A real phenomenon called Cognitive Overload
Do you ever feel like there’s little in life you actually control? I can feel overwhelmed sometimes. It’s like I’m at the end of the tail of the dog that’s wagging it.
This feeling is a real phenomenon called Cognitive Overload where so much is happening that your brain is in a state of overwhelm. You can feel like you have little agency in your life.
As if life isn’t chaotic enough some days, the uncertainty is piled on with world-wide political turmoil, wars, natural disasters, and the economy where I have little, if any, impact. What’s worse is with the swirl of conflicting information from so many sources, I don’t know what information to believe. It’s amazing I can get anything done!
Cognitive Overload is impacted by the paralyzing effect of high UNCERTAINTY, the things we can’t know until they happen. For example, I can guess if it’s going to rain this afternoon but I won’t know until it happens. But, I can prepare by bringing a raincoat in case it does rain. That’s where I have power as the decision maker and so do you!
When I’m teaching and advising, I remind people of this simple trick to reduce cognitive overload.
MAKE YOUR WORLD SMALLER!
Link to this week’s Decision Win’s video: https://youtu.be/iVTf_em0m_w
Get connected to areas where you are the decision maker. For example, it’s easy to become distracted by social and news media and feel swamped. When this happens, make your world smaller until you find something that you can control. When you pull yourself into your own life, your family, and community, you start to see where you CAN have impact.
If you’re struggling with cognitive overload and feel fatigued by all the decisions you face, you’re not alone. Clarity4Action has resources for you. Life gets easier when you have a decision framework that incorporates all of your uniqueness, feelings, intuition, and logic. Check out our latest tool, the Decision Clarity Blueprint framework. It’s a great resource when you need to pause and recenter yourself as the decision-maker in your life.
➔ Free Resource: Decision Clarity Blueprint ➔ https://clarity4action.org/decision-clarity-blueprint/
