202 What to do when EVERYTHING feels urgent

Hello, hello, welcome back to the Busy Woman's Guide to Fitness and Wellness for another week. And today we are talking about a huge, huge topic. And it is this sense of major overwhelm that comes when literally everything feels urgent all of the time. And of course, when you're in that pattern, you end up repeating it, don't you? You get up in the morning, you've got a big list.

that needs to be sorted, you tell yourself, right, this is the day, this is the day I'm finally gonna get on top of it, I'm gonna get it all done, you start full of energy, but because everything feels urgent, you start flitting from one thing to the next, you're kind of trying to maintain the sense of control, you start thinking, if I could just do a bit more, if we could just keep going a bit longer, if I could just work a bit harder, if I could just get another job done, then tomorrow, somehow, it's gonna be easier. I'll be at the top of this mountain, and I'll be ready to start coming down the other side.

into a place of a bit more calm but of course that is not what happens because when everything feels urgent what is actually happening is you've become conditioned to living like that it has become such a normal way for you to operate every single day that just doing more or being more organized or having the right productivity hack just is not going to cut it anymore and

How do I know this? Well, I know this because I've been there myself and because I've worked with lots and lots of clients who have also been there. You've got that massive to-do list. Been there, waking up, looking at the list and going, my God, I've got like 15 items on here that need doing today. Whether it's work, stuff that needs doing, whether it's clients that I need to see, whether it's stuff that needs doing for the kids, whether it's the shopping that needs doing like.

I would wake up and I'd have this huge to-do list ahead of me that day and it would be like my god deep breath no I'm gonna be on it for the next 12 hours let's go so you start there you're trying to constantly keep on top of everything and I just I felt like that all the time that sort of that sense of the mountain that I described before that's what I felt like all the time it felt like if I could just do this little bit more

if I could just get this little bit more done today, then I will be at the top of the mountain. And it felt like I was always just, just at the summit, but I was never quite getting over it. And I could like see it, I could taste it, I could feel it, but I never actually got there. And I would just try a little bit harder. I remember sitting there at...

at the end of the afternoon saying to myself, like feeling absolutely exhausted, knackered. I'd done so many things that day and sitting there going, right, if I just get two more of these jobs done, if I just can get those two more jobs done, then I will get there. I'll get there, I'll get there. And it never seemed to happen. And there would also be this kind of refusal to prioritize because I'd look at that list and I go, I can't.

Possibly prioritize this every single one of these things needs to be done and it needs to be done soon and Even just talking about it now. I'm feeling like this massive weight on my chest about my god. It was horrible It was horrible and it was every single day just felt like that Feeling always always almost at the summit, but not quite there trying to get it under control But never actually feeling like it was under control and it was like this feeling of

You're not completely out of control, like you're doing stuff, you're ticking things off, you're, you know, you appear to be very on it, maybe even very organised, like I've always been quite an organised person, but always on edge, always the anxiety that would underlie everything that would say, you should have done more today, God, you better get more done tomorrow because otherwise it's all gonna fall apart, it's all gonna fall apart. And...

You know, eventually, eventually, took me a long time, but eventually I realised that it wasn't the things that needed to change, it was me and it was my attitude to them that needed to change. Like that was a huge realisation for me, like looking at that and going, hang on a minute, this is not about me getting control of everything, this is not about me urgently getting through all of the tasks and finally getting to the bottom of the list, right? It's not going to happen, there's always going to be a list.

I need to change my attitude to this. I also realised that trying to be more in control was not working for me. You know, I tried lots of different ways to organise my day, organise my time, be more productive, all of those kind of things, but it wasn't working for me. It wasn't working for me. And I also realised if I carried on making everything urgent, then nothing was going to change, nothing. So I came to a realisation really, I was like, can't.

I can't actually do this anymore. I can't be in this place where everything feels urgent all the time, where the list never seems to get any shorter. No matter how many things I cross off in a day, there'll be more stuff that'll be there tomorrow. And just, yeah, just feeling on edge all of the time. So because I have been on that journey myself, I've been through that because I have worked a lot of clients through being there.

