Today is the first of a four-part series on overwhelm. With the holidays coming and the end of the year in our sight, this is the season for feeling completely overloaded. I thought I would share some insights and strategies to help you make it through, peacefully ad gracefully. This is part one, which is all about understanding our true capacity.   Learn more about Kristen Manieri and coaching: Kristen@kristenmanieri.com KristenManieri.com   Host Bio Kristen Manieri is a coach who works with teams to increase both productivity and wellbeing. She also helps individuals navigate transition with clarity and confidence. Her areas of focus are: stress reduction, energy management, mindset, resilience, habit formation, rest rituals, and self-care. As the host of the weekly 60 Mindful Minutes podcast, an Apple top 100 social science podcast, Kristen has interviewed over 200 authors about what it means to live a more conscious, connected, intentional and joyful life. Learn more at kristenmanieri.com/work-with-me.    Coaching If you’ve ever considered coaching, or if you’re feelings stuck or you’re about to make a big transition, reach out to me and we can talk about how I can help you navigate what’s ahead with more confidence and clarity. You can reach me at Kristen@kristenmanieri.com.   Full Transcript   Today is the first of a four-part series on overwhelm. With the holidays coming and the end of the year in our sights, this is the season for feeling completely overloaded. So, I thought I would share some insights and strategies to help you make it through, peacefully ad gracefully.   We all know the feeling when we’ve got way too much on our plates. Racing thoughts. Frantic energy. Nonstop motion. Maniacal fixation on getting it all done. I’d been there many times until I learn the secret to avoiding overwhelm.   Overwhelm happens when we have more than we can handle. It’s too many obligations, appointments or errands. It’s a to-do list that’s impossibly long. It’s too many people wanting more from you than you have to give. It’s not enough hours in the day. It’s too many projects on the go. It’s messes and unfinished projects around the house. It’s not enough sleep because you thought it would be a better idea to try to just get more done.   It’s skipping meals, workouts, date nights, tuck-ins and self-care all to continue to bow down to the god of completion. It’s feeling buried and there isn’t a shovel big enough to dig you out.   Why do we do this to ourselves? Well, it’s because we don’t really understand true capacity.   Our capacity is the size of our container; it’s how much we can actually hold, yield, perform and withstand. Like a balloon, it will only take on so much air until it pops.   To begin to calculate our true capacity, we start with how many hours we have in our day after we’ve fully met our basic needs for survival: sleep, food and exercise. We must also factor in all the people we care for and about. If you’ve got young kids, for example, that will affect your capacity.   It’s also our mental state, which can shift with seasons and cycles. Perhaps your capacity expands in the summer when the days are longer and contracts after daylight savings time when it starts getting dark at 4pm. That’s definitely true for me.   Capacity is also measured by our individual temperament for adaptability and resilience, the parts of our psyche that determine how much we each can handle at any given time.     Put simply, our capacity is how much we can realistically take on, physically, psychologically and emotionally, before our wheels fall off the track. When the wheels fall off the track, we’ve hit overwhelm. We’re over capacity. The dam has spilled over or busted open. We no longer feel peacefully productive and on purpose. We’re now crazed, stretched too thin, agitated and potentially explosive.     So, here’s the secret to avoiding overwhelm. First, assess what 100 percent capacity looks like for you. What’s the most