Are you feeling overwhelmed at work or home? Maybe it’s the endless demands of your to-do list or the crushing weight of expectations that never seem to let up. That sense of overwhelm can leave you feeling stuck and powerless. But what if I told you that overwhelm isn’t a failure—it’s actually a signal that your current strategy needs to adapt to your current reality?
Watch, listen, or read below and I’ll break down the five core reasons why you might be feeling overwhelmed and provide actionable steps you can take to move forward with confidence.
Overwhelm: A Sign, Not an Excuse to Stop
Overwhelm doesn’t mean you’re failing. It’s a sign that something in your life has changed, and your current approach is no longer working. For years, I thought overwhelm was just part of the job as a senior vice president, single mom, and someone juggling far too much.
It wasn’t until I experienced several life-changing events—including a miscarriage, leaving an abusive marriage, and losing a loved one to suicide—that I realized the truth: feeling overwhelmed is an opportunity to pivot and grow.
Through my experiences and work with hundreds of women, I identified five key areas—what I call the Overwhelm Culprits—that keep us feeling stuck. Addressing these culprits can help you regain control and start moving forward again.
The 5 Overwhelm Culprits
1. Lack of Clarity
If you’re unsure what you want or why you want it, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by indecision.
Solution:
- Identify your core values and goals.
- Ask yourself: Does my current situation align with these values?
- Take small steps to clarify your vision and next steps.
2. Lack of Confidence
When self-doubt creeps in, it can prevent you from taking risks, asking for opportunities, or believing in your worth.
Solution:
- Get real about what’s undermining your confidence.
- Build skills or seek resources to bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be.
- Remember, confidence grows with consistent action.
3. Lack of Community
As the famous motivational speaker Jim Rohn once said, we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. If your circle isn’t supportive, it can drain your energy and hold you back.
Solution:
- Evaluate the impact of those around you.
- Seek out people who inspire and encourage you, whether through professional networks or personal connections.
4. Lack of Conditioning
Skipping basic self-care—like exercise, proper nutrition, or rest—can make it harder to cope with life’s demands.
Solution:
- Choose one self-care habit to prioritize this week, such as drinking more water or going for a daily walk.
- Build consistency with one habit before adding another.
5. Lack of Consistency
Consistency creates momentum. Without it, even the best plans can fall apart.
Solution:
- Use tools like checklists or project management systems to stay organized.
- Commit to daily actions, no matter how small, that move you closer to your goals.
Overcoming Overwhelm: A Quick Exercise
The next time you’re feeling overwhelmed, try this simple exercise:
- Pause and Reflect: Identify which of the five culprits is holding you back.
- Take One Step: Choose one small action to address that culprit.
- Stay Consistent: Commit to this action for a week and evaluate your progress.
Take the First Step
If you’re ready to uncover what’s causing your overwhelm and take back control, I’ve created a free resource just for you.
Take my Overwhelm Culprit Quiz to find out which of the five culprits is keeping you stuck and get personalized next steps to feel more in control. It’s quick, free, and actionable.
Final Thoughts
Feeling overwhelmed isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s an invitation to adapt. By identifying and addressing the root causes of your overwhelm, you can transform that stuck feeling into confident action.
Ready to dive deeper into overcoming overwhelm? In the next edition of The Next Step with Corrie Lo, I’ll take a deep dive into the first culprit—clarity—and show you how to get unstuck and start making decisions with confidence.
Subscribe to the Next Step, leave a comment, and share this post with someone who might need it. Together, we can transform overwhelm into action.
CLICK FOR TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Maybe it’s at work where the expectations never seem to end or at home where there’s always one more thing demanding your time.
That sense of overwhelm isn’t just about being busy. It’s actually a really positive sign. It’s not negative. It means that it’s time to adapt your strategy to accommodate your current reality.
In this episode, we are breaking down the five overwhelm culprits, the key areas that are holding you back, as well as sharing simple steps you could take to help you feel more in control and take action starting today.
You’re listening to The Next Step with Cori Lowe, where we transform overwhelm into confident action. I’m Corrie LoGiudice, keynote speaker, coach, and working mama for here to help ambitious women just like you take the next step, whether that be leadership at work, at home, or in your community. Let’s get started.
For years, I thought overwhelmed was part of the job as a leader, as a mom, as someone generally juggling way too many responsibilities, which I’m sure you could relate to.
But [00:01:00] then I hit a breaking point. In a span of only five years, I navigated alongside my career as a senior vice president, navigating a miscarriage, I left an abusive relationship when my son was only five months old, became a single mother. Everything was on me. I really struggled navigating that high conflict divorce while continuing to advance my career.
Mind you. I did really, really well with this to the point that my therapist I was working with at the time noticed, “Hey, this girl is doing something my other patients aren’t really capable of doing”, and she encouraged me to figure out exactly how I was navigating that level of overwhelm. Without it affecting my capacity to show up as a leader each and every day.
But I kind of dismissed, it kept going on because as we all know, that’s the hand that we felt we were dealt. That’s how we need to show up at life every single day.
We’re all part of the [00:02:00] rat race. We don’t really have any other choice.
But where my breaking point was is after I had successfully built up my life from nothing again, post-divorce I had, really done well in advancing my career. I bought a brand new house from nothing. I was in a great school district.
