How To Start When Everything Feels Too Much

Overwhelm can look so ordinary that you miss it until you’re stuck on the sofa, watching Netflix, feeling guilty, and still not doing the thing you actually care about. I’m back on the mic after a break to talk about that exact spiral: podcast avoidance, life overload, and the way perfectionism quietly convinces us that “not starting” is safer than “not perfect”.

I share what finally got me to press record, plus the habit tools I keep coming back to from Atomic Habits: reduce friction, make the first step ridiculously small, and stop bundling one task into a whole impossible project. We talk about why motivation is unreliable, how a simple set-up can remove mental barriers, and how AI tools can take away the fiddly parts that turn a creative habit into a chore. There’s also a very real-life look at decision fatigue from working as a doctor, and why simplifying choices (same breakfast, fewer decisions, less mental load) can free up energy for the habits you want.

We also use Couch To 5K as a practical model for sustainable change: don’t skip steps, don’t sprint on day one, and aim for consistency over intensity. Finally, we get into habit stacking for morning and bedtime routines, so actions become automatic rather than another daily debate in your head. If you’ve been feeling stuck, anxious, scattered, or quietly burned out, you’ll leave with a calmer plan and a few concrete next moves.

If this resonates, subscribe, share it with someone who needs a gentle push, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What’s one tiny step you can do today to reduce your overwhelm?

Transcript

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Life Overwhelm And Podcast Guilt

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi! Today I wanted to talk to you about pod well, not just podcast overwhelm, to be honest, life overwhelm. I do this with so much stuff in my life that I'm like honestly paralyzed by how overwhelmed I am by like the smallest things ever. And a book that really helped me with this actually was Atomic Habits, which I in classic um likely ADHD style I have read about a quarter of and not the rest of it. So I keep downloading books onto my Kindle and not finishing them. It's a real problem that I have in my life as well as uh overwhelm. Honestly, just put me on the Rittlin now, please. So I haven't podcasted in a while, and I've been feeling so guilty about it. I honestly, every single day, and that is not an exaggeration, every single day for the past like month, I've been like, Dawn, you need to podcast today, and being like, Yeah, like I do want to do it, but also just getting home and just not doing it, and sitting and watching Netflix, like binge watching TV programmes, and just coming up with many reasons not to do it, and again, today was the same, but I had some kind of like surge of motivation as I was driving home, and I said to myself, today, no excuses. I honestly something came over me. Today, no excuses, you are podcasting, you will not not do it, and here I am. I'm honestly quite impressed with myself because it's not like I don't like doing it, it's just that there are so many things to stop me from doing it. So, today, for example, it is so hot, I what it's okay, it's only 22 degrees outside, and it but it is like half ten at night. But bear in mind that English houses hold so much heat that it's probably more like 25-26 in here. Let's be honest, it might even

Heat, Noise, Dogs And Excuses

SPEAKER_00 2:10

be hotter. So I'm currently lying on an ice pack, but this was one of my excuses was like I'm too hot to do it, I'll sweat, I'll like just be really uncomfortable, and I can't have a fan on whilst I'm recording because you'll just hear it. So that was one of my excuses. Another one is that my dog is coughing. I'm pretty sure she's got reflux, so I can hear her like in the background. But I think to be honest, the podcast software will just edit that out. I'm hoping. Um, also you can hear the cars outside, which is quite off-putting because I can hear it in the microphone, microphone headphones. Also, as you may have known from my last podcast, I have gotten two horses. So every day I come home and I'm exhausted, I'm just so tired. Uh you'd think I'd get fitter, and I think I am, but then I just end up doing more. I've got this like prob another problem where I just do too much, and then I come home and I'm just dead. I'm like, I only just mustered up the energy to go and walk the dogs, but I had to do it at night because it's so hot in the day, like I can't take them out when it's 30 degrees. So, you know, because they're covered in you know, literally a fur coat, so and they're hot enough just walking around in the night time. Sadly for me though, everyone else has also got that plan and uh decides to also walk their dogs at that time of night. So I'm a bit of a one of those people that just wants to like walk around the dog park on my own. I'm like, I really don't want to have to like say hello to anyone, which is funny because I work as a doctor, I literally talk to people all day, which is probably why I don't want to. Anyway, I'm lying on an ice pack, it's giving me ice burn on my back. Um, but I'm actually not hating it. It hurts a little bit, but no pain, no gain. Um, so yeah, I wanted to talk about my overwhelm, which is paralysing because it stops me from doing anything. I can't be the only person. I'm sure this has got a name. See, I'm gonna sneeze now. Uh okay, it's not coming. Uh uh. Sorry about this. Um, okay, it's gone. Um, another thing is that one of my connectors was upstairs, and I was like, oh, I could just not do it. And then I was like, no, you're doing it. Get off your fucking ass and get up and do it. The washing up isn't done. I didn't do the recycling, so it there's an absolute pile of recycling. Um, yeah, I just spend all my time with my horses, but whatever. I need that there's a mug at work that's um not mine, but it should be mine. It says I'd rather be riding my horses, and sometimes I drink out of that mug at work. Yes, I'm one of those people that shares drinks out of communal mugs and uses communal cutlery. I find it weird that people don't. Anyway, sorry. There's my dog, you might have heard her. She sounds like a foghorn. Can you shut up, please? You're disturbing the flow. Um, I need to take her to the vets

