Our thoughts tire us more than work

If you tell me you’re stressed, or exhausted, and I ask you why, almost everybody answers me with a list of stuff going on in their mind. I get a list of facts, and intermingled there’s a lot of thoughts like “everything becomes a problem”, “it just never stops”, “I never get a break”, “I don’t know how to…” and so on.

YOU think you’re stressed and exhausted and unmotivated because of everything you just told me.

The REAL problem, what’s really tiring you, is the mix of thoughts and facts spinning in your brain. When we take our thoughts at face value, thinking they’re just another fact, it seems overwhelming.

When you think “It just never stops”, how do you feel?

Most often it will be overwhelm, anxiety, stress, worry, defeated…

And, as our brains are trained to look for the negative, it will immediately go looking for EVERYTHING you have to do.

Everything will subconsciously be marked as not only important, but also urgent.

You struggle to get a perspective and actually make conscious decisions around what would serve you to do, when, and in what order.

In this way, you’re creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You end up with a non-ending list of to-do items that you can never finish, and you feel constantly guilty and anxious because you think you SHOULD be able to finish it.

This list is different for each of us, but what we share is the way we approach it.

The way to break this circle is to

1) Stop and evaluate. First separate the facts from the thoughts you’re having ABOUT the facts.

2) Then look at the things you’re telling yourself you have to do, and for each of them ask:

- Is this important? For me, or someone else? Prioritise yourself first.

- Do I need to do this? Why exactly? Can someone else do it? - If this was easy, what would it look like? Where am I overcomplicating this?

- Can I say no to do it? Why not? (And to the answer: And so what?)

3) Then set off specific days and times to do these things. Get them out of your head and know you have already planned when to do them.

Most of our stress comes from our thoughts about our work load, more than the work load itself.

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