I learned that the antidote to stress, overwhelm and burnout was two sides of a coin. A Yin and a Yang.

The Yin is Prioritization.

Stephen Covey calls it First Things First.
Gary Keller calls it The One Thing.
Warren Buffet and Bill Gates calls it Focus.

The Yang is Boundaries.

Having firm and clear expectations set for ourselves.
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Knowing when to say yes.
Knowing when to say no.

Personally, prioritization is the one that "makes sense" while "boundaries" is the one I never even considered when I first came across it.

I first heard of boundaries in the context of overwhelm from Ramit Sethi, an Entrepreneur I admire and started learning from out of college when I read his Personal Finance book.

He says, "Almost every time I hear from someone who asks about overwhelm and I dig in, I find out there's almost always an inability to set boundaries. Almost always.

That means being able to say this is what time i'm going to sleep, this is what time i'm going to wake up.

This is what time i'm going to end work.

This is what i'm going to say yes to and no to."

So simple but so powerful.

How easy has it been for me to people please. When I realized that boundaries was essential to my health and to my life, it became much easier.

These two sides of a coin were the most practical advice I've ever gotten on stress, overwhelm, and burnout. I discovered these two points through asking, renown Mixed Martial Art's Coach, Firas Zahabi, what he did to address stress on his YouTube podcast.

I'm an admirer of Ramit Sethi's principles on money and living a metaphorically rich life and came across his video when he spoke at a Business Conference called Hustle Con.

I've time stamped the segments where they both talk about stress, overwhelm and burnout. They're a must watch and I've even saved them to my personal database to review.

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Ramit Sethi on Overwhelm (Starts at 22:22)
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Firas Zahabi on Stress (Starts at 19:13)

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Almost every time I hear from someone who asks about overwhelm and I dig in, I find out there's almost always an inability to set boundaries. Almost always. -Ramit Sethi