I really want to help you with that today. Today I'm going to be sharing first of all how we got into this place, how we get into this place, what's actually going on in our brain chemistry when it's all feeling urgent and when we constantly feel on edge. And then secondly, we're going to talk about a few things that you can start doing to release and let go of some of this things I have done and also things that I've helped my clients with as well because

Believe me when I say that a good number, a good solid number of my coaching clients come to me, either because this is like the number one thing, they feel like they're in a state of constant urgency, they feel like they just, can't keep functioning like this and they certainly can't function at their best like this, like they know that.

they're not getting where they want to because of this sense of constant urgency. So either that is like literally the number one thing they're coming to me with or there's a sense of this kind of overwhelm that's underlying other things. You they might come to me because they're like, I need to prioritize my fitness more and I never seem to be able to do that. And, you know, often as we start to piece everything together, we're looking at, okay, well, it's because you think everything in your life is urgent. So whether it's...

a big thing for you right now or whether you can sense that it's underlying something else. I think this shows up for all of us at some point in our lives. And you know, I would say more often than not, a lot of the women that I work with, they are in this place. They are in this place. We've been conditioned to be in this place, And it actually takes a lot. It takes bravery. It takes bravery to go, actually, I'm not okay with this anymore. I am not going to live like this anymore. I'm not going to allow myself to

be in this state of constant urgency anymore this has got to change like when you understand I'm not gonna do I'm not gonna do my best I'm not gonna thrive if life is like this all the time this is not what life is meant to be you know that is that is a real turning point that can become a real turning point for you in so so many ways but it is a brave thing to do because like I say we have become conditioned to do this but

whether this is like the big number one thing that you feel like you need to deal with or it's just underlying things one thing I do know for sure is that you can start to undo this it might feel impossible right now you might be sitting there going yeah but she doesn't get my life she doesn't get how urgent everything is I can't imagine myself ever being in a place of less urgency but I promise you a calmer life is a reality

Am I telling you you're going to have hours to sit around reading books every day? No, that's not going to happen. But can I tell you that you can feel better, you can feel calmer and you can feel more in control by letting go of some of this, then absolutely that can happen for you. And it's a reality that is a lot, lot, lot closer than you think. So take my client, Sally, for example. So I worked with her last year and in one of her coaching sessions, so...

The way that it works with me is that I am not dictating what you're going to be talking about in a coaching session. So usually at start of a coaching session, I will say, what is it that you think you need the most this week? Or what is the outcome that you would like for yourself this week? And we'd worked on a few different things, but she came to this particular session and she said, you know, I just think...

I'm really busy at the moment. I feel like I'm not quite in control of everything. I think I need to manage things in my life better, you know, so that I can be more productive. And I feel like I just need to walk away from this session with a couple of strategies to help me to take more control. So really what she wanted was an answer. She wanted like, this is what I'm going to do and I'm going to start applying this every day and this is suddenly going to take the pressure off and make everything feel a lot easier.

But of course, that is not what we did. Now, strategies have their place. I am not here to tell you that, you know, productive, productivity strategies or whatever are not helpful, right? Because that would be a lie. Of course, of course, of course they're helpful. There are some things that I use in my life from time to time, not all the time, but from time to time that really helped me and that helped me to...

get into the flow with work or to be more productive or to get more done, right? I'm not saying that those things do not have their place. However, when you are in a place where everything feels urgent all of the time, you definitely do not need another strategy placed on top of a nervous system which is already dysregulated.

because it just becomes another thing to remember, another thing to manage, another thing to fail at ultimately, right? And we definitely don't want that. know, once this sense of urgency starts to become chronic and normal in your life, we need to go a little bit deeper. So with my client Sally, what we did was we looked at things particularly like her expectations and standards for herself, which of course was super high. She's successful woman, she's got kids, she's...

