How to Eat an Elephant

Have you ever been overwhelmed? Me too. To tell you the truth, I get overwhelmed A LOT. Being the owner of a relatively new small business, I feel like I always have a to-do list a mile long, and some days it just feels too big. Most of us have been there at some point. Whether it’s your home life, your job, or your health and fitness, having big goals can be daunting. And when we feel daunted, it can be easier to just shut down and do something else altogether. Maybe this (or a version of this) is familiar to you:

I have this big deadline coming up, and this project is so huge I don’t know where to begin.
So you work on something much easier and less useful — like checking your email for the 500th time — rather than beginning the work on this huge project.

I know I want to eat better but the idea of all this meal prep is way too much for me.
So you order takeout for the fourth night this week rather than eat a healthier home-cooked meal.

This laundry pile is huge and the idea of folding all of that is making me crazy.
So you work on other chores instead, letting the laundry pile up.

What happens when we hide from what overwhelms us? First, we don’t get anything done…or we get something done, but not the thing that needs to get done. Second, the mountain only gets bigger. The longer we put it off, the more overwhelming it becomes, and the worse we feel. So what is the solution?

Just do the damn thing.

How can you make this happen? There are two ways that I like to address overwhelm depending on what you’re trying to achieve. For both of the strategies, the common theme is: BREAK IT INTO BABY STEPS. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. So grab your knife and fork and let us dive in to how we can break this overwhelming situation up into bite-size pieces.

Strategy 1: Just get started
This strategy works great for a single task that involves a lot of work, like folding a huge pile of laundry, or working on a project for a deadline. Instead of thinking about folding the entire pile of laundry, just focus on folding one thing. Then focus on folding the next thing, and then the one after that. Instead of focusing on creating an entire project, try to focus on something small within that, like making an outline, or if it’s a presentation, maybe just one slide. (It doesn’t have to be the first slide or the first page or the introductory paragraph — it could be any slide, any page, or any paragraph.) Especially in regards to the project example, if perfectionism is holding you back, remember you can always go back and edit. A little something done is better than nothing done.

Strategy 2: Make smaller commitments
This is the strategy you want to turn to for changes in lifestyle (like starting a new fitness program, or starting to change your eating habits). I often fall into the mindset of wanting to do everything at once so I can get into the habit of doing everything at once, knowing it will eventually get less uncomfortable. Sometimes this works out, but usually it doesn’t, and when it doesn’t, I feel like a failure. To be successful at doing something major like changing your lifestyle, you have to break those changes down into the smallest steps possible, until you arrive at one you are 100% confident you can stay 100% consistent with for a week or two.

For example, let’s say that you’ve decided you’re going to cook and eat your meals at home because you eat out a lot and you know it’s healthier to eat at home. The hypothetical conversation below is one that you can try or adapt to your own situation to find the best starting place.

I want to eat healthier so I can lose weight, and I know to eat healthier I should cook and eat my meals at home, but I eat out every day, so I don’t know if I can go right from all those nights out to none.
Ok, can you pick one night a week to go out at eat at home the other days?
I don’t know…that’s a lot of meal prep at home, and I don’t think I can do all that right away.
Ok, how about eating out 3 nights and cooking/eating at home 4 nights?
I don’t think I can do that. I really like eating out and I don’t like cooking, and I don’t know what I would make all of those nights.
Can you try cooking and eating at home just one night per week?
Yes, I can try that. Then I only have to think about preparing one meal, and not 4 or 7.
Are you 100% confident that you can eat at home one night per week for the next two weeks?
Yes.

There are a couple things to notice here: first, there is no rule about how much or how little you do. As stated above, a little something done is better than nothing done. The tiniest change is better than no change at all, and is a step in the right direction. One healthy home-cooked meal is better than zero. Second, be honest about what you can reasonably stay consistent with. In this case, underestimate your ability to remain consistent and err on the side of smaller rather than bigger. In this hypothetical example, the person needing to eat healthier knew that eating out only 1 night or even 4 nights instead of 7 was unrealistic, and that’s okay. Start with the tiny step, one that you know you can be successful with. Sustain that for a couple of weeks, and then add a little more. So this person after two weeks could try eating 2 meals at home instead of 1, and gradually work their way up to eating out only occasionally.

This is a LONG process, and a lot of people get overwhelmed by that idea. In this age of needing instant gratification, we tend to gravitate towards quick fixes and band-aid solutions that give immediate reprieve but don’t solve the actual problem, and then are left feeling like failures when we can’t sustain our results (we can’t expect to sustain results if we don’t get our results in a sustainable way). Slow and steady wins the race when it comes to making lasting change in our lives.

If you are having trouble knowing where to begin when it comes to getting started on the road to building new habits, or just accomplishing tasks, it can be really helpful to contact a professional in the field you need help with. High level executives use executive coaches, and Olympic athletes all rely on coaches for their respective sports. People who have wealth use financial advisers to help them get the most out of their money. Why then do we think we can just go it alone and get it right using that information about the latest diet we found on some random blog? Use someone else’s expertise to help you get where you want to go.

If you need help getting out of overwhelm and building new habits, let me help! Contact me here.