Unravelling Overwhelm: A Journey to Resilience

Keywords: Psychological wellbeing, leadership development, resilience, coaching, mental health

Author: Dr Anna-Rosa le Roux
Date: 30 July 2024, Worklife Digital

Tearful, Overwhelmed, Exhausted?

Do you feel your tears are shallow? Are you drained of emotion and thoughts about your life’s problems to the point where you feel frozen? Many people feel overwhelmed at some point in their lives. Did you know that women cry 30 - 34 times a year and men 5 - 17 times according to a study of self-reports from more than 7,000 people in 37 countries? (reference: APA)

Meet Our Client: The High-Performing Executive

I want to tell you about a client that I saw that was exhausted and tearful in my session. She is a high performing executive in the Development Industry. She is a well educated global thinker, outcomes-driven with a sustainability mindset and belief in social transformation.

She travels a lot to various African countries, cultivating relationships with donors, partners and consultants. She only has a few days per site to spend quality time with her teams before she rushes off to another site. Her time at home is limited and she has to carefully plan her schedule to feel that she can stay connected with her friends and family. She loves her sport and prioritises this amongst her travels.

Breaking Point: When Overwhelm Takes Over

She wanted to partner with a coach to help facilitate her to make sense of all the complexity that she experienced. She was at breaking point and couldn’t deal with the amount of inputs that she was responsible to manage. She drowned in all the expectations that the various stakeholders had of her.

Exhausted and overwhelmed, she broke down in tears during one of our coaching sessions. This moment of authenticity revealed the depth of her struggle with diversity in the workplace, hectic schedules, stakeholder expectations, and corporate politics.

Uncovering the Root: Open-Mindedness At Risk

Our client came for coaching as she was adamant to make a difference to other’s lives, whilst still having the energy to mentor her international teams.

Our client was slightly fearful to open herself up for new experiences. She struggled to consider alternative perspectives limiting her personal growth. This was a problem as she struggled to deal with uncertainty and cope in challenging times.

As a strength, she had a strong purpose and life and goals that gave her life meaning. This was a significant source of energy.

Partnering for Resilience: Crafting Your Journey

Our client learned that being open-minded not only boosts mood and motivation, but it also aids a more resilient attitude towards life. Not only does it improve relationships as we become tolerant of various perspectives, but also adds to our problem-solving skills where it becomes easier to think outside the box.

She benefited from the following reflection:

How can I collaborate rather than be rebellious? How can I appreciate others' viewpoints?
How is my fear of failure keeping me stuck?
How can I practise active listening, revisit stakeholders' needs and expectations and re-commit to new goals.

Take Action Now

The truth is that the majority of leaders are in a permanent crisis in organisations. The amount of complexity is simply overwhelming! The effect of this stressed-out anxious state is that it reduces our cognitive capacity to deal with our everyday demands. Perhaps you also feel that you are overwhelmed and playing catch- up to satisfy all stakeholders. Perhaps you also feel as if your tears are shallow?

Often, it helps to partner with professionals to work to craft your journey with you. Each one of us are unique and carry with us our own resources to become more resilient. Resilience is our immediate antidote to stress, preventing burnout and helping you withstand change and complexity. Take our free Psychological Wellbeing Assessment to identify areas for growth and build your resilience today.

Identifying areas of psychological wellbeing that hold you back, and focusing on addressing them is key to developing a strong, healthy mindset. Our free assessment helps you identify your strengths (areas where you are an ambassador) and areas where you have room to grow. Recommended guidance also helps you to focus on and develop areas of weakness and provide insight in how to use your strengths as a leader for others.

Click here for your 15 min free assessment and diagnostic report.

WorkLife Digital is a global mental-wellbeing consultancy driven by the mission to improve the sustainability of businesses. Our psychological wellbeing tool, Worklife Quotient (WL-Q), is modelled on cutting-edge scientific research and provides organisation-wide measurement and intelligence on the mental wellbeing levels and psychological resilience of staff. WL-Q also assesses the impact of organisational practices (i.e. people and culture, leadership styles, organisational purpose and values, social impact) that have a direct influence on staff wellbeing and provides strategic recommendations on addressing risks and promoting strengths.

For more information, get in touch at anna-rosa@worklife.digital