2022 August 23 Overcoming obstacles and overwhelm

This is Jim Cranston, from 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com, the podcast and website by, for, and about Baby Boomers. Thanks for joining me tonight for a little talk on overcoming obstacles and overwhelm. Of course, those things come around all the time in life, and it's pretty straightforward to get past them.

So the theme for tonight is overcoming obstacles and overwhelm. Obviously, obstacles in your life and overcoming them, and the overwhelm that comes from that, is a pretty big topic. We're just going to skim the surface of some things, and go back to it in detail on subsequent Lives and podcasts.

But there are some basic things that you can do to really give yourself a good head start. They apply in a lot of situations, because it's just general guidelines. It's not a specific formula, but if you keep these certain mindsets going, you'll find that a lot of the things that you thought were really huge problems actually melt away when you approach them this way.

By the way, this week is Podcast Movement 2022 in Dallas, Texas. I hope to meet some of you perhaps, and I look forward to all the great people, all the great ideas in that community. Always a fantastic time. I really had expected to be there now, just sometimes life happens, speaking of obstacles and perspective. As always, we have to celebrate the wins, remember all the good things that are going on.

If you think about the good things, and don't focus on the bad things, life is really not that bad. So our perspective counts a lot when we talk about obstacles, because how big is the obstacle really? Our mind, of course, is going to blow it up. Oh, my gracious, how am I gonna do this?

I could go through the whole story of actually getting to the point where I'm going to the show. There are a lot of things in the way, but I just felt very strongly, very positively that one way or the other, I was going to find a way to get there. There's too many people I want to meet there. 

There's too much content that's really important. 

If you form that vision in your head, and keep that as your goal, then your mind will find a way to make things happen. So when you're feeling that total feeling of overwhelm, how would it feel if you just did something, anything, to address it, any little action you took, any little idea you had? It'd feel pretty good, because progress is self motivating. Overwhelm is really your brain trying to keep you safe. When you describe the situation to yourself and your brain, how you look at it has a whole lot to do with how your brain is going to react.

So if you look at an obstacle as impossibly large to get by, so complicated, who knows where to start, your brain's gonna say, Oh, wow. I guess this is too big to start with. But if you say, even if you don't have a specific thing, if you start off by saying, This is a big problem, but clearly people have solved it before. I'm a clever enough person. I'm pretty sure I can solve it, too. Then your brain in the background is going to start to say, Okay, I'll start looking for solutions 

We’ve talked about this in the past. Just look at our previous Lives and some of the podcasts. We talk a lot about goal setting and envisionment, and it really is super, super important that you do this to start out with. Then I'd really suggest that you identify a reason two that you want to succeed and get past this obstacle. Now, whether it's family, your own personal comfort, happiness in general, anything that resonates with you, because once you give your mind a reason to work on something, it's much more engaged. It's much more likely to push ahead and put the energy in to do that.

Another trick you can use is - think about how if a friend came to you with a similar sort of problem, and said, I just don’t know how I'm gonna do this. Think about how you would advise them if they asked you what to do. What would you say to them? What would you suggest? As you go through that exercise - because it's a lot easier in general for us to solve other people's problems, because we don't have all our own baggage with us - we can step back and look at them and say, Oh it's a significant problem. Sure. But did you think about trying this? Or did you do this?  There's a couple of things that come out of that, because once you get in that mode, your brain is now focusing on the solution and the problem, and it's not focusing on all the panic that you had initially.

So go through, find a reason and think about how you would advise a friend to do something. Then finally, this is important. You really want to just totally embrace the obstacles and the overwhelm, the causes, head on, look it straight in the eye, and realize how much smaller it is than you first realized. It seemed so huge before, but now you're thinking it through and you're thinking, I still don't have the whole answer, but I can see some ways that could get me started. 

The other thing you can do is imagine the worst thing you could think of. I don't know, you lose your house. You don't have money for gas. Your friends say, Wow, that was a really foolish thing to do. Imagine the very worst case you can imagine. Then think ahead, and then imagine, what did you do about it? Imagine the success afterwards. How did you do it? Once you start looking past the problem and how you want it, and kind of work backwards. 

This is goal envisionment. Once you look at the solution and start working back, your brain will latch onto that, and it will guide you. Once you give it room to calmly think, it will then start giving you answers, but you have to be patient when you're searching for a solution.

The whole thing “sleep on it,” it's really true. If you give your brain some space, and give your brain some calmness, it will come through, and it will come up with solutions. Then once you find one, try and look for some more, because there's nothing like success to breed more success. Once you start doing that, you help to see the overwhelm that you had before with just your brain, trying to keep you safe from moving into an unknown situation.

But once you start giving it some energy to work with, some room to work with, it will give you the confidence and start leading you towards solutions. Then have faith in the outcome. There are many solutions besides the ideal solution, and getting any solution will start to make you feel a lot better.

Any progress you make will just motivate you that much further. You might say afterwards - the natural tendency for a lot of us, is you look back and say, Wow, that worked okay, but I could have done it better. Don't worry about it. You did something, you got a good outcome. Maybe it wasn't the very best outcome, but you got a good outcome. Feel good about it. Always celebrate the wins.

So finally, when you're ready to try your solutions, the last thing you have to do is to embrace the uncertainty. Because at that point, it's all been fun and games and theoretical. But at that point, your brain's going to try and look for all the things that could go wrong. Because again, it wants to keep us safe.

So it's up to us and our conscious mind to remind the brain that there are a lot of good things that could just go well, you have to remember that side of it, too, and work towards those positive goals and remind your brain about those positive goals, instead of getting wrapped up in all the fears of anything that might seem new.

Embrace the freedom that comes with taking action. You're making progress. You were stuck and had no real feeling at how you were going to move forward, and now you are moving forward. You're making progress. Celebrate that win. Always focus on the goals, not the problems.

The problems will be solved, but the goal is what will give your brain the energy and creativity to keep you focused and motivated and moving forward. Always nourish the successes. It's how you build a new can-do attitude and bring you confidence and happiness in your life. So that's it for the evening.

That was just skimming over the surface, and I hope some of those tips helped you a little bit. Thanks for stopping by. Stay healthy. Care for others. Remember to care for yourself so that you can always be at your very best. 

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Remember one of the best ways to care for yourself is to care for others. If you can, and you're able please check it out. As always, be true to yourself. Live your life aligned with your true goals and feelings. Thanks for stopping by. If you found something interesting or useful, please pass it along. If not, please drop me a comment as to what you'd like to hear. As always, please hit the like button if you enjoyed what we covered. And if not, let me know what you want to hear about. Have a great week.

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