achieved a lot in her life. Her expectations and standards were super, super, super high. She expected an awful lot of herself every single day. She was putting a lot of pressure on herself to get a lot done every single day. And we also looked a little bit at the sense of responsibility that she had for everything and everyone. People that worked for her, people in her team, her kids, her husband, her friends, like all of these things. She was like, well, I must do this and I must do that and I must do the other. And she felt

she felt responsible for making sure that everything for everybody else was going smoothly. And so by the end of the session, she'd really identified, well, okay, that thing that I said about needing a strategy, actually, that's not what I need. I need to take some of the pressure off myself. I need to learn to rest and relax without guilt. And so those were some of the things that we worked on. And she definitely felt a lot better, a lot more relaxed because of...

because of doing that. But like I say, if you are anything like that client, you know, you're doing well in life. Like you've got a job that you enjoy, you've got maybe kids or you've got pets at home or you, you know, you've got a good social life, you've got all of these things going on for yourself, but it feels like a lot to hold. It feels like everything is urgent all of the time. Then...

You do not need another strategy. You do not need to become more productive. You do not need to be less lazy or whatever that story is you're telling yourself, right? That's not the answer to this. None of that is going to work. You need to be looking a little bit deeper. It may be expectations, standards, responsibilities you're taking on. It may be other stuff as well, right? So before we go into how the hows of how you get out of this system,

system is that the right word how you get out of this place in your life let's talk about the whys because I think understanding the the whys of this sense of urgency and overwhelm can be really really helpful because it can it can give you some clarity around okay right I understand I understand why I'm doing it now and when you understand why you're doing it you can start to undo it right so

Essentially, urgency becomes a learned state. The more we react to everything as if it is urgent, the more our brain is going to wire itself to stay in that state. Essentially, it becomes a habit. It becomes a habit. If we always think that getting the washing done is urgent, it becomes a habit to think that getting the washing done is urgent. If we think that replying to every email is urgent, it becomes a habit that we think that that is urgent, right?

This often starts with good intentions, right? We want to be on it, we want to be organized, want to be productive, get things done in our day so that we can relax at the end of the day. But it starts to morph into this habitual state. Urgency becomes your habit. Okay? Your brain then starts to treat everything like it's a life and death situation. And that is not an exaggeration, by the way, because your nervous system cannot differentiate. So you may know intellectually, well, I know it's not the end of the world if I don't get the washing done.

but inside your nervous system is going, no, this is really important, this is life or death, then our body is going to react as if that is the case, it's gonna be on edge, it's gonna be telling us, no, do it, do it, do it, do it, because if you get it done, then everything's gonna feel better, When you're in that state, you're releasing a lot of cortisol and adrenaline, these are survival hormones, these are amazing for heightening our alertness, they're amazing for helping us to narrow our focus when we need to have our focus narrowed.

i.e. in an emergency. But it's not so great to keep releasing that when we are always in a state of urgency, in a heightened state of urgency. You know, when every email that we need to send is urgent, when every dinner that needs making is urgent, when every bit of washing that we need to do is urgent, right? When all of those are triggering us,

to release all of these hormones all of the time we are just keeping ourselves in that loop we're keeping ourselves constantly in that that state in that urgent state and then to top it all off every time we tick off a task we get this nice little release of dopamine which is a feel-good hormone that gets released into the brain and we feel good we're like ticked it off so we get that sort of like short that short term hit and so

when we keep getting rewarded for it. So all of the like cortisol adrenaline, God, that's feeling a little bit icky after a while. Yes, it gives us the energy to get going and to do the things, but ultimately it's making us feel a bit anxious. But if we can offset that with the little, I take the thing off the list, dopamine gets released, lovely stuff. I'm gonna chase some more of that, I'm gonna chase some more of that. And so we become very dependent on that short-term dopamine hit. That.

All of that activation, all of that chronic activation every single day when everything feels urgent, ends up leaving us feeling tired, leads to brain fog, keeps us feeling on edge all the time. And we ultimately can just no longer differentiate between what is truly urgent and what is not. So everything in our lives becomes an urgent task. We are being activated every time there is something that needs doing.

And because we're in this activated state, our brain is like swirling around with you, but that's urgent, that's urgent, that's urgent, that needs to be done. I can't leave that, that has to be done. Right? And so we're in that place. It's like this kind of vicious cycle that we get ourselves into. And then of course, let's add to that kind of societal pressures that are all around us. You know, we live in a society that prizes productivity, getting stuff done, having your shit together.

