What to do when you feel overwhelmed?
We are often overwhelmed by demands, projects, unexpected problems or any related issues that will take our time away while increasing our daily amount stress. This is a common situation where we want to give our best to do everything or help everybody only by ourselves, disconsidering any help or delegating it for someone else, maybe because we assume that we are strong and capable enough to handle it or that we are the only ones that can reach the best result and no one would be able of doing it.
Centralize everything is a common mistake and must be avoided, even if do our best to reach 100% of accomplishment, we might hit 99% and people will talk about that 1% missed and maybe point fingers at you asking about that 1% but forgetting about the others 99% accomplished, on the same time, sense of guiltiness and low self-esteem will rise without a real reason.
Keeping our heads down working as much as we can without paying any attention to the environment we are in is not a good choice, we must stop, lift up our heads and observe both internal and external trends, understand the unique information and perspective that our function provides and define its impact on the corporate level strategy or even in our lives. Considering our capabilities and objectives we must seek and find similar people that would be capable of handling our tasks and responsibilities in order to decentralize it.
Demand decentralization allows people to maintain focus on the big picture, avoiding being bothered or distracted by minor tasks, and to focus on new or already expected responsibilities.
When decentralizing, the following elements must be considered:
Trust – Choosing the right person to handle one of your responsibilities is a complex process, having a relationship of trust with him/her is a major aspect that can drive you either to success either to failure. We must learn do abdicate our insecurities and create the sense of letting go, only like this we will be able to delegate tasks, projects and responsibilities. Trust is not blindly given, it must be built over time.
Availability & Knowledge – The people who will receive the demand must have the trust and confidence from you, knowing they are empowered to make decisions and that you will back them up in any adversity. In this case you must be ready for any cases of doubts or emergencies, always giving the right direction based on the main objectives.
Communication – A clear and precise communication is needed, it’s important to put the right reasons to do it and especially the “why” behind it. After delegating, ask the person to tell you what she understood in order to see if really matches your expectations.
Planning – Delegating is not just giving away your previous task or responsibility, it’s a way of making others to help you, it requires follow-ups and a communication plan, things can not be loose and unclear. People can not operate by their own.
Patience – It takes strength to let go, sometimes the process can be slow due to unexpected reactions from people or even lack of understanding the demand and its priority. Be patient, understand the aspects that needs improvement and find new ways of reaching your objective.
No one has the cognitive capacity, the physical presence or the knowledge of everything happening around themselves to effectively lead or heading to success. Pushing the right demands to the right people can become a unique ability that can drive you to success, this will happen often due to experience, and you’ll know when achieving it when people feel happy when being involved in the things you are part of.
Art: Untitled,ca. 1948–49 – Jackson Pollock