Episode 118: 8 Tips to Handle Overwhelm in Business and Life

Watch the episode here

When business is growing, life is full, and your calendar has no breathing room, something eventually has to give.

In this episode of Prospecting On Purpose®, Sara Murray shares the honest reason the show went on an unintentional hiatus: overwhelm. She walks through eight practical tips to help you identify what kind of overwhelm you’re in, decide what can safely drop, protect what matters most, and come back from a busy season without burning everything down.

If you’re juggling too many balls in business, leadership, relationships, or life, this episode is for you.

You’re listening to Prospecting On Purpose®, where we discuss all things prospecting, sales, business, and mindset. I’m your host, Sara Murray, a sales champion who’s here to show you that you can be a shark in business and still lead with intentionality and authenticity. Tune in each week as we dive into methods to connect with clients, communicate with confidence, and close the deal.

Hello, and welcome back to Prospecting On Purpose®. If you have been listening to this show for a while, you may have noticed that we took an unintentional hiatus for about a year. I went quiet, like really quiet, and the reason behind this, and the short answer, is because I was overwhelmed. Business has been awesome. I can’t wait to share some updates with you, but really, something had to give. Unfortunately, my sweet baby angel podcast was what had to take a pause. But in the meantime, I have learned a lot about how to handle overwhelm.

In this episode, we’re going to go through 8 tips and eight strategies to handle seasons of business and seasons of overwhelm. By the end of the episode, you’re going to understand what kind of overwhelm you’re actually in, if you have to drop a ball, which ball to drop, and how to come back from a season like this one without burning the whole thing down. So if you have ever found yourself staring at a calendar that doesn’t have a single open block on it, if your phone ringing all the time is driving you nuts, or if you’re wondering what happened to your free time and your sanity, please stick with me because this one is for you.

So just to give you a little bit of quick context here, I’ve been building my business, Murmaid International, for almost four years, and time is flying. Without getting into the weeds too much, the last 12 months were really the busiest of my career and my business, and this is in the best way. I have amazing clients.

My travel schedule was and is very busy, which can make scheduling guests really challenging. Recording high-quality content and audio on the road is not easy. And then, when you finally start being able to pay yourself, there are all sorts of things I’ve had to learn with my business: government agencies, payroll, workers’ comp, insurance, employer tax, payer portals, business insurance, data privacy insurance — just so many things I’m navigating for the first time.

If you were to ask me or throw those problems on me four years ago, I would have said, “Yes, please sign me up. I’ll take all of it.” And now, when you’re getting to that point, it’s like, “Ah, what has to drop? What has to drop?” Just to be clear, I’m not complaining. Everything that has happened is a blessing. It’s been what I envisioned. It’s what I’ve been working toward, but I was juggling a lot.

Alongside personal life, health, relationships, and all the regular stuff that was already on the plate, something had to give, and the podcast is what had to give. But what I’m excited about is that inspired this episode, and this is going to be our first tip. So that’s the context. I didn’t fall off the face of the earth. I didn’t lose interest. I just got busy, and in that process, I learned a lot of things about handling overwhelm that I wish I had known a year and a half ago.

So that’s what we’re getting into today: eight tips.

Tip 1: Rubber and Glass Balls.

This first tip that we’re going to get into, I did not come up with it. I read about it in an article, and the original credit goes to Brian Dyson, who was the former CEO of Coca-Cola. In 1991, he gave a commencement speech at Georgia Tech, and he closed with this concept of the five balls of life.

Imagine your life is this juggling act, and you have all these balls in the air at any given moment. You have work, family, health, friends, your spirituality or faith, and the trick is, as you’re juggling all these balls, not all of these balls are made of the same material. Some of them are made of rubber, and some of them are made of glass.

The rubber ones, if you have to drop them, they bounce. They come back. The glass balls, if you drop one of those, they crack. Sometimes they shatter. Even if you can pick them up and glue them back together, they’re never quite the same.

When you’re juggling all of these different things, and this impacts every single one of us, we are going to drop the ball at some point. The question is not if. It’s usually when. So when you’re going to drop something, the question is: which one are you willing to drop?

