May I be honest for a moment? Sometimes I get overwhelmed. There are times when I feel I’ve been dealt more than I can handle. There are times I look at my to-do list and want to shut down or check out because it’s seems like it’s too much and I’ll never get anything done. At times I look at a problem and I’m overwhelmed with the difficulty it entails.

Honestly, that’s hard for me to admit. I always strive to be the best at everything I set out to do, so it’s very hard for me to admit a weakness. It’s hard to admit that sometimes I feel under equipped and overwhelmed. But I think everyone feels that way to some extent. Everyone has things in their life that seem like too much. Issues that constantly seem too big to overcome. Problems that overwhelm.

The hardest thing I’ve ever tried to teach

I’ve had several leadership roles in my life. But whether my role is teacher, manager, director, or trainer, the single hardest thing to teach people is always to break down their problem into small manageable steps. Everyone wants to take one or two big steps to reach their goal.

This mindset is understandable; humans are built with the desire to change quickly but they’re also built to change very slowly.

Often people have problems or issues they have been dealing with since childhood yet they expect to be able to overcome them with one giant step (or one giant change). Then, when that doesn’t happen they get overwhelmed. Think about it, you have burdens or habits or hangups you’ve been carrying with you your whole life so the idea of instantly changing them is unreasonable to ask your body and mind to do.

“Little by little, one travels far”

As near as I can tell this quote is falsely attributed to J.R.R. Tolkien. But regardless of who first said the words they have always been my motto when I start to feel overwhelmed. This phrase is what I tell myself when I feel like I’m facing an insurmountable problem. I simply tell myself to find the very next step and focus on taking that step. I try to block out all the rest so it doesn’t overwhelm me and instead focus only on the very next thing I have to do or the very next thing I have the ability to do.

Too steady to stop

In my last blog I offered a case for being steadfast and this blog continues that thought. Being steadfast doesn’t come from being able to handle big problems with ease and running with leaps and bounds toward the finish line. Instead it comes from being able to break the race down into a million little steps and then having the ability to take small step after small step.

Strength comes from taking each step. Which builds strength for the next step. But many people try to take a step they haven’t yet built the strength for. And then they get overwhelmed.

To keep from being overwhelmed by big problems you just have to mentally break them down into steps that are small enough for you to take (no matter how small each step may be). Taking the first step will lead to the strength to take the following step. Because the strength to take each step is built by taking the step before.

Weight training or wait training

Let me use one more example. Imagine a person who has never worked out in their life. In fact, for generations this person’s family has discouraged weight lifting in all forms. But our imaginary person decides their new-year resolution is to leg press 600 pounds. So they head to the gym, load twelve 45 pound plates on the leg press machine, hop on, and unlatch the safety bar. This person would be “overwhelmed” (read: smashed) by the problem weighing on them. It is very likely this person would be so overwhelmed they would never try to leg press again.

You probably think it’s crazy for our imaginary person who has never worked out before to expect their muscles to lift 600 pounds. And it obviously is. So why do we expect ourselves to do things we haven’t built up to without getting overwhelmed?

What should this person have done differently? They should have broken their 600 pound goal into manageable steps. They should have tried adding 10 pounds every week until they overcame their “problem.” Because the strength to lift the second 10 pounds comes from lifting the first 10 pounds.