- Yesterday I woke up, walked into my office,
and just stared at my screen.
I couldn't do anything.
I was paralyzed.
I had this mental list of everything I needed to do,
everything I needed to study, every video I needed to make,
and it overwhelmed me.
It literally left me frozen, like,
I didn't know how to start,
and I didn't know what to do.
So have you ever been there before?
Just felt helpless, felt stuck, just done.
In this video I'm going to cover two steps
that you can take to help with
this feeling of being overwhelmed.
This video is both for you and for me
because when I had this overwhelming feeling
I forgot what to do.
I've been here before, but I forgot how to address it.
So what did I do?
Well, I asked you for help.
I asked you on Twitter, on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram,
LinkedIn, and I received hundreds of responses.
And they were so helpful.
So thank you so much if you gave
a response to those questions.
And this video will be a curated list
of all the comments I received,
of things I'm going to implement into my routine
when I, again, start to feel overwhelmed.
I'm using it now and I will use it in the future.
The two steps are pretty simple,
with a few substeps.
First step is just stop.
Second step, reset.
When I was feeling overwhelmed
I felt like I couldn't do anything,
but I felt like I had to do everything.
And I was trying to do everything,
but I didn't do anything, like that's frustrating.
Just saying that is frustrating.
So I needed to stop.
And there's a few things you can do
to just stop and step away.
To help you kind of recover from that mindset,
because it's the mindset that's bad.
So many of you suggested to step away
and pray or meditate.
Just take a moment to kind of find serenity,
collect your thoughts.
For me that meant talking to God,
talkin' out my feelings, reassessing my mindset.
That helped tremendously.
Oh and by the way, you can do these in any order.
Many of you said exercise,
and that was awesome.
That totally worked.
Stepping away and doing something physical,
that's getting away from your mental craziness
and doing something that just involves your body,
produces those endorphins that help you to be happy.
Putting stress towards something else,
lifting weights or running really hard,
does change your mindset.
It resets your body, which then, in turn, resets your mind.
This one is funny because I didn't consider it,
but it makes total sense.
And it's taking an emotional timeout.
Because when you're overwhelmed,
it's a very emotional situation.
You're upset, you're sad, you're depressed,
you're maybe possibly angry.
All these emotions are tied into what you're doing.
So take an emotional timeout.
Now what does that mean?
It might mean smashing up a phone.
So I did that.
It helped a little.
It might mean stepping away and watching
a really fantastic, moving movie or film like "Braveheart."
get caught up in the freedom and the fight
and just the exhilaration
or maybe it's watching a romantic movie with your spouse.
(intense music)
And just giving your emotions a timeout
from feeling overwhelmed and maybe feeling sad or touched
or just anything.
Engaging in something else is a key thing.
That's the majority of what this stop step is including
is ways to disengage from what you were doing,
to do something else.
Another just fantastic recommendation
was spending quality time with family and friends,
taking that break to just remind ourself
of the people you have around you.
It's so therapeutic.
So for me that meant going and hanging out
with my kids and my wife, playing a game.
It does a couple things for me.
It reminds me why I'm doing any of this.
Why am I working hard?
Why am I studying?
Well, it's for these people.
So it kinda reignites and realigns my why.
It also helps you kinda reassess what's valuable to you
and maybe help you figure out
how to deal with your schedule,
how to deal with what's making you overwhelmed,
because now you're looking at your family and your friends,
and you're like this is really what I enjoy.
This is really what I value.
How can I change what I'm doing to make this better?
Or to prioritize your family and your friends.
That's what it did for me.
And then I think one of the best pieces of advice
you guys gave was just ask for help.
Asking for help is so key,
which is what I did asking you guys,
what do you do?
What do you do to deal with
the feelings of being overwhelmed?
And you gave such great advice.
What I would also recommend is, hey,
jump on the phone with a friend,
talk to your spouse.
I think it should be someone who
doesn't do the same thing you do
or isn't into the same things you are in.
Like maybe someone who's not into IT
and who's not studying all the time.
So for example, my wife.
