How to Stop Drowning in Overwhelm and Start Living With Purpose

By Sam Alvarez | October 7, 2016

Do you feel like you barely have enough time to eat and sleep, let alone spending some quality time with yourself or your family? Ever wonder how you got stuck in this situation?

Do you feel like you’ve created a life that’s sucking you dry from the inside, but you just don’t know how to escape from it?

I know exactly how you feel because I have been there.

I was working more than 100 hours a week at my nurse practitioner job, in Arizona, and didn’t have any life outside of it. I decided to take a week long vacation and even though I enjoyed it, the shit had hit the proverbial fan while I was gone. I came back and became instantly overwhelmed with all the to-dos that had piled up in my absence. I felt as if I was drowning and it would have been much better not to go on a holiday at all.

A few months later, it happened again. I was starting to feel stressed out again, so I went away again, this time on a two-week vacation. When I came back, it was like everything that had gone wrong was my fault. Just because I had dared to take a vacation.

I remember feeling completely overwhelmed. My job, my life, everything. There just didn’t seem to be any way out. But I was determined and did the only thing I could if I wanted to stay sane — I ran away.

The painful but effective way to reclaim control of your life

Today, I can travel to wherever I want (my current location being the fantastically cosmopolitan Berlin); I can work from a cafe or a co-working space or even a park; I find myself speaking six languages, meeting new people, going adventuring and exploring with them; and most importantly, I am in complete control of my life (well, most of the time).

I was able to get here because of that one important decision I made in October 2013. The decision to quit my nurse practitioner job, and get as far away from Arizona as I could.

My friends and family thought I was crazy and tried to talk me out of it. But I knew that if I stayed, I would go insane. It’s not like I didn’t try other solutions. I had tried hard to find a way to scale back on the hours at my job, to go part-time. But I knew that even when I was not at my job, I would constantly be worrying about it. I would be worried about my patients and if they were being looked after well, or even if they could find someone to take over my job. That’s just who I am.

After a few months of struggling with it, I finally decided that a clean break and a fresh start was the only way out. So I saved up some money, handed in my notice at work, and got on a plane to Japan with plans to travel and live abroad for a year.

It has been nearly three years since I made that decision, but have never regretted it. I’ve had my share of financial struggles, emotional breakdowns, and “oh shit!” moments. But I believe I am way better off than I was and have no intention of going back to that old life. I believe that clean break was what I needed to start finding out what I wanted to do in life.

Let your obstacles and challenges guide you

I know what you’re thinking — there’s no way you could simply walk away from your current life; you have responsibilities and commitments.

But is it worth putting yourself through the grinder so that you can stay miserable? Wouldn’t you rather create a new life for yourself? A life of happiness and fulfillment that you can share with your loved ones?

I’m not saying you should book a one-way flight to some country halfway around the world and leave everything behind. But you can start putting things in motion, so you find yourself where you want to be in a few months or years from now.

Trust me; that’s what you really want — to create a life that you don’t ever have to take a vacation from. And you can start creating that life today by becoming crystal clear on what elements of your current life you do not want to carry into the future.

For example, my life hardly allowed me enough time to eat healthy, exercise or take care of myself. That led me down the path to burnout, and I’ve been mindful of it since. So I knew that any future job or career that I chose had to be in line with these priorities.

Meeting people, talking with them and building connections was also high on my priority list. Even though my job did allow me to meet people (or rather, patients), the stress that I worked under forced me to interact in a certain way. That was something that I didn’t like. I wanted my interactions with people to be friendly, fun, and meaningful.

The life I live today is structured around my priorities of eating well, exercising, and building meaningful connections with people. But I wouldn’t have gotten here without the challenges and struggles I faced. They helped me realize what I did not want to make a part of my life. And in doing so, they guided me towards my life’s purpose.

How to start discovering your life’s purpose

I want to help you find your life’s purpose, but without having to suffer for it. That’s why I’ve come up with a few questions that I believe will help you start the journey of creating a life you love.

Take a piece of paper (physical or digital) and just ponder over these questions. There are no right or wrong answers; there is no time limit to answering them. But the simple act of writing down these answers will bring clarity to your thoughts.

Questions to ask yourself when trying to discover your life’s purpose:

How do you feel when you wake up in the morning?
How do you feel about your job or the projects you’re currently working on?
Do you feel you have enough time and energy to spend with your family or on personal projects or hobbies?
When was the last time you did something fun, and how much longer till the next one?
When was the last time you lost yourself in something you were doing, whether at work or outside of it?
What are some things that you’ve meant to do for some time now, but just haven’t found the time?
How do you feel when you lie down on your bed at night?

I know these questions aren’t easy. I had to go through my fair share of struggles before I could come up with these questions, let alone answer them. But I wish someone had asked me these questions when I was overwhelmed with everything going on in my life. I hope that you find meaning and clarity by thinking about the answers.

I know what it feels like to be stretched in a million different directions at the same time, to feel like there’s no way out from this prison that you’ve built for yourself.

But don’t lose hope.

The fact that you’re still here and looking for a way out is proof that you haven’t given up. And you have my deepest respect for that. Be brave and persevere for now because it is through facing life’s challenges that you discover its purpose. I am here to help you as best as I can, so don’t hesitate to reach out to me.