If you must drop a ball, you need to make sure it’s a rubber one. In my case, when I was looking at the work I had on my plate — the client work, the workshops, the speaking, the teams I’m working with, my family, health stuff, prepping for some of my personal goals — the podcast ended up being a rubber ball. I knew that if I set it down for a season, I could pick it back up again and it would bounce. And so here we are. It bounced, and I’m so grateful that you’re here with me. Tip 1 is to figure out which things are glass balls and which things are rubber balls, and make sure you protect the glass.

Tip 2: Diagnose Your Overwhelm

Tip 2 is more of a diagnostic step, but before you can do anything about overwhelm, you have to figure out what type of overwhelm you’re actually in. There are two buckets here. The first bucket is situational overwhelm.

This is a heavy season. Your launch is in three weeks. Your project is wrapping in a month. Your in-laws are visiting soon. You have three weeks of back-to-back travel. Whatever is going on, there is a light at the end of the tunnel that you can see. You know if you just make it through this period of busyness, it’s going to be uncomfortable, but it’s temporary.

The strategy here is to hunker down, ask for grace, set boundaries, get to the finish line, and make sure you build in time to recover. The second bucket is a little more delicate, and this is the concept of constant overwhelm. This is when you cannot see the finish line. Every week looks like last week. The to-do list never feels empty. You’re not heading toward anything. You’re just running. This one is very different because no amount of hunkering down is going to fix it. Constant overwhelm is a signal that something structural needs to change.

Maybe you need to hire help, personally or professionally. Maybe you need to drop something. Maybe you need professional support or medical support. Maybe your business is growing, and the way you operated it has been outgrown. Maybe you’re trying to find a new job, or you need to find a new job, and you’re in this constant state of burnout. So the first question I want to ask is: is there a light at the end of the tunnel, or am I just living in the tunnel?

In my case, it was a little bit of both, so the rest of the tips will support both. Sometimes just identifying which type of overwhelm it is and giving a name to it is going to help you navigate the path through it.

Tip 3: Brain Dump

Tip 3 is something we’ve talked about on the show before. It’s this concept of a brain dump. This is more of a tactical tip out of this bunch. You can do it whenever, but we have to get the things out of our brain.

If we don’t, this is where we’re waking up in the middle of the night thinking, “Oh my gosh, I forgot to email that person. Oh my gosh, I forgot to do this. Oh my gosh, I have to do this by tomorrow.” We’ve all been there, and it’s heavy, right? We want to get these things out of our brain so that we can use our brain for other things, like recovering and prepping for the next season of busyness.

Sit down for 20 minutes with a notebook or a document. Write down every single thing you’re trying to keep in the air: personal, professional, health, relational, the dentist appointment you keep meaning to make, anything. You can do this pen to paper, of course, but there are also all sorts of tools.

You can use an app like Todoist, which is very popular. My company started using Notion to keep track of tasks. There are all sorts of project management tools. It can also be old-school pen and paper, which sometimes helps me because I like to physically write it out.

One tool I’ve been using that is really helpful is an app called WhisperFlow for your desktop or your phone, and it’s pretty amazing. Basically, you download it on your computer, double-click the function key or press and hold, and then just ramble your thoughts. Ramble what you have to do. Ramble what you need to type out. It cleans that up and turns it into voice-to-text in a really clean, formatted way.

Sometimes I open a Google Doc, rattle everything off, sort it as a list, and use AI to help me prioritize. Once you see it, you can sort it. This is where, as you’re looking at this list, you’re identifying what’s a glass ball, what’s a rubber ball, and what is a season of situational overwhelm versus constant overwhelm.

We’re not going to go into too many more productivity tips in this episode. We can save that for another day. But we want to focus on calming the immediate overwhelm in front of us, and getting things out of your brain is a huge, huge release valve. That’s why it made the cut for this episode.

Tip 4: Protect Your Non-Negotiables

Tip 4 is to protect your non-negotiables. By non-negotiables, I mean the things that refill you. The things you cannot cut. You must make time for them. When overwhelm hits us, the very first things to come off our calendar are the things that keep us well.

The workout, the walk, the eight hours of sleep, the dinner with your best friend, sitting with your kids and listening to their day, the Sunday morning journal and coffee ritual, even the vacation - we treat those as rubber balls. The bouncy stuff. The “I’ll get back to it later” stuff. We sacrifice them first because they don’t have a deadline attached to them. They’re the easiest things to sacrifice.

