Despite our best efforts, many of us are feeling increasingly overwhelmed as we struggle to keep up with the frenetic pace of day to day life in the 21st century. Whether we're dealing with career obligations, school and extra-curricular activities, holding down day jobs while pursuing our dreams at night, tending to oft-neglected family and friends, scrambling to cram some semblance of spirituality into our day, or simply keeping the basic machinery of life running, we are pushed and pulled in dozens of different directions, seemingly at the same time.

There doesn't seem to be a universal solution, just as there is not one set of universal problems. But I believe there are basic techniques applicable to any personality or any situation across the board. Lately I've been trying to take a step back to discover what works best when I am feeling stressed, overwhelmed, and, even worse, utterly useless. Here's what I've found:

BREATHE
Getting in a panic won't solve anything, and it will only make everything seem worse, even to the point of being hopeless. Things may be happening for any number of reasons, many of which may be out of your control. Often times you are not responsible for the circumstances in which you find yourself, but you *are* responsible for how you choose to react to those circumstances.

Take a step back and breathe.

BABY STEPS
You've already become accustomed to making progress with baby steps but, now you're in so deep that you think they can't possibly help you? Well, believe it or not, now is the time to take even tinier steps! Let me give you an example:

The other night things reached critical mass and it would have been so easy to just give up in despair. I didn't just have a "to do" list, I had three solid pages, single-spaced, with several deadlines looming and two already passed. Even though it sounded insipidly melodramatic I gritted my teeth, muttered the Nike slogan ("Just do it!") and tackled one tiny task on my list. Just one. Before I knew it, I had tackled three more tiny tasks, and maybe, just maybe, the light at the end of the tunnel was no longer the light of an oncoming train.

Baby steps can lighten the mass of impending disaster, one tiny step at a time.

ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING
Immediately remove the word "can't" from your vocabulary! Every time you say, "I can't deal with this!" you are reinforcing the belief that way down deep things are completely out of control and will remain that way. Negativity loves negativity; it thrives on it, expands it, and before you know it you are plunging deeper and deeper into an abyss of abject and utter hopelessness. That's the time to sit down in front of the telly with a carton of ice cream, right? Wrong!

Setbacks are normal and to be expected. If they weren't, we'd be perfect, and consequently, life would be perfect -- think how boring *that* would be! Turn those negative thoughts into positive actions by taking consistent baby steps. Start by saying "Just for today, I can deal with this."

I've even said, "Just for this hour . . . ."

WRITE IT DOWN
Take a sheet out of your planner, a blank pad of paper, or even the first scrap of paper you can put your hands on, and begin to write down everything that has to be done. Don't worry about the order, just *write* and keep writing until you can't think of another thing. It doesn't have to be neat, and it doesn't have to be fancy. The goal of this exercise is to simply put on paper everything that you're trying to carry around in your head so that you can begin to deal with it. While you're writing, you may see something you could attend to immediately, and like magic, you get a tick mark, and it's off the list!

This can help to give you a sense of priority so that you can begin to see what absolutely HAS to be done now and what can really stand to wait. In times when you feel like there is no semblance of order left in your life, this small action will begin to bring order back in a concrete way.

Name it, claim it, and deal with it.

I'm sure many of you have discovered your own ways to cope during stressful times, but these are some of the things that work best for me. Maybe they'll work for you, too. Remember, there is no single "right" way and no magic cure, only guidelines to help us along our individual paths. Here's to finding yourself underwhelmed!