For what purpose?

Leadership is both passionate and consuming work. So strong are the emotions of leadership that they will overwhelm those who have not developed a sense of purpose. A life without purpose is like a ship’s captain without a compass. The winds of demands and distractions, accompanied by the whims of emotions, would shipwreck even the best of us onto a reef of frustration. A sense of purpose inspires you, gives you traction on the steep slopes of self-doubt and discouragement, helps put failures and successes in perspective, and shines a light that enables you to keep walking in the darkness.

  1. Who do you listen to?

Leadership, by its very nature, is a force of attraction. Attraction means others will demand your attention. Technology makes us even more accessible to the wrong or unfocused messages if we aren’t both mindful and strategic. In the frenetic world of overload, listen to the right people through selective hearing and focused attention. Leadership requires both the capacity to listen and the capacity to know who to listen to. It also means learning to listen to oneself, distinguishing your inner voice from the voices placing demands upon us. And one has to structure in time for a nourishing community and self-reflection that helps regain perspective and restores spiritual resources.

  1. What are you committed to?

The poet William Blake once asked, “Does a firm persuasion that a thing is so, make it so? …All poets believe that it does, and in ages of imagination this firm persuasion removed mountains; but many are not capable of a firm persuasion of anything.” What immovable conviction do you have? What is your firm persuasion? What do you know you will complete, regardless of the obstacles?

  1. What difference do you make?

Ultimate success, the success that surpasses success, is significance, the difference you make in the lives of others. Significance is not measured in the balance sheet, the win-loss records, the trophies, or the fame or notoriety you manage to attain. Significance, or supreme success, is found in the hearts and lives you have touched that are in some way better because of knowing you. Significance is ultimately measured in changed lives, strong character, and sustained values, rather than in material gain, temporal achievement, or status. As David Brooks states in his book, “The Road To Character,” there is a difference between résumé virtues and eulogy virtues. What is written on your résumé is very different that what will be said at your funeral. What difference do you make?

  1. What are you grateful for?

I learned years ago from one of my mentors, Dan Sullivan, to make your gratitude bigger than your success. Gratitude is what makes success rewarding and a life-long journey rather than a destination. Gratitude will bring joy and change everything in your life. What you appreciate, appreciates. All efforts to achieve with the intent to impress others, gain approval, avoid rejection, or gain fame will eventually be unsatisfying. Gratitude is what makes success worthwhile, because gratitude enables you to come from a place of wonderment, joy, and personal satisfaction. Don’t climb a mountain so the world will see you, climb a mountain so you will see the world.

My father used to say that it isn’t the answers that determine the character of a person; it’s the questions. Being a good person and a good leader doesn’t require pristine answers to these questions. What it requires is a willingness to carefully seek the truth that speaks to you and the patience to persist, even in the midst of doubt and uncertainty. Becoming a person who has earned the right to be called a leader is a matter of continual investigation and vigilance.

Work Life Balance – It Isn’t About Balance

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Balancing poses in my yoga practice are the most difficult for me. I’ve learned that the harder I try to balance myself, the more I lose my balance. I’ve learned, from good yoga teachers over the years, that instead of trying to balance to: “Relax. Stop judging. Stop ‘trying.’ Breathe. Sometimes you’ll find the balance; sometimes you won’t. Keep practicing.”

We talk about work-life balance these days as if it is something to be achieved like running a marathon, making a sale or achieving a goal. Then when we fall short of our expectations we are critical of ourselves for a lack of balance in our life. I’ve met people who leave their offices religiously at 4:30 every day, only to go home to a life that is terribly out of balance. I’ve also met people who will stay at work until 10 some nights and actually live in a balanced way. Balance in life, like balance in a yoga posture, isn’t really about balance at all. You can’t achieve balance, because balance is not a destination. It’s a method of travel. Work-life balance is, instead, about being centered and living fully.

Keep in mind three principles that will help you find balance.

  • Sort out what’s work and what is life. Become clear about what work is and what life is, and make sure you have this sorted out. Even if work is tremendously fulfilling, it isn’t my life. In the periods in my life when I’ve been a workaholic, I had this confused. My work was my life. Work defined me as a person, so I had to work harder and harder in order to be a good person. I know today that my work is an expression of my life, but it is not the totality of my life. While work remains important and is fulfilling, it no longer defines me. My life is much bigger than my work. I remind myself these days that when I’m away from work, my life is time with my family, friends, community, being in nature, or helping others. I’ve learned that although work is critical to my development, when I define myself by my work, I am partially avoiding life. That part I need to say no to, walk away from, and learn how to be in life.
  • Clarify your Values. The antidote to exhaustion is not rest. The antidote to exhaustion is alignment and wholeheartedness. In my Authentic Leadership workshops, I have participants reflect upon their future and what matters most to them. I ask them to think about their relationships, health, contributions to others, expression of their talents, and the time they set aside for inner growth. This is an excellent exercise for you, too. From your reflections, list the top five values in your life. Then rate your life in each area on a scale from 1-10. Be honest. This is your list, not anyone else’s. At the beginning of each week, make sure that you schedule time in your day-planner to attend to each of these values. Balance is about living in alignment with your values. Feeling out of balance indicates that energy is being drained from you by living your life according to someone else’s conditions. Carve out time on a weekly basis for your soul’s desires. A key for living fully is to say “no” to the wrong opportunities.
  • Develop a positive relationship with the present moment. Being rushed, impatient, frustrated, or stressed are indicators that you are not present. You are either speeding forward or thinking about the past, without concentrating on being here now. Living fully is about fully living in the present. Next time you are stressed with a project, impatiently waiting in line, or frustrated with a co-worker, heed the guidance of my yoga teacher and take a few deep breaths to connect with yourself. Look around and see how you can be present with the world around you. Notice the beauty of a flower or plant nearby. Smile at the person ahead of you in the checkout line. Take time to really listen without judging the person you are frustrated with. It’s quite amazing how balanced you can feel in the midst of perceived pressure if you remember to stop and be here now. The best present you can give anyone is to be fully present in the present.
  • Stop trying to get more balance in your life, and enjoy your day. Stress isn’t in the task at hand or from the demands of others. Stress is in my head. Being stressed is a choice. And I’m not going to wait for tomorrow to enjoy myself. If I can’t enjoy myself today it’s not going to get any better when I’m on a vacation or retired. I can enjoy each task and stay relaxed in midst of the tasks. There is no stress except what I chose to be stressed about. There is only work to be done. Enjoy the precious moments that are in front of you right now. None of us know how many of these moments we have left. While we can plan for the future, life is lived in the now. Life will never be experienced tomorrow or yesterday. Life is what is going on at this moment. Life happens. Enjoy it.