070: Confront your Exhaustion

You know some of the subjects that I talk about on here , the topics that I bring . It's just funny how I hear it in one place , maybe in a coaching session with a guy . Then I listen to a podcast and the same thing comes up .

I think that men are all very similar to each other , maybe not externally , where we live , what we look like , but internally we operate very similarly and we have the same struggles and the same issues .

And when I talk about this stuff on the podcast , I'm hoping that it relates to you because of that , because I hear the same thing over and over and just kind of distill it in a way that you can take something from , create some self-awareness inside of you and then change .

And in this episode , what I want to talk about is being overwhelmed and being exhausted and planning too much and stressing yourself out . I was talking to a guy last week and he said he wanted more margin in his life and was just feeling really exhausted .

He felt like he wakes up in the morning , puts his pants on and then just goes all day until nine o'clock . When he stops , he watches Netflix for a half hour and then passes out for the night , just to wake up and do it again the next morning .

So when this happens to us , when we start filling our schedules and feel like we're just going bell to bell and not having that time for ourself to do what we want to do , to just recharge a little bit , the first thing we have to do is take ownership . I talked about this on a couple episodes ago .

If you're super busy , you have chosen to be super busy . You have said yes to things , and this isn't to shame yourself , it's just to take ownership . Step out of the victim mode that I have too much to do . People need me all the time . There's always something happening at work . You have ownership over your life .

You get to choose what you say yes to , what you say no to . So there's exploration in there and sometimes when we just ask that question how am I being complicit to this experience , the activity that I'm doing ? I was about to say obligation , but it's not an obligation if you're saying yes to it . So how am I complicit to it ?

Let's say you're going to your in-laws or your brother-in-law and sister-in-law this is something that I was talking to someone about and you're there and you're just not wanting to be there and you wish you were doing something else and you got dragged there . Okay , pause , I chose to be here . I said yes , why ? Why did I say yes to being here ?

And if you can find a reason that inspires you and find a reason that helps you see that you do really want to be there , then that creates a more enjoyable experience for you . So this guy that I was talking to , he was at his brother-in-law's place and he really didn't want to be there .

And , as we're talking about it , he's like well , I do want to be there because it means a lot to my wife and maybe that's a little people pleasing , but there's some people in our life that we do want to please and in this case , he did .

He wanted to be there because she's there for him at his family events as well , and his brother-in-law and his sister-in-law he really does care for them . They have awesome conversations and he likes spending time with them . He wants to know what's happening in their life .

This get together was a little bigger so he couldn't have these one-on-one personal conversations and that's really why he didn't want to be there . But underneath he did . He cared about those people . He wanted to show up to show that he did care and it is important to him . So maybe that obligation doesn't feel like an obligation as much .

And that's one trick right Find ownership why you're choosing to be there . And if you can't find a reason , if you really can't find that internal yes , I want to be there , then there's more exploration to do .

And one reason we will get into this situation in life or we've been overwhelmed for a long time and our schedule is always packed and we're always running around doing something , getting something done is that we don't want to let other people down , or we want other people to accept us , to think highly of us and this is people pleasing and we want other people

to like us . And we do this because we have this deep-seated fear in our DNA that we might not belong , or we have this deep-seated desire to belong , to belong to the pack , to have other people like us and enjoy us . So we have this tendency to say yes to a lot of things , to not let people down , to get people to think highly of us .

But what ends up happening when we say yes to these things that we don't really want to say yes to is we have this huge to-do list , we have this huge calendar and we don't get everything done and we feel overwhelmed , we feel anxious most of the time .

Then we actually do let someone else down , and if that person's going to talk shit about us or think differently of us , we can't help that . That's not something we can manage , but we're trying to manage that . And then the other person you start letting down is yourself . You put on all these things on your schedule and you don't get them all done .

Usually , the last ones on the list to get done are the ones that are most important to you , are the ones to take care of your health or to just chill and hang out with your family . Usually those get put to the bottom and then you beat yourself up . You tell yourself that I'm not doing enough .

I should be doing better , I should be doing more , I should be working out more , I should be spending more time with my family . So it's this cycle that perpetuates itself . All right , so that's a problem that we create . Let's take ownership . We're saying yes to these things and we want to get curious about why we're saying yes .

And in order to get to the root cause , you've got to be curious about yourself . Some of the questions that you can start asking yourself when did you start feeling overwhelmed or exhausted ? When did you start over planning things and overworking , and how long have you been doing it ? For more tasks ? Did you sign up for more things ?

Did you say yes to more things ? Answering those questions will bring some self-awareness to how you're creating this in your life . And then a really interesting question to ask yourself is how does that feeling serve you , that feeling of overwhelm , that feeling of overworking ? How does it serve you ?

And the answer to that question will definitely start creating that self-awareness . That's the first step to making change .

But as you're asking yourself these questions , you'll start to embody what it feels like to feel overwhelmed , and by embody I mean feel Like overwhelm feels fast in your body , maybe anxious , nervous , tight in your chest , hard in your neck , your brain spinning .

You'll start to become aware of that state and when you ask that question how does that feeling serve you ? Usually you'll get to the emotion that's underneath . Serve you . Usually you'll get to the emotion that's underneath and that could be that fear of being lonely , that fear of being left out , that fear of letting people down .

And I just said fear a bunch , because so many of the decisions we make are trying to avoid feeling afraid . So many of the decisions we make are based on fear , and that's probably another podcast . But what we want to do is , instead of thinking do I want to do this or not , is we want to feel , do I want to do this or not ?

Is my body saying yes to this or is my body putting up some defense , starting to already feel overwhelmed before I say yes , if my system is already being overloaded ? That's not a full body . Yes , a full body , yes , feels like excitement , it feels like openness , some warmth , maybe momentum moving forward , not a wall .

So , to wrap this up , if you're overstressed , if you're exhausted and it's a pattern in your life you got to ask yourself how am I being complicit to this ? Take ownership and then get curious . Am I trying to avoid a certain emotion ? Am I trying to please other people ?

How long has this been going on Create some self-awareness Do I continue taking on more things ? That self-awareness will start to change your decision-making process and then maybe you create a filter what are the most important things in your life ? And you run every decision through that filter .

My immediate family , I want to have tighter relationships my physical health , my mental health , my finances those are the most important things . Run every decision through a filter .

So if you want to get curious about how you're complicit in creating the stress and the exhaustion , set up a strategy session with me . They're free . They're 45 minutes . We have a conversation about getting over these obstacles we create in our life and start making time to hit the goals that really mean something to us . So go to the durable dadcom .

You'll set up a time and we can dive a little deeper into this . All right , that's what I got . Have an awesome day and I'll catch you next time .