All of these things are important in our society. I must prove that I matter by staying busy because busy equals successful equals I matter. So we have all of that, we have all of the keeping up with everybody else. you go, this is always the thing that I think of, you go, meet your friends. So this is what I used to do, go see my friends for an evening out. Hey, how are you? my God, manic.

Absolutely manic at the moment, so busy, so much to do. And so of course you're then, yeah, same, same, because you want to feel like you're part of the gang. Everybody else is really busy, which means they must be really successful, which must mean they matter. And so I want a piece of that myself as well. So that is another pressure. And then of course we feel guilty when we take time out. You know, we feel like we have to be earning our place, earning our keep in the world.

And so we're like, can't take time out. That's... And taking time out feels icky as well. If you've ever got, if you've ever, if you've been in a sense of urgency a lot and you've ever like taken a day and you've gone, God, what do I do with myself? I don't know what to do with myself. This is weird. I don't like this. This is... And then you start making jobs for yourself because you've got so used to it.

and there's that little voice going, what are you doing? You're hanging around for, that's a waste of your time, you should be achieving something, get productive, get up, do something, right? So that voice is going on. all of these things, so this kind of physiological state that we are getting into, this kind of learned state, all of these different hormones that are getting fired off that are kind of keeping us in this cycle all the time.

And then like I say, all of the societal pressures that are coming and the fact that we feel guilty when we take time out and we don't know what to do with ourselves when we have time out as well, right? All of these things are adding up. It's kind of creating this perfect storm. What I'm really saying here is that if you are in that place, don't feel bad about it. Like we are unconsciously wired, especially in this day and age.

to be in this heightened state, to stay in that vicious cycle. And once we're in it, it's extremely hard to get out of it. Well, I'm not gonna say extremely hard actually, because I'm gonna talk about some ways in which you can do that step by step, because just suddenly extricating yourself from it overnight is gonna feel a bit much, but we can gradually start to do things that are gonna help us to prioritize a little bit better, let's put it that way. So there are, like I say,

We are wired to be in this heightened state and we tell ourselves, I don't want to be here, I want to get out of it, but because those hormones are a bit addictive, we end up craving them, Like I say, if you've ever had that quiet day, you just end up feeling restless, you end up feeling like you need to make jobs for yourself. end I just prefer it when I'm busy. Just prefer it when I'm busy. That is rubbish. You don't prefer it when you're busy. You prefer it when your body is releasing.

cortisol releasing adrenaline because that's going to wake you up and get you going and give you the energy for the day and you're just used to having those. It's like your little drug and you're also used to the dopamine hits the little you ticked that off you did that thing you were productive excellent well done so you get a bit addicted to those things right and so

extricating yourself from this is not about systems or productivity hacks and I hope you can see that now. I hope now we've kind of talked through that you're like yeah I see now that adding yet another thing on top of all of the things is probably not going to help you and the thing is when you're in this place it's not because you're disorganized and you know I used to tell myself that I'm not organized enough if I could just be more organized then everything would be okay.

but it's not about being disorganized, it's about being dysregulated. You are dysregulated. You're stuck in survival mode and no amount of trying harder or trying to do it in a different way is going to get you out of that. So instead, we wanna be understanding first of all. So hopefully now you understand, you can see, this is not your fault, this is the way that we are wired these days, but we can start to gently unwind that pattern.

to create more of that calm that you are craving. Now, like I said a moment ago, this is not about undoing it overnight and saying, right, tomorrow I'm going to be a different person, I'm going to stop doing all these things because that's going to feel hard, it's going to feel heavy, that's going to feel scary. We don't want that. So this is about what can you do slowly but surely to start just gently unwinding that pattern so that you start to step out of that sense of

constant urgency. the first thing, recognise your current state. What, and also what are you gaining from your current state? And I think this is really, really, really important because when I first ask you the question, what are you gaining from this right now? You'll go, well, nothing. It's not gaining me anything. I just feel anxious. It feels really hard and I feel really tired and knackered. I don't want to be there anymore. But you are, you are gaining something from it. You are gaining the dopamine hit.

