Overcoming Overwhelm
Elaine Neale • 20 February 2026
Controlling the Controllables
I watched an interview with Double Olympic Skeleton Champion Lizzy Yarnold recently. She was talking about the importance of focusing on controlling what you can in order to remain calm, relaxed and perform at your best. She was of course referring to the sliding events in the Winter Olympics however this advice applies equally well to everyday life as it does sporting competition.
There are so many things vying for our attention at home, work, in relationships and in the media. We're bombarded with things to be worried about, spiralling stress and becoming overwhelming. There are only a few of these things that we can actually control or do something to influence though.
So while awareness is important, when it comes to overcoming that feeling of overwhelm it's crucial to focus those things we can control. There are some questions we can ask ourselves:
"Is this something I can do something about?"
We can only change and control our own actions and reactions based on the situation. We can't control the actions of others.
"Can I break it down?"
Sometimes the answer to getting something off our list is a single task but quite often things are more complex than that. We might not be able to complete or resolve something straight away, but there might be something we can do. What can we do now? What comes first? What needs to happen later? Smaller tasks are more manageable and can help us chip away at the bigger ones and deal with the unknown.
"What's most important?"
Prioritising one thing narrows the field of focus and allows us to concentrate on one thing at a time. Once we've done what we can on the biggest priority we can turn our attention to the next thing (rather than the next 100 things!)
Our happiness and ability to cope depends on how we think, react and what we do. It's within our control so give yourself permission to control your own controllables.
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