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28th January, 2025

Are You Amplifying Your Overwhelm? Here’s How to Stop

With Rachel Morris

Dr Rachel Morris

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On this episode

There always seems to be too much to do and not enough time. We often feel this is entirely caused by external factors, like workload and demands from others. But the truth is we amplify our own overwhelm by taking on too much responsibility, avoiding difficult conversations, or trying to rescue others. These habits add stress and make things worse.

To reduce overwhelm, we need to focus on what we can control and change the way we respond to these challenges. In this quick dip, Rachel highlights five key behaviours that amplify overwhelm and how to address them.

If we let these behaviours continue unchecked, the long-term consequences are serious. We risk increasing stress, damaging our wellbeing, and getting stuck in a cycle of guilt, shame, and fear. Our ability to perform and enjoy our work suffers, and it becomes harder to find the time to care for ourselves.

Right now, you can take a small but powerful step. Identify one behaviour that’s adding to your overwhelm, write it down, name the emotion it’s tied to, and replace that toxic story with a healthier one. This simple act can start to shift your mindset and help you reclaim control over your time and energy.

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Reasons to listen

  • To learn how to identify and address behaviours that amplify your sense of overwhelm
  • To discover practical strategies for setting boundaries, prioritising tasks, and reducing your workload effectively
  • To understand the role of perfectionism, people-pleasing, and pre-living in creating unnecessary stress, plus how to overcome them

Episode highlights

00:02:36

Why most of us are overwhelmed

00:04:39

What are you responsible for?

00:05:39

Over-responsibility

00:07:44

Addressiong the difficult work

00:09:15

What to do in a difficult conversation

00:10:11

Getting unstuck from the urgency trap

00:11:22

Getting out of rescuer mode

00:13:13

Perfectionism, people-pleasing, and pre-living

00:15:51

Tracking down your sense of overwhelm

00:17:24

Mistakes to watch out for

Episode transcript

[00:00:00] Rachel: Recently, we ran a survey asking people what keeps them awake at night. And we got an overwhelming response from hundreds of you. Mostly it was an overwhelming workload. And then the worry that you’ve missed something or made a mistake. [00:00:14] Rachel: A lot of people said they were worrying about their team, about team dynamics. They felt so responsible for stuff. And then when we asked, why can’t you leave work at work? You talked about doing other people’s work for them, not be able to switch off at the end of the day in case…

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