I am very guilty of this. I’m still guilty of this. “Oh, I have so much to do. I’m not going to go on my 6:00 AM walk. I’m just going to start working.” Well, then that walk never happens because I didn’t protect it.

We need to remind ourselves that these are glass balls. Your health is a glass ball. Your spirit is a glass ball. The closest relationships are a glass ball. They just don’t shove themselves in your face the way a work deadline does, so that’s why they’re easy to cut.

The move here is to identify those non-negotiables, show up for them, put them on the calendar, and treat them as something you cannot miss. This is how you actually figure out what your non-negotiables are. You want to pay attention to two things: what is energizing you and what is draining you.

I’ll tell you a quick story that happened earlier this year, and it was a good reminder. In February 2026, I had planned and organized a big trip to New York and New Jersey, and there were 19 people flying in for this trip on a Sunday. The day everyone was supposed to travel to New York, the city was hit with the biggest blizzard they had had in the past decade.

Every flight got canceled, and the whole logistics of the trip went sideways. The six people who did make it to New York were all stranded in a hotel together for three days. The hotel staff had to stay at the hotel too because they couldn’t get home. The whole thing was a really intense three days.

Later that week, I was supposed to rent a car and go visit some friends in Pennsylvania. A couple of my friends had babies, and there were some old coworkers I hadn’t seen in forever. By the time that part of the trip rolled around, I was exhausted, and I just wanted to cancel. But I don’t love canceling on people. The plans were ready. My reservations were ready. So I just told myself, “Just go. You’ll have more when you get there.”

I have to tell you, I was so, so energized after seeing my friends I hadn’t caught up with in a while. I was able to meet their babies. I was able to sit on their couch and laugh for hours. I didn’t think about work. I didn’t talk about work. I know it meant a lot to them that I took the effort to get to them and see them when they have young children and couldn’t do the same.

One of the things that was really interesting is I noticed afterward that I did not come home from that part of the trip more tired. I actually came back recharged and really, really energized, despite having lived through one of the more chaotic weeks of the year. It clicked for me then that time with my friends is something that is a non-negotiable for me.

It fills up my cup. It is important because it energizes me. That is something I have to actively protect because it becomes fuel to get through the season of overwhelm. So this is part of your work. You need to start paying attention. Notice what is energizing you and notice what is draining you.

The things that energize you are the non-negotiables. We protect that time. The things that drain you are what we want to talk about in Tip 5. You have heard this before. You’ve heard it from me. You hear it ad nauseam, but you cannot pour from an empty cup. It’s true. You’re going to show up as a softer, healthier, more fulfilled person in your life and your work if you protect those non-negotiables.

Tip 5: Eliminate, Outsource, or Delay

For the things that drain us, we’re going to go to Tip 5, which is to find out what you can eliminate, outsource, or delay. Look at your week ahead. Look at your brain dump. Identify what things are draining you, what things you avoid doing because you don’t want to do them, what things you feel like you’re bad at, what things you could outsource to someone, and what things you could take off your plate entirely.

One question I ask myself is, “What can I do to eliminate stress in this immediate moment?” This could look all sorts of ways. It could be a walk. It could be hanging with a friend. I’ll share some of the things that really helped me in particular.

One thing I wasn’t expecting is that I signed up for a meal delivery service. I was really resistant to do this because I like cooking. I’ve never been attracted to those prepped meal kits. But for this season of life, with traveling and not wanting to spend mental energy planning groceries, finding time to go to the store, or even shopping online, it was just a little too much for me. So I got a meal delivery service. I’m using Factor, and I’m really impressed with it. It’s super easy. It has given me a lot of time back.

The second small example is that I’m changing the way I travel. I know this might cause controversy with people, but I love checking a bag. I like my big bag. I pack what I actually need. I don’t have to stress about squeezing everything into a teeny-tiny carry-on.

I can bring my protein shaker and my sandals for my plantar fasciitis walking around the hotel, and my steamer and my hairdryer. I like my stuff, and I don’t have to stress about the weight limits or getting it in the overhead bin space. If I need to buy a sweater when I’m there or bring home swag or product from the work trip, I have room in my bag. I know this is silly, but this tiny little shift has resulted in a huge return. I don’t really care if I look like a diva when I show up with a big suitcase because that helps me. It eliminates stress.