Every time you tick the to-do list off, it feels good. You are gaining because you feel productive and therefore worthy. So it is adding to your sense of self-worth. You are gaining because you're keeping up with everybody else so that when you go and see your friends and you have that conversation, you don't feel left out. You feel like you are kind of keeping your end up, so to speak. You're gaining because you're avoiding guilt or you're avoiding taking action on more important things. Could there be some procrastination going on there?

or some things you don't want be thinking about. And if you stay busy, you don't have to think, right? You don't have to think about the difficult stuff because you are doing. So recognizing your current state and recognizing what you're gaining from your current state is really, really, really important. So being able to take that step back and go, yeah, I get it. Like, I feel like I am successful because I'm always busy or I feel like I am worthy because I'm productive. feel like I'm, you know.

earning my keep, so to speak. what is that thing? Understanding that is going to be a big part of the foundations of this. Secondly, starting to get clear on what's actually urgent. Now, that is going to be a tough one and the next couple of things are going to help you with that. what or the state that we get into is it feels urgent, therefore it is urgent.

But we all know, don't we, that just because we feel something doesn't mean it's true. So everything feels urgent because that has become our habit, that's become our learned state that everything feels urgent, but it's not actually true. And the truth is that yes, there are urgent things, of course there are, but there are also important things that are not urgent. Do you not have to be done right here, right now? They're important to you, but they are not, you know, life or death matters. And then there's the noise.

the things that you habitually do without even questioning it, the things that are happening every day that you think have to be done that maybe don't need to be done. So again, being able to take that little step back and go, okay, well, what's actually truly urgent? What's important and what's noise? Let's get honest. What is noise? And I think whatever you think you're gonna get done in a day, take a few things off.

Some people advocate just three things. You're only allowed three things on that list. Now that doesn't mean you'll only get three things done. It just means that these are the three most important things. These have to get done today. Everything else is going to have to wait. If you get more done, great. But if you just do those three things, you're winning, right? So just starting to get clear. Do not sit there and go, but everything is urgent because it's not true and it's not helpful right now.

The third thing that you can do is start to soothe your nervous system. Again, we're not talking about taking big days off and going to a spa for the day or whatever, whatever. These are small, tiny things, a minute of deep breathing, stepping out into the garden for a few minutes, just standing there and like the sun shining today, for example, gonna step outside and have a walk after I've done this. That's gonna just give me a moment of calm.

sitting down with a cup of tea rather than trying to complete another job, just creating those little small pockets of your day where you what you're essentially doing is you're creating safety for yourself, you're showing yourself that the world is not going to fall apart just because you took a minute out to do some deep breathing or because you took 10 minutes out to sit with a cup of tea rather than doing another job. Your body is so used to being up regulated or dysregulated

that to not be on is going to feel odd, is going to feel dangerous, is going to feel scary at first. So you have to gradually train yourself to be okay with not always being on. You have to train and soothe your nervous system one little step at a time. So let's not jump in with a half hour meditation every day. It's not going to work. A minute of deep breathing could be a great start. Stepping out into the garden for two minutes could be a great start. So what can you start to add to your day?

or where can you pause in your day that can help you to start to soothe your nervous system, train your nervous system, because when we down regulate the nervous system, we have more reason, we can approach things with a bit more calm, a bit more reason, a little bit less. I'm trying to think of what the word is. I was gonna say urgency again, but yeah, less urgency, right? We can actually make some space in our brains to actually think, okay, hang on a minute.

