Self-Stressed: Dealing With Overwhelm When You’re Self-Employed

Stress and productivity are rarely friends, despite what the type As might think. Here’s how you can tell what’s really holding you back— no matter how murky your stress might seem.

Photo by Gift Habeshaw on Unsplash

If you’ve ever gone about your day with a tight-backed sense of stress with no discernable cause, you know how debilitating such an experience can be. When the feeling persists for weeks or even months, you’re liable to see your productivity plummet right along with your health.

Feeling overwhelmed is nothing new for the average person. More of us are busier than ever before — so many of us are self-starters, entrepreneurs, and creators, and all of those paths involve a plethora of moving parts. The self-employed are the world’s newest industry, and many of us are experiencing growing pains.

Most of us tend to underestimate the impact overwhelm has on us simply because it’s so common. By the time it gets to dangerous levels, we’re so caught up in our anxieties that they seem totally nebulous. How can you pick out any individual threads of tension from such a mess?

But knowing precisely where your overwhelm is coming from is the first step in overcoming it — and…