Perfectionism And No Clear Direction

SPEAKER_00 5:20

and get her some mebrazole, but they wanted to see her, and I was like, when do I have time for this? Um yeah. So I guess some of my overwhelm thoughts are um, will it be good enough? I've got a setup. Like it actually takes like two minutes to set it up, although my connector was upstairs, so I did have to go and get that. Um I've written avoidance, but I honestly oh, and then I've sorry, I was gonna say I don't know what I meant by that, but then I've written something in brackets, which is very helpful. Um Netflix, yeah. Work. Oh, so I've got work that I do on my laptop, and then I'm just tired. Um when I get round to reading all of Atomic Habits, I'll update you on the rest of the tips that I've got. Um, I think probably one of the biggest things is I'm always whenever I do things, especially like creative things, I'm always like, um, will it be good enough? Like, I feel like it's not perfect, so why would I put it out there? And I need to get over this, like it's it's perfection paralysation. That must be another problem that I have. I just get a bit paralyzed by the fact that I want it to be perfect, and I'm like, Well, no one's gonna listen to it, no one cares. Like, why are you even doing it? But then I get like quite not loads, but like quite a few downloads on my podcast, and then I get like a weekly email to tell me how many people have uh downloaded my podcast, and I'm like, oh, and that's not what's driving me to do it as such, but I it it is like a constant reminder, like a weekly reminder, like, come on, get yourself together. And the problem is I don't really have like a concrete direction for the podcast, like it is it's health orientated, I'd say, but I also talk about like mental health, physical health, health trends, and then I've just like chucked horses in there. Um, so I'm a bit like if I was not me and I came across this podcast, would I listen to it? I honestly don't know. Um, so yeah, there's no direction. I'm sorry, and it's not as though I'm like you know, David Beckham or something, and everyone cares what I have to say. Um like yeah, but people are still listening, so hi, thanks so much. Um okay, so how did I actually sit myself down and do this? I honestly, firstly, I don't know is the answer. Today I just told myself you're doing it, and I just I didn't give myself another option. I was like strict on myself, it was quite astonishing, really.

Motivation Versus Systems That Last

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Um, I think what we're talking about here is motivation. I had motivation. Now the problem is I don't always have motivation as you can um tell. So atomic habits is basically like how do you keep doing stuff that you should do, you know, like shower, brush your teeth, you know, do your journaling, etc. Um, when you can't be asked to do it. Okay, there's a couple of things that I've done to help myself do certain things. Let's talk about the podcast quickly, because you know, not everybody podcasts, so it's like not super relevant, but there

Reduce Friction And Make It Easy

SPEAKER_00 9:00

are other things that I used to avoid doing, but now I actually do do them. Um, so firstly, I try to reduce friction by having everything down here. So uh the microphone is permanently in the living room, much to my uh boyfriend's dismay. He does not like the fact that it's in here. Um and given that I podcast you know, when did I podcast last? A few months ago. So should it be in here? No, but I know that if I put it upstairs in my office, I will not go in there, and I will not sit down and I will not podcast. But if it's here, it's like a constant like come on, you can do it. And also it's just easy because I just lie down on the sofa, pull it out on its little stretchy arm thing, and I just lie here. Uh, my laptop's always in the front room. Probably shouldn't have told you that in case you want to rob me. Um but and then the connector's usually down here as well, but obviously it wasn't, so I went to go get it. But I was already motivated and committed by that point. I was like, you are going upstairs. Also, I had stuff to take upstairs, so um reducing friction basically. Um what else have I written down? Um okay, the next thing that I do is I just make it really small. I'm like, you're just gonna go and get the connector, and that's it. I'm not like you're gonna podcast and then you're gonna edit it, and then you're gonna upload it, and then you're gonna come up with this and the title and blah blah blah. And I tell you what, AI has really helped with this because it means I don't have to think of a title, I don't have to make the sound good, I don't have to like do anything. Actually, uploading the podcast is really easy, it's removed so many friction points that I it's actually really easy to do it, so I don't really have an excuse from that point of view. Um I think the mental this just the mental barrier for me. Um so yeah, just make it small. So I'm just like you're just gonna so for me podcasting for half an hour is not a big deal. Um for someone who doesn't podcast, then that might sound like quite a long time, but actually I don't know how, but I just seem to feel it. Um but I said to myself today, I was like, you're just gonna podcast for like 30 minutes or less. You don't need to do an hour. That's it. You just just do a small amount, at least you've done something. So that was quite motivating for me because I was like, well, okay, well, we've only had to do like 15 to 30 minutes, like