My kids were happy. I was in a relationship with a partner. Our kids were best friends. We were in the process of getting ready to move in together. And then I was the one to discover he took his life by suicide. This is where I finally took to heart, all of the things that my therapist had encouraged me for many years. And had sat and thought, okay, Corrie, you’ve been able to navigate just as devastating situations before this, you could do it again. What exactly did you do the first go around to make it possible for you to continue to show up while dealing with very traumatic, stressful situations. That is when I [00:03:00] discovered the overwhelmed culprits.
When you break it down, overwhelm is simply just a sign, something and your current strategy needs to be adapted to your current reality.
Look back at me back post divorce, right? What had changed? I became a mother and at that time it really brought to the forefront what a bad situation my household was in where, before I was able to manage it. It’s not only became unmanageable. I needed to change something. To have a different kind of reality.
Right? So once I was able to address it, the better, same thing, post suicide loss. What changed? I lost my partner. I needed to figure out a way to adapt my life and to adapt my vision and overall trajectory, all my different plans to accommodate the fact that this person was no longer in my life.
But how exactly did I do that? And I did it by identifying what specifically it was overwhelming me at that moment and then taking the next step [00:04:00] and making strategic changes to accommodate that new reality.
And my experience personally, as well as working with hundreds of women at this point in time. There are five areas that can keep you overwhelmed and stuck. They are all super simple to remember. They begin with the letter C and they are lack of any one of these five things. It’s lack of clarity. Lack of confidence, lack of community, lack of conditioning and lack of consistency.
Let’s break them each down one by one.
So number one is lack of clarity. It’s not just so much important to know what it is you want. You need to know why it is that you want it? And it doesn’t matter if this is a physical thing or a relationship, a specific goal, you need to have clarity surrounding it. So here’s an example. Maybe you feel stuck in your job and you’re unsure whether or not you should stay, or if you should leave.
The first step is to identify [00:05:00] what are your core values? And determine like whether or not is the role I’m in aligned with these values or what other jobs or companies or positions can I be in that will align with them? All right.
If you’re not clear on your values, your mission and your overall vision. You’re always going to remain stuck and overwhelmed in that place.
The second culprit is lack of confidence.
This culprit shows up when you doubt your abilities and your worth. So this is where imposter syndrome really comes into play.
For example, if lack of confidence is your overwhelmed culprit, it might prevent you from asking for a raise or putting your hat in the ring for a promotion.
So the very first step is you need to get real with what it is that you don’t feel confident about. And what the source of that lack of confidence is from, and then you need to figure out what you need to do to bridge the gap, to build that confidence. So usually it’s finding some sort of [00:06:00] education tools, resources. Taking consistent action to bridge that gap.
The third overwhelm culprit is lack of community.
As the famous motivational speaker. Jim Rohn once said, we are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with.
So my question for you today is are the people surrounding you, helping you, or preventing you from achieving what it is that you’re looking to achieve.
So as an example of this, maybe you’re surrounded by co-workers that constantly downplay your ideas. Or worse yet. Maybe they take them and run with them and don’t give you credit for it.
The first step is listing the five people you spend the most time with in your life and really evaluating their effect and impact on you, your life and your goals.
The fourth culprit is lack of conditioning.
When I say conditioning, I’m talking about your physical and mental health and wellness.
So examples of this would be skipping workouts or not eating healthy meals. Neglecting the hydrate, not getting enough sleep. We’re talking basic [00:07:00] self care, like necessary self care.
And the first step is to identify just one self-care habit that you could prioritize in the coming week and build up the habit so that you can then focus on another habit. Once you really, really, mastered that one.
The fifth and final C is lack of consistency.
Consistency are the daily actions that you take to build momentum. So we’re talking about habits, routines.
It can also be more systematic tools and resources that you use. Things that I rely on often are things like, checklists or databases or project management systems. These are all things that help you remain consistent because they remind you of what you should be doing on a regular basis.
So a great example of this is starting off with a specific goal in mind, and you’re going to take action on it, but you lose your steam like, a week in. So what exactly do you need to do to keep yourself accountable, to take [00:08:00] daily action? If you want to lead an extraordinary life, it really requires extraordinary action.
You have to do something over and above, whatever it is you’re doing today in order to get a different result. And sometimes it’s actually necessary to take action versus taking steps back when you are overwhelmed so that you can gain control of that situation.
So there you have it. We covered the five overwhelm culprits, lack of clarity, confidence, community conditioning and consistency.
Remember each one is a sign is not necessarily a failure.
So your next step, take my free overwhelmed culprit quiz to find out what’s holding you back.
It’s quick, it’s free and it gives you a personalized next steps.
Head on over to www.corrielo.com/overwhelmculprits. Backslash overwhelmed, culprits. Or click the show notes below.
Thank you so, so much for joining me for this first inaugural. I can’t say that this first inaugural episode of the Next Step with Corrie Lo.
[00:09:00] Next week, we’re going to be diving even deeper into the clarity culprit.
If you’ve ever felt stuck, unsure about your goals and overwhelmed with decision making this episode’s going to be for you.
Thanks for checking out the next step with Corrie Lo. If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend, subscribe, and leave a review. Together, we’ll transform overwhelm into action, and we’ll keep taking the next step towards competent leadership. See you next time.