By Wendy Quan

Life feels so fast and busy. How well do you cope?

Does this sound familiar?

•  “My life is just so busy, I don’t have time for anything!”
• “There’s not enough hours in the day to do everything.”
• “I know I put this onto myself.  It’s me who creates the pressure to do everything, but…”
• “I’m exhausted.”

Sometimes we have control over our life’s workload and sometimes we don’t. Even when we truly do not have the luxury of reducing our workload, there are some very simple techniques that can really make a big difference to shift the feeling of being overwhelmed.

After all, it’s our perception that can change how the world looks to us.

Here are some tips that you can practice at any time, even at work:

• Take a breath.
  Honestly, this may sound silly, but your breath is always available to you even on the busiest of days.  Pause and take some slow, conscious breaths. This will help ground yourself in the present moment and give you a mental break from your busy day. It feels so good to just stop and feel your body breathe. Tune in to the sensations of your body breathing and really feel the breaths.  This only takes a few seconds or minutes.

  It’s easy to grab opportunities during your work day, such as:  while you’re waiting for people to arrive to a meeting, waiting for your computer to reboot, standing at the elevator, or washing your hands.

• Adopt an attitude of “There is exactly enough time to do what’s important in my life.”
  When you change your perspective and take on a different attitude towards your life, your experience of life changes.  Repeat the phrase quietly to yourself several times, then see how you feel.

• Take a mindful approach using Tara Brach’s RAIN.
  • Recognize what’s going on
  • Allowing: Taking a Life-Giving Pause
  • Investigating with Kindness
  • Natural Loving Awareness

 
Through the conscious choice to practice self-awareness and taking mindful moments to pause, you can reduce feelings of being overwhelmed.

Think of life as a series of moments, and take each moment one at a time.

Life is about the present moment, and ensuring we don’t let these moments pass by unnoticed because we are too busy trying to get somewhere else.

Wendy Quan provides mindfulness meditation facilitator training and certification online courses which are available to CPHR BC & Yukon members at a preferred rate. Find out more. Also, CPHR BC & Yukon members can access her on-demand sessions  Mindfulness for Busy HR Professionals and How to Bring Mindfulness into Your Workplace with No Ongoing Operating Costs free!

Wendy Quan, founder of The Calm Monkey, is an industry leader, helping organizations implement mindfulness meditation programs and combining change management techniques to create personal and organizational change resiliency. She trains meditators to become workplace facilitators.