I talked it out with her,
and it was so helpful because she's not in my world,
and getting that different perspective
helped so much.
It helped me step out of my bubble
and see things a bit more clearly.
This piece of advice is probably my favorite.
Yep, it's my favorite,
and it's procrastinate.
Now hold on, I know many of you probably heard that word
and go, oh, license to be lazy, heck yeah.
No, no, no, this is to help you step out
of your overwhelming feeling only.
Now I don't think I have to tell you ways to procrastinate
'cause I feel like we all have a great understanding
and we're very well practiced at procrastinating.
And for me a lotta times that means
stepping away and playing Call of Duty.
Playing video games.
It actually checks all of the boxes
for stepping away.
It engages my emotions.
I get super angry or exhilaration when I kill everyone,
it's awesome.
Don't make it a habit, but use it as medicine.
So stop.
Those are some way you can stop doing what you're doing,
some very helpful ways that kind of help you
get out of that mindset.
And once you have stopped
and your mind is in a better place,
now it's time to reset.
It's time to reset your priorities, your schedule,
what you were doing, because what you were doing
obviously was not working.
Otherwise you would not have gotten overwhelmed.
So here's some things I did to kind of reset,
and a lot of it was advice from you guys.
The first thing I did was I wrote down
everything I felt I needed to do right now.
Once I had a list of everything I was trying to do,
it became a lot more apparent why I was having a problem.
I was trying to do too much.
I was trying to study for multiple exams all at once,
CCNP Route, CCNP Switch, DevNet Associate, Linux Plus,
all within a very short amount of time.
They all had to be done within February.
That was a recipe for disaster.
And I was also balancing trying to create content
for CBT Nuggets and creating content for YouTube.
I was just trying to do everything,
and that's horrible.
It's a bad idea.
I don't know why I was doing this.
Come on (laughing).
But it wasn't obvious to me
because I didn't have it listed out like that.
And once you have that list, rip it up, throw it away.
No.
Take that list and write a new list.
But put the things that you know are the best things
for your time and your energy right now.
The prioritized things.
Draw from your experiences of stopping
and reflecting and kind of taking a break.
And now with a clear head say what is it
I really need to focus on right now?
What's important for my career, for my life,
for my family, for my friends?
And once you have those things prioritized,
and you've reflected and decided what's important to you,
start to cut some things out.
You gotta be realistic about
what your schedule has right now.
What's on your plate?
And you can't look at other people
and compare yourself to them.
I know in the IT world and in a lot of industries
we get caught up in looking at what he's doing
or what she's doing and they're studying
for so many things and they got their CCIE
and they're studying for three exams.
But they're not you.
Your circumstances are different from theirs.
Your why is different from their why.
So to give you an example, for me,
I'm trying to study for multiple certifications
and have a full-time job at CBT Nuggets
and also make content for YouTube
while trying to become a hacker
and I have four kids.
I'm doin' too much.
I have to cut back.
I have to be realistic.
So that steps into the next step you'll wanna take,
is say no to things.
Do less.
So looking at my list I had the CCNP Route
and the CCNP Switch exam I was trying to complete
within this month.
And the more I thought about it and looking at my why,
my only why for completing those two exams
was to, to just get the CCNP just for
the sake of saying I did it.
So it made sense for me to go, no, CCNP Route,
no, CCNP Switch, I'm gonna cut you out.
I'm gonna focus right now on the DevNet Associate.
Plus I wanna be a part of that DevNet 500,
which if you don't know about that,
the first 500 individuals certified
with a DevNet certification are recognized
and get a special certificate or something, I don't know.
But I want it.
So I cut some things off my list.
I decided that I'm going to do less.
And by doing less I actually end up accomplishing more.
Because being overwhelmed I ended up doing nothing.
I ended up being burnt out and frustrated with myself,
frustrated that my lack of getting started.
Doing less is the best.
After you have your new list, your better list,
a list that's healthier for you,
now you need to reestablish your routine,
because routine is the key to getting things done.
It really is.
Your daily routine, your daily habits, your daily schedule.
