What to do when you feel overwhelmed

The power of tiny commitments

Welcome to Week #4 of the Life Transitions series. Only one more to go before we tackle Modern Loneliness in the following five weeks.

Life has a way of throwing us into the deep end. Transitions. Something ends. Something else begins. And in between is the emotional turbulence of "what now?" You stare at the pile: things to do, decisions to make, emails unanswered, goals abandoned. Your phone pings. Your inbox mocks you. The algorithm tells you to step it up. You've got five tabs open, some literal, some existential. Maybe you want to crawl into bed. Maybe you already did.

Overwhelm is a real phenomenon, but it's not a personal failure.

In those moments, everything feels insurmountable and aggravating. We feel small and freaked out looking up at the summit of a mountain while standing at the base barefoot, overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the climb and anticipating the pain from stomping on rocks all the way to the top.

But why and how do we end up in a state of overwhelm? We talk about it like it's just "being busy," but it's deeper than that. Committing to too much is only part of the story. More importantly, what should we do about it?