Another thing I did, and this might not be for everyone, is I gave up drinking alcohol. That happened in December 2024. I had three major clients at the same time. I had a Fortune 500 client, my first large enterprise client with a billion-dollar firm, and my first international client. I was so overwhelmed that I wouldn’t be able to deliver, and I was having anxiety.

What if I get sick when I’m traveling and I’m going to be there for a training? What if I’m sick? I need to stay healthy. So alcohol was just the easiest sacrifice at that time to get my time back and protect my immune system. It has been a great resource for helping me manage stress. I can do another episode about that later, but for me, it was one of the bigger things that helped me continue to grow and show up in the highest caliber for my clients.

The last thing I did, and this is a big one, is I brought on a new team member. His name is Ermin. Hi, Ermin. I got so lucky with finding Ermin. He has a background in operations and marketing, and those are two areas I really needed support in. He has really been able to serve as a Swiss Army knife for me, and it has been interesting because we can identify the things that I am just not good at.

Nobody is good at everything. We all know this. But Ermin helps me with the things I’m not good at, and he and I are laying the foundation for what’s next for the next level of my business. There are a lot of goals and a lot of clients to serve. We’re just getting started, but I needed Ermin to help me outsource that.

I outsource a lot of things. I have an awesome business coach named Raul. I have a branding person and web developer named Karima. My dad helps me with my QuickBooks, taxes, invoices, and filing expenses, so I’m grateful for my dad, Tim.

I know outsourcing costs money. I get it. But when you think about the things you can eliminate if they drain you, and you put that reclaimed energy into parts of your life, work, or business that only you can do, then I can go out and make more money, or I can stay in my zone of genius and best serve my clients. That money, income, and shift in energy helps pay for support and helps pay for a meal service.

It’s just a good reminder that you’re not supposed to be doing all of this on your own. Think about what you can delegate, what you can eliminate, what you can drop, what you can outsource, and take it from there.

Tip 6: Communicate Early

Tip 6 is that if you do have to drop a ball, it’s going to happen, and it’s totally okay. This is something people miss, myself included. We want to make sure we communicate before we drop the ball.

Here’s what I mean. Let’s say you’ve identified that this task is a rubber ball. A project, a friend’s birthday, a trip - something is a rubber ball. You know what it is. You may have to drop it. You’ve made peace with it. However, the thing that prevents a rubber ball from turning into a glass ball is how you handle the drop.

If you accidentally ghost a client or a customer, if you don’t return an email, if you forget, or if you just disappear without a heads-up, now you’ve damaged the relationship. It is really important to be mindful of that. One thing I learned in this experience is that I had a lot of anxiety because I didn’t tell the podcast listeners where I went.

If I could go back in time and do it differently, I might have said, “Hey, listeners, I’m taking a season of the show off because the business is in a season that needs my full attention. I’ll be back.” But I didn’t do that, so for my longtime listeners and my supportive fans, I apologize. I truly apologize for that. I hope it doesn’t happen again, but it might if we have to take another hiatus. The next time it does, I know I need to communicate that ahead of time.

Dropping a ball doesn’t always damage the relationship. Silence damages the relationship. Not being aware or not fixing it can damage the relationship. Sometimes you have to drop a ball and give yourself grace when it happens.

This is really where the heart centerpiece of my show, my business, and how I teach sales comes in. Relationships are everything. We do our best to nurture them and maintain them, and we apologize if we unintentionally do wrong. The integrity of how you drop the ball is what determines if it stays rubber or whether it shatters. Tip 6 is to communicate before you have to drop something. Ask for the extra time. Ask for the extension. Say no if you have to say no.

Tip 7: Build Your Support Roster

Tip 7 is to build your roster. Ask for help. Build the bench of people who are there to help you. It’s a little bit related to outsourcing tasks, but this one is about your people, or the humans you call in when things are hard.

Overwhelm thrives in isolation, and when you’re spinning, the very last thing you want to do, or the thing you feel like you don’t have time for, is to call a friend, schedule a session with your coach or therapist, or take a mentor out for coffee. It feels like one more ball you’re trying to add into the rotation. But this is one of the things that actually gets you out of a season of overwhelm the fastest: calling on the people you need to lean on for support when you’re having a hard time.

