Beyond overwhelmed? Consider your bandwidth.
Common signs that you’re operating beyond your bandwidth include irritation, frustration, agitation, impatience, exhaustion, inability to heal from infections, lack of excitement, lack of motivation, and/or feeling like life is dragging. It's a heaviness in life where there isn't ease, grace, or much enjoyment, because things feel like too much.
I’d like to offer a personal example. One really grey day, my youngest son, who has to get up first, couldn't wake up. After three times of trying to wake him up, the thought of having to make breakfast and lunch and drive him to school was beyond my capacity for the day.
I took a look at the day and decided that we just needed to rest. I decided I wasn't going to wake up my son for the fourth time. He wasn't being difficult, he was just exhausted. I knew I was exhausted too. So we went back to bed for an hour and started the day again a little bit later. I moved my first meeting and accepted that he would miss the first hour of school. Life would go on.
There's a lot of things we have to do and a lot of things we're supposed to do. Often we have to make choices that might make us seem less responsible to our outer commitments because we’re deciding to live life within our capacity.
I'm not suggesting that you stop showing up for work, but to the extent you can shift your day in response to how your body is doing and what your capacity is, you'll allow your life to be a reflection of what you're actually able to do.
Ask yourself:
How can I be more honest with myself and accept that some days I’m going to have more capacity than others?
How can I ease up when my capacity is lower, and how can I ramp up and do more when I have the energy?
Trust that everything will get done when you rest when you're tired and do more when you have energy.