Those are what actually make things happen in your life.
And that's also very important
because often when you're overwhelmed,
and this was the case for me, very much so,
you will start to not obey your routine.
Things that you know are important for you,
like eating right or working out or studying this and that
or spending time with your family.
You'll start to take those daily habits
that were very important for you
and put them to the side so that you can focus on
the things you're trying to get done,
things that were making you feel overwhelmed.
Studying for multiple cert exams
or staying late and working on this project.
My routine was out of whack,
and odds are that yours was, too.
So I needed to reestablish my routine,
get a healthy routine, look at my priorities,
and set up my routine the right way.
And then lastly, this might be one of my
favorite pieces of advice I received from you guys,
on the reset step here,
and that's go slow and be okay with that.
There's a great little sentence I read
in the advice you guys gave,
it was, go slow, it's the fastest thing you can do.
And that doesn't sound like it makes sense,
but it totally does because when you slow down
and you take a breath and you focus on something
you end up doing it so well,
and it ends up making sense and clicking,
so that's the advice I have to give myself
because I'm trying to go so fast
and accomplish so much so quickly,
but no, I need to go slow, enjoy it,
and I think the same thing could be true for you.
I know right now hustle culture is all the rage,
and you wanna study for certifications
and get like 50 certifications this year.
I get it, I know that, but some things just take time.
Some things will take you longer and that's okay.
If you're just getting started with networking
or Linux or programming,
the beginning is gonna be slow and that's A-OK.
You wanna take your time and
often if we go too fast we forget
to enjoy ourselves in the process.
And if you never capture that enjoyment in the process,
then you're gonna hate it down the road.
So slow down and enjoy learning.
And that was my problem is I stopped enjoying it.
I was just trying to get it done, get it done,
get it done, get it done, accomplish, go, go,
and it wasn't working for me.
So the thing I'm trying to preach to myself
and I'm hoping that will get through to you is that
you have time.
Now sure, going slow now might mean that you might
miss a few opportunities that come by.
But I'm tellin' you, for people that work hard
and that are persistent,
there are always opportunities, always.
There will always be another one.
I believe that.
So the next time I feel overwhelmed,
which I'm hoping it doesn't happen soon,
but I know inevitably it probably will happen
because if you're ambitious or if you're trying to get ahead
you end up saying yes to too many things,
which I'm working on,
but it's probably gonna happen at some point.
Next time it's gonna happen I'm gonna stop,
and then I'm gonna reset.
Stopping means stepping away, getting out of that mindset,
taking an emotional break, procrastinating,
spending time with family, exercising,
praying, meditating,
and then once I've gotten myself
out of that just tumultuous mindset
then I'm going to reset.
I'm gonna write my things down, prioritize,
cut some things away I don't need,
reflect on what's important.
I'm gonna do less thing, reestablish my routine,
have a rock solid routine that's healthy for me,
my family, and it also is productive
for what I'm trying to do, what my goals are.
And then I'm gonna give myself a break and say,
go slow, enjoy the process, because you do have time.
Now this was a curated list of things
that you guys gave to me.
At the end of this video I'm gonna have just a quick bites
of all the things that you guys said
and you can watch 'til the end.
It's such good advice.
And if you wanna go look back at this post
on my Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn,
all of the advice was so great.
So if you're feeling down or need encouragement,
bookmark those posts.
That's what I'm gonna do.
When I need help I'm gonna go back
and ask you guys for help.
Oh, and by the way, if you like what you're seeing here.
If you like IT, coffee, beards, anything I'm talkin' about,
I would be honored if you hit that subscribe button
and join me on this journey
and hit the like button on this video
because we have to satisfy our YouTube robot overlords.
They make the rules.
Well anyways guys, that's about it.
I thank you so much for helping me out
when I felt overwhelmed.
And I'm hoping this will help someone else.
When you feel overwhelmed, come back, watch this video,
and I mean I'll probably end up watching myself again
just to remind myself stop, reset,
stop, reset.
I'll catch you guys later.
(light relaxing music)