Tiny Goals With Couch To 5K

SPEAKER_00 11:50

that's easy. It's like if um I've just started doing the couch to 5k because I want to be fitter for and also less fat for riding my horse. Um I'm re-backing one of them, um, which means like you're basically starting I'm starting her completely from the ground, like you know, teaching her as if she had never been ridden before, basically. Um because she had just had a lot of tension and I just I it wasn't really fun for either of us to to do anything because she was so tense. So I was like, right, we need to start from the beginning, like completely. Um so fuck's sake, I can't even remember what I was talking about now. Oh my god, I've literally completely lost it. Wow. Um why was I talking about that? Oh my god. See, this is what I mean about the podcast being bad. I'm like what happens if you I to be fair, I didn't actually anticipate this happening. Um but it has it's happened. I might have to just pause for a minute and just figure out what I was saying. Okay, I had to go back and listen to like the last minute or two to try and figure out what I was talking about. I was talking about the couch to 5k and then I just started talking about the horse because I was like I need to be fitted for the horse, but that just completely threw me off. So I started doing the couch to 5k, and I'm the kind of person that like pushes myself really hard, so I'm like, uh I could probably go out and run a 5k now or even before I started, but if I'd have gone out and done that, I would have completely overwhelmed myself and I would not have done it again. But I'm on week five of the couch to 5k, and the first few weeks were so easy, it was like too easy. I was like, I'm running for 60 seconds, like that was it, but to some people that is a lot, but I was like, no, we're not gonna skip the first few weeks because this is what you do, Dawn. You push yourself too hard, you get overwhelmed by it, and then you can't do it anymore, and then you just stop doing it. Whereas if I was like, Yeah, I'll just go for a five-minute run, great. And today I was like, I'm gonna go take the dogs for a walk, and all I thought about was I'm gonna walk down to like one part of the park, which isn't very far, and I'm gonna walk back. What did I end up doing? I walked around the whole park, but I didn't go out thinking I was going to walk around the whole park because that would have stopped me from doing it. Um, this is how my brain works, so you know it's just breaking it down into like literally the smallest thing, and then if you've if you achieve that, if I'd walked to the that part of the park and back, great, I'd achieve what I set out to do. But I will generally exceed my goal because I that really wasn't very far, and I was like, Well, I'm already out now, I may as well just keep going, and it was quite nice, you know, it was nice and cool, and the dogs were having a good time, so I was like, okay. Um yeah, so just breaking it down to like literally such small parts. I mean, I'm not even joking or exaggerating when I say I was going to walk about a hundred metres and then back because that was in my head all that I could muster doing, and thinking about going around the whole park was just too much. Um, what do I I do this like when I'm in bed as well. I'm like I start thinking about everything I have to do. Like, I have to I have to like take the bed sheet off. This is honestly this is how much detail it goes into. I have to take the bed sheet off, I have to swing my legs over, I have to sit up, I have to get off the bed. And none of these things are hard, like, but sometimes when things are bad in my head, I'm like doing all I start thinking about doing all of that, and I'm like, how on earth am I gonna complete the day when I've got that many things to do? Realistically, you could just ignore most of the time. I can just I just go, I'm just gonna get up and get ready for the day. That's uh don't think about the minute details because that's overwhelming. Um but sometimes that is what you need to do. It's like you need to think, right, all I'm gonna do now is I'm just gonna take the bed sheet off, um, and then do the next thing. But sometimes when I'm in a good place, I'm like, yeah, I don't even think about it. Like I feel like this is like normal people, they just don't think about getting out of bed and like doing things for the day. But I guess I don't know when you're really tired and like not feeling it.

