Originally Posted on The Coaching Tools Company as Overwhelm Is a Stress State, Not a Motivation Problem | by Dr. Irena O’Brien
Overwhelm often looks like procrastination. A client knows what they need to do. They care about the goal. They may even feel urgency. And still, they do not move.
They avoid the email. Defer the decision. Open the document and close it again.
The easy interpretation is that something is wrong with their motivation. But from a brain perspective, what’s usually happening is something different: the brain has calculated that the demands of the situation exceed the resources available to meet them, and it has started protecting itself accordingly.
The overwhelmed brain isn’t just asking, “Is this important?” It’s asking: Do I know what to do next? How much will this cost me? What happens if I get it wrong? Those are prediction questions. And when the answers are murky, the brain treats forward movement as a risk.
For coaches, that changes the frame. The question isn’t only “How do we get this client moving?” It’s “What is making action feel so expensive right now?”
What stress does to thinking
Overwhelmed clients tend to say versions of the same things. “I have too much to do.” “I’m behind on everything.” “I can’t think straight.”
That last one matters most. Overwhelm isn’t just a volume problem. It’s what happens when demand outstrips perceived capacity, and under that kind of load, the brain doesn’t work the way it normally does.
Attention narrows. Working memory gets overloaded. The mind loops around whatever feels most urgent or threatening rather than what would actually help. A client can be genuinely capable and committed, and still completely unable to prioritise in the moment. It’s not a character issue. Their brain is simply not in a state that’s good at sorting complexity.
This is why loading an overwhelmed client with more strategies tends to make things worse. More options mean more to evaluate. More accountability means more pressure. More questions mean more uncertainty. Sometimes the coaching move is not to generate action but to reduce what the brain is already carrying.
A good place to start: “What is everything your brain is trying to hold right now?”
Let the client name the unfinished tasks, the pending decisions, the worries, the obligations, without rushing to organise any of it. Unprocessed commitments behave like open loops. They keep pulling at attention because the brain hasn’t been able to close them.
Getting it all out of the head and onto a page doesn’t solve anything yet. But it stops the brain from having to hold it. The first real relief often comes not from doing anything, but from finally seeing what’s been in there.
Not everything on the list deserves to be there
One reason overwhelm persists is that clients keep adding to the list without ever questioning what belongs on it. Tasks accumulate. Everything starts to feel equally urgent. The list becomes a kind of ambient pressure rather than a useful guide.
When priorities are flat, the brain can’t allocate well. It has to keep scanning the whole list, comparing and weighing, and that process itself is expensive. The client isn’t just carrying the tasks. They’re carrying the mental cost of all the tasks they haven’t done yet.
Before asking what the next step is, it’s often worth asking whether the task should be there at all.
Some things need to be done. Some need to be handed off. Some need to be pushed out a few weeks. And more often than clients expect, some simply need to come off the list. Overwhelm frequently comes from treating tasks with very different levels of consequence as though they all belong in the same urgent pile.
The questions that help here:
- Does this actually need to be done?
- Does it need to be done by you?
- What would happen if it were removed?
- Which item is genuinely important, and which is just loud?
That’s not avoidance. It’s the work of restoring hierarchy: helping the brain figure out what actually deserves its resources.
Sometimes the delay is trying to tell you something
I once spent weeks postponing a project. Each week there was a reasonable explanation: too much on, not the right moment, something more pressing. On the surface it looked like ordinary procrastination.
When I finally brought it to my mentor, he listened and said: “There’s too much uncertainty here. Don’t do it.”
The relief I felt was immediate. And it told me something I hadn’t been able to name: I wasn’t avoiding the project because I lacked discipline. I was avoiding it because something in me knew it wasn’t right. The project wasn’t how I wanted to show up for my students.
The delay wasn’t the problem. It was the signal.
Coaches need to sit with that possibility before reaching for accountability tools or smaller steps. Not every stuck project needs to be broken down further. Sometimes the better question is not “How will you get this done?” but “Should you?”
The brain is always running a cost-benefit calculation on action. When a task carries genuine uncertainty, or conflicts with a client’s values, or asks them to show up in a way that doesn’t feel coherent, the predicted cost goes up, and the brain starts finding reasons to wait. The client may not be able to articulate this. But the body often knows before the mind does.
When a client is given permission to remove a task or choose a different path, the response is often physical before it’s verbal. Watch for it. Relief is information.
Making the first step possible
Once a task genuinely belongs, the work shifts to making action easier for the brain to begin.
Vague intentions are hard to act on. “I’ll work on my business” or “I’ll deal with the team issue” sound reasonable, but they give the brain nowhere specific to land. Before it can start, it has to simulate possibilities, evaluate options, manage the risk of choosing wrong. That’s work before the work has even begun.
A more useful question: “What would I see you doing if you were taking the first step?”
Not “work on the proposal”: open the file and write three rough bullet points. Not “deal with the team issue”: decide who to speak with first. The more concrete and visible the action, the less the brain has to do before it can begin.
And if something still feels too costly to start, try: “What does this task cost you besides time?”
The real cost might be attention, or the emotional exposure involved, or the cognitive effort of shifting modes. Once that’s visible, the next step can be designed around it. Not making the task easier, but lowering the threshold for getting started.
A practical sequence: The Overwhelm Reset
When a client is stuck or scattered and can’t find a way in, this sequence can help:
1. Externalise the load
Ask: “What is everything your brain is trying to hold right now?”
2. Restore hierarchy
Ask: “Which of these is truly important, and which is just loud?”
3. Question the demand
Ask: “Does this need to be done, done by you, or done now?”
4. Name the hidden cost
Ask: “What does this task cost you besides time?”
5. Make the action visible
Ask: “What would I see you doing if you were taking the first step?”
6. Find a re-entry point
Ask: “What is the smallest action that would count as making contact again?”
The goal isn’t always completion. Sometimes it’s giving the brain new evidence that movement is possible.
The shift in what coaching is doing
Overwhelmed clients don’t usually need more motivation. They need clarity about what actually matters, a realistic sense of what action will cost, and a first step their brain can move toward without bracing against it.
Action doesn’t start when a client pressures themselves hard enough. It starts when the brain stops having to protect itself from the task.
And sometimes the most useful thing a coach can do isn’t helping a client do the thing. It’s helping them work out whether the thing deserves their energy at all.
If you enjoyed this article, you may also like:
- 9 Simple Steps to Boost Motivation Every Day also by Dr. Irena O’Brien
- 3 Super Simple Tools To Help Your Clients Beat Overwhelm, Negativity & Procrastination! by Ruby McGuire
- 5 Step Journaling for Success Practice: Reduce Overwhelm & Feel Great by Lynda Monk