This could be a mentor who has been there for you, a peer who is running a business at a similar stage, a coach, a therapist, a friend who lets you vent without trying to fix it, maybe your faith community, your parents, or your partner. The names on that roster are going to look different for everybody, but you need to build the bench before you need to call in the favors.

Do not wait until you’re drowning to find your people. Find them on a normal Tuesday when nothing is on fire. Show up for them. Fill their bank account. Then, when the fire does start for you, you have someone to call.

This ties into the lessons we talk about on the show and the concept of ABAV: Always Be Adding Value™. If you are constantly adding value to the people in your life, when you need to call in for help or a favor, then you have deposits in the bank that you can withdraw from. No one is supposed to go through this life alone.

Supporting one another during good times and bad times is really the epitome of the human experience. People want to help you when you’re struggling, so remember that and ask for help when you need it. If people offer you help, take them up on the offer.

If you want more of this, Episode 79, “Why Mentorship Matters: 10 Tips to Finding the Right Mentor,” might be a good additional episode for you to listen to.

Tip 8: Hold Gratitude and Reality

To wrap us up, Tip 8 is to hold both things at once. I think this might be one of the most important things. If you’re in a season of overwhelm because good things are happening, make sure you are holding gratitude for the good along with the hard at the same time.

If you find yourself in a season of overwhelm because bad things are happening, try to look for the lessons you can pull from it. What are you going to learn that is going to make you stronger coming out the other side? How is this situation serving you right now, good or bad?

It’s okay to recognize that things can be exhausting. Things can be overwhelming. It might require you to step away from something you love or something that is important, and trust that when you pick it back up, the other side is going to be okay coming through it. I have to trust that my podcast audience would forgive me if I took a break and be happy that the show is back on the air.

Both can be true at the same time. We don’t have to pick one. We can hold gratitude and still not pretend that it’s not hard. We don’t have to wallow in the hard and forget what’s happening. In many cases, the thing that is making us overwhelmed is something that we prayed for years ago or asked for years ago.

It is good sometimes to zoom out and reflect on that because the most powerful tool we have in our personal lives and our professional lives is to hold gratitude and reality at the same time. They do not cancel each other out. They make us stronger. Episode 48 goes into more detail on embodying gratitude and how it shapes your personal and professional life. It has been a really huge tool for me.

Other tools outside of gratitude could be taking deep breaths, going on a walk, or repeating mantras. One mantra that works really well for me during seasons of busyness is, “I always get everything done.” Give yourself grace, understand and recognize that all of this is temporary. You are going to come through the other side stronger, more well-rounded, and more fulfilled. That’s part of the human experience.

Final Recap and Farewell

To wrap it up, Tip 1 is to identify if they are glass balls or rubber balls. Tip 2 is to understand if the situation you’re in is situational overwhelm or constant overwhelm, and adjust accordingly. Tip 3 is to brain dump and get things out of your head because that is just going to help you spiral if you don’t do that.

Tip 4 is to protect your non-negotiables. We all know this: put your oxygen mask on first before helping others. Tip 5 is to outsource the things that drain you, find creative ways to eliminate stress in that moment, and in some cases, say no to things.

Tip 6 is to communicate before the ball drops. Tip 7 is to build your support roster. Tip 8 is to hold that overwhelm and those lessons in gratitude, even if it doesn’t feel like it in the moment. Find reasons to understand: where is the good in the situation that I’m going through?

That wraps up our episode, “8 Tips to Handle Overwhelm.” If this was useful to you, please share it with a friend or colleague who you know may be in this season of overwhelm. Feel free to send me a note, too. I am actively in it with you all the time, so I’d be happy to get back to you.

I am so, so, so thrilled to be back on the air for Prospecting On Purpose®. Thank you so much for tuning in, and we’ll see you next week.

Thank you so much for listening to the Prospecting On Purpose® podcast. If you loved what you heard today, subscribe to the podcast and please rate and leave a review. For more info on me or if you’d like to work together, feel free to go to my website, saramurray.com. On social media, I’m usually hanging out @saramurraysales.

Thanks again for joining me, and I’ll see you next time.

Connect with Sara
https://www.saramurray.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@saramurraysales
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saramurraysales/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saramurraysales/