Are You Ready To Beat Stress and Overwhelm in 2023?

I have been hearing these things on repeat…  You are feeling stressed, overwhelmed or both.  And I am raising my hand because I am a recovering stress ball!  Here we are at the beginning of a new year, and it’s natural to get reflective! You look back at 2022 and tell yourself that you were going to do this or this…  But then, you find yourself looking forward to 2023 and looking with hope and promise, which could quickly turn into complete overwhelm when you think you need to complete such and such thing in 30 days! 

Let’s treat 2023 different. Here is where you stop and think about this.  If I am trying to cross over 4 million things off my to-do list a day, am I even living? NOOO of course you are not!! So, I want to take a STEP BACK and really take a look at how we are living our lives.

This topic is one many of us are in denial.  We have to talk about this because stress is LITERALLY killing a lot of us! And I hear so many women say, “Stress, it’s just how my life is, and it is always going to be this way.”  We have normalized being stressed to the max! And this is NOT ok!!  Why do you ask? Well, a recent study has shown that 60% of all human illnesses are linked to stress! Stress causes inflammation in our bodies and our bodies do not like inflammation! Our bodies see stress as danger, then that stress turns into cortisol that comes to the surface but has nowhere to go because you don’t need to run for a man-eating animal.

44% of all Americans feel more stressed and overwhelmed now than they did in the last 5 years.  What has happened in the last 5 years? Hellooooo a pandemic that turned our world upside down and that right there is a big part of it because the last few years have been a hot dang mess and the ripple effect of what happens begins to trickle down and we are stressed!!  So.. how do you start to release that stress? How do you start to stop feeling so overwhelmed with life and just things go??
 
The first place I like to start is to TAKE THE PRESSURE OFF! I work with a lot of women who are type A personalities. And you all feel that if I cannot do all the things then who the hell am I? It’s okay to not be perfect!  “Go for the B-”. We are always trying to go for A++… but the B- is still above average!!  It’s okay. Stop beating ourselves up over it.  Cut yourself some slack and give yourself some grace!

And a good place to start is to start a “Stop-doing list.”  Track what you are doing in a day and see what you can stop doing that does not have any impact on your life. What can you let go of? It takes so much energy to micromanage. Please stop doing it.
Break out of the micromanagement and it will give you some capacity in your brain to help take off some of this mental load. Delegation is a way to do that. You need to get better at our stop-doing list.  How can I become more streamlined and have others in our household help with this list or delegate things to them to help lessen the load?

Sphere of control exercise. ** try this tool that can help you to back down on micromanaging.**
Draw a circle, then another inside that, and another so there are 3 circles 1 within another, etc. In a small circle, write down what are the things you have total control over. What can you control? This would include actions, mindset, and effort you put into things.

In the second circle write down what are the things that you have some control over?  This would include a schedule change, challenging, and how I take action toward it and anticipate some of the challenges.

In the third circle, write down what you have NO control over.  You cannot control the weather, you can’t control how big our feet are, you cannot control how fast we lose weight. I want you to start to think about when I break that down, how it can help you realize that you are holding too tight onto things that you CANNOT control!

Focus on the process vs the outcome.
If I were to lose 10 pounds and just focus on 10 at a time and repeat the process vs looking to the end/outcome we could get to a place of not worrying so much about that end result.   Now, that process may be different than others, but it’s about repeating that process and doing a little at a time.  And by repeating the process we can see where the kinks are or where we need to adjust things.

“Let’s use data, not drama!” Data is what are you eating, how are you sleeping, and what your energy levels are. From here we can look at what we are doing.  There has to be a process vs just worrying about the 10 pounds or 20 pounds.

Get specific!! Our brain likes plans, it likes specifics.  That is where we find what our why is.  Why do we want to lose 10 pounds?  When I have that why I find my motivation.
What is the process, why do we want it so we can use data not drama to get to our goal?

Take time to get quiet.
When I ask people to get quiet and reflective, you’d think I am asking them to walk in the middle of the street naked! When I get quiet and reflective, I can actually hear things!
A previous guest said if you cannot hear your body whisper, how can you hear it scream?
So many of you are beating your body’s up, and when your body doesn’t give you what you want, you push harder and harder. [Bend to my will.]

It is so important for our bodies to take time to get quiet and reflective. This can be as simple as setting your phone to do-not-disturb or turning off notifications as to not get distracted with other things.  Another way to do this is with meditation and breathwork. This has been such a game changer for me.  I am not a meditator; my brain could not get into the rhythm.  But I started breathwork about 2 -3 years ago and it has been a game changer for me. I can stick with that better than meditation, so play with both and see what works better for you. https://fitgirlmagic.libsyn.com/breathwork-its-easy-if-you-do-just-start-95

Sleep.
If you don’t do anything else but increase your protein and make a bedtime so you get a good night’s sleep, you are set!  One thing that can help foster better resilience against stress is to get a better night sleep.  You have to start to look at the small things to help you take a deep breath and unplug from the matrix.  Start to find some relief.  Start to unplug anywhere you can find that space to do it.  I don’t want you to fry!  Where are the things, you can pull back just a little bit. How do you start to slowly step back to get more space, more energy and more deep breaths in our life?

How do we have better life management?
We touched on this a little bit before when we spoke about micromanaging. But do you find yourself doing the busy work?  Where can we start to delegate things that we can have help with or just don’t need to do?  Is this necessary and useful? Is there someone else who can help me out with this?  How can we ask for help? And not micromanage that person who is actually helping you. Let go of micromanaging them. How can I start to get more freedom and space in my day?

How do I treat my body?
Things get busy and the first thing that goes is our workouts and nutrition.  But guess what? Now you can have groceries delivered or picked up so you can get good food whenever we need to, so getting our hands on nutritious food is easier than ever.  When it comes to workouts, you can do workouts in shorter times, you can do workouts at home.  So, what does it look like for you? Quality over quantity. 30-40 minutes is perfect, so you have more time in the day to get things done and not stress about when you are going to get that workout in.

How do we have better life management? How do you get  in our day? And how do we take the pressure off of ourselves?  It doesn’t have to be this every day! But just starting off doing a little at a time. You don’t have to do ALL the things I just said all at once.  Think to yourself.. What feels easy?? What will give you more time and space?

I want you to unplug time and get out of the matrix so when you come back from things you feel more refreshed and able to handle any stress arrows heading your way!
So, stop and take a look at your day and look into what is something that is stressing you out? And let’s figure out what is one simple thing you can start to do to better manage that!

LINKS

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Belly Fat Code Wait List — We start spring 2023!
https://www.fitgirlmagic.com/bfc_masterclasswait_spring2023/