Decision Fatigue And Simple Prep

SPEAKER_00 17:05

Um another thing that I've done with journaling is basically I journal on my iPad, but I'm really bad at doing it because um the iPad is always out of battery. I honestly don't understand it, it lasts for like two days, and then it's like I'm dead. So what I did was I bought some chargers off Amazon, simple things, simple, and I've got I bought like four because I was like, if I don't have one every place in the house that my iPad might be, I won't charge it. So, for example, I seem to have like an absolute lack of USB C cables, which is what my iPad's charged with. I am constantly losing them slash not able to find them, slash I take them out with me and maybe put them in a bag somewhere and then they're gone forever. So I bought like how many did I buy? I either bought four or eight. I honestly can't remember now. And I think I bought four. I put one down here and I've put one upstairs and then I'm gonna have one spare and then I'm gonna have one in my bag. Easy, done, and then I'm the the spare one's just gonna replace the one that I lose, which will inevitably be the one in my bag because I'll take it out. Oh that's what's happened. I've left it at work, my last one. It's in a drawer somewhere, but I don't know when I'm gonna collect that. Um my god, I've done it again, I've forgotten what I was talking about. Okay, so yeah, just coming up with like little logistical things. Um another thing that I do sometimes if I'm like, oh I need to get up really early, like 5am, and like I'm not really vibing that, is I'll make my breakfast the day before. Like when I say make, I mean I'll put the bowl out and the spoon and put the brand flakes in the bowl. It in my head, life is just easier. Also, I don't have to think about what I'm wearing, I just wear scrubs, done. Don't have to that is another thing, just removing all decisions. Like I have brown flakes, I have the same breakfast every day, I wear the same clothes, and I drive the same route, done. Like it's not even like I I honestly I get such bad decision fatigue, especially at work, because I work obviously as a doctor, I have to make a lot of decisions. Um, and just removing as many decisions that are unnecessary as possible. It's like when you go into a shop or like you look at a menu and you're like, fucking hell, there's like 50 things on this menu. Like, I just have to tell my boyfriend to choose for me. I'm like, these are the three that all five that I would want. Like, can you just choose? Because I honestly don't know. Um, so

Habit Stacking And A Gentle Reset

SPEAKER_00 20:00

yeah, those are some other little tippies. Um okay, and then I'd say probably my last one is stacking. Um, this is one they talk about in atomic habits, and it's basically like uh what do I do every day while I go to the toilet in the morning? Like that's like a non-negotiable activity because you know, otherwise I'll just wee myself. Um so whenever I get up and go for a wee, I always brush my teeth straight after. Like, and then I just don't forget to do it, and then I let the dogs out as I'm brushing my teeth. I'm really bad. I walk around the house and brush my teeth. Um people have died from that, like walking down the stairs. If you fall with a toothbrush in your mouth, that could end badly, let me tell you. But look, I hold on to the banister and I just pray for you know not to fall down the stairs. Um, these are the kind of things you think about as a doctor, sadly, because you know that they can happen. Um then I let the dogs out. So, like every activity has another activity after it, and you already have a routine, so you can just slot things in. So for me, I really want to eat breakfast and journal um in the morning. Um, that is definitely something I want to like put into my routine. So I think what I'll do is I'll um let the dogs out. After I've brushed my teeth, I will I need to just journal straight away because otherwise I just won't do it. Um it's like with breakfast. If I don't have my tablets with my breakfast, I just forget. Um, so it's like just I think they call it habit stacking. Just doing when I do this, I will do this. Um so yeah, I feel like it works really well for like bedtime and morning routines, but you can also do it for like non-morning routines and bedtime, like um when I see hay on the floor in my living room, I pick it up. When I go up the stairs, I take the stuff that I've put on the side of the stairs up with me because I don't see the point in going up like every time I need to put something upstairs, so I just leave it on the stairs. So whenever there's something on the stairs, I take it up. Bosch. Anyway, I think I'm just gonna leave it there. I'm pretty proud of myself to be honest, just for showing up. Um and I hope that's somewhat helped. I feel like um there are other things, you know, mindfulness. Um, I do try and do that in bed now. That's another one of my habit stacking things. Um and I feel like once you start habit stacking, you just take away that like thought process, it's you just do it, it's just automatic. And automatic habits are the best because it's not an effort. Um yeah, I will be back, guys. I once I get into the groove of it, like I used to be in such a habit when I was podcasting like three times a week, I never missed it. Like I just did it. It was like a ritual, but I feel like when you're kind of out of it, you're just like, oh, I don't have a routine, I don't have a day that I do it. No one's no one was counting on me anyway, probably, but no I have no accountability because I haven't said I'm gonna upload Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I think is what I did, which was wild. I think I had to drop that down to two times a week. Um and yeah, the podcast has been going for like five years now, so I need to just sort my shit out. Anyway, um you can actually send me messages on on the podcast now, by the way. Um, if you fancy it. Um just nice ones though, because you know, I don't need negativity in my life. Um I think some upcoming episodes might be I had some sports psychology sessions for my horse riding, and I'd quite like to talk about those, to be honest. Um, it was something I never really knew much about before, but it's honestly helped me so much, not just in horse life, but in general life. Like I was so anxious, and now I'm just living the dream, sweating on my sofa. Anyway, guys, uh thanks so much for listening, and I will speak to you when uh hopefully next week. Come on, Dawn, sort your life out.