What is actually urgent here? What do I actually need to get done and what is a nice to get done? So soothing the nervous system is going to help you with that. It's going to help you to make better decisions. It's going to help you to organize your day better. And it's also going to prove to you the world did not fall apart because you took a minute out. The world did not fall apart because you didn't get that thing done. Right. And I think the final thing is just be prepared to make a few decisions, some of them tough.

around what you will allow in your life and what you're not going to allow in your life anymore. Cut the fluff, cut the fluff just because you've always done something or done it in a certain way does not mean you have to keep doing it. for example, me and house cleaning. So we used to have a cleaner, amazing, amazing cleaner. She came once a week. She was awesome and I loved her. And then she stopped doing cleaning. And I had another couple of cleaners and it didn't really work out for various reasons.

you know, one of them stopped, you know, various things like that. And I got to a place as well where I was like, you know what, feel like financially we're stretching ourselves a little bit with getting a cleaner in. So we're to do it ourselves. But honestly, if I'm honest, the thought of spending three hours cleaning my house from top to toe and doing all the bathrooms and the hoovering and the dusting and blah, blah, blah, it just fills me with absolute dread. And so

What I do now is I just kind of do stuff as and when they need doing, which is a new concept to me and something that the old me would have been absolutely horrified with. But I'm literally like, bathroom hasn't been cleaned for a week and a half, but that's all right. Things like the kitchen, like I, when I used to clean, do that three hour clean, I would do the kitchen as well. Like I'd pull everything out and I'd clean everything and I'd, you know,

top to toe kind of thing. And now I'm like, kitchen kind of gets cleaned every day. Like I wipe down the surfaces every day. Do I honestly need to go in when I'm doing my full house clean and do it all over again? I'm like, not really, because it's gonna be dirty half an hour later anyway, as soon as the kids get in there. So doing stuff when they need to be done and almost like I set myself an hour on a Saturday morning. I'm like, right, Saturday morning, I've got an hour.

My husband does some stuff. I mean, he sometimes takes my son out to tennis, but sometimes he's there to help. So I'm like, if I don't get it done now, then we're done. We're done here. I'll find another time to do it. I'll do five minutes of this here or there. like the old me was like, it's urgent and very important. Every single week I do three hours of cleaning in my house. The me now is like, I'm going to do an hour. And if it's not done, it's not done. Deal with it. That kind of thing.

and everything's fine, my house is still pretty tidy, my house is still pretty clean most of the time. But that's just an example of, like, just cut the fluff, cut the bloody fluff. Is everything that you are doing that flipping important? Do you have to do all of that ironing or can your kids live with a creased t-shirt? You know, that sort of thing. What can you let go of? So just really, really make some decisions around what you're to allow in your life and what you're not going to allow in your life anymore.

what you're to make space for and what you are absolutely not going to make space for. And that is going to help you as well because I can promise you there are going to be a few things in there that you are, you're fighting tooth and nail to keep. You're like, oh my God, this is so important. It's so urgent. This has to be done. It has to be done every week. And you could let it go for a couple of weeks and you'll suddenly go, oh, hang on a minute. Was it really, was it really worth fighting for? Probably not. So have that conversation with yourself.

So like I say, this is not about managing and organizing yourself better so you can get more done. It's actually about changing your relationship to all of the doing and it's accepting that we're often way better off doing a bit less but doing better than trying to do all of the things all of the time. And remember, you get to choose. You get to choose peace, you get to choose rest, you get to choose yourself over the urgency and the chaos of the urgency, right?

There are absolutely ways to do this. Take it a step at a time. Like I say, don't jump straight into it and be overnight. Right, that's it. I'm gonna strip everything back and get rid of everything. Your nervous system is not gonna react well to that. It's gonna feel icky. So a step at a time. Soothe your nervous system a little bit. Get clear on what's actually urgent. Be prepared to make a few decisions. Cut the flippin' fluff.

and also recognize your current state and what you're gaining from that right now. Because you are gaining something from it and once you can recognize that and let go of it, it gets a little bit easier. It gets a little bit easier. So I hope that's been helpful. Next week we're gonna be talking about your ability to sit with discomfort. So we've talked a bit about discomfort today, haven't we? I think we talked a little bit about it last week. So we're get fully into that.

And we're to talk about why your ability to sit with discomfort equals your success in fitness and in life. Okay, so we're going to go into that one next week. So I hope you can enjoy me for that. But thank you for joining me again today. And with all of that said, I'm going to love you and leave you and I'll see you back here next time.