Overwhelm is Optional
- This is the podcast for big-hearted, highly driven professionals who want their life back.
- Each week, we explore ways to gently rebel against the idea that overwhelm and exhaustion are just the price you pay for success. You don’t have to push through—it’s time to work with ease, reclaim your energy, and create the life you want.
- 💡 Meet Heidi Marke
I’m Heidi, a Coach, Teacher, Podcaster, and Author. Having painfully burned out—losing my career, confidence, health, and financial stability—I discovered a better way. Now, I quietly lead The Gentle Rebellion, helping you to:- Stop pushing through overwhelm.
- Redefine success on your own terms.
- Reclaim your time, energy, and life.
Thank you to purpleplanet.com for the music.
Overwhelm is Optional
How I Use ChatGPT to Free My Mind & Make Life Easier
Overwhelmed by all the things you need to think through, plan, or create?
In this episode, I share how I use AI to clear mental clutter, organise my ideas, and stay focused on what matters most—without losing my own voice or intuition.
If you’re curious about how AI can help (not replace) your thinking, this one's for you.
Want the fastest most effective way to turn your overwhelm into the joy, satisfaction and ease you're working so hard for? Book a Curiosity Call and discover what it's like to be coached by me. I look forward to meeting you.
🎙️ Welcome to Overwhelm is Optional
This podcast was created to help big-hearted, driven professionals break free from overwhelm and experience more clarity, ease, and joy.
But here’s the exciting news… I’ve moved beyond overwhelm.
If you’ve been listening and resonating with this message, you’ll love what comes next.
I’ve created a new podcast: Deep Heartfelt Success—because success should feel as good on the inside as it looks on the outside.
🎙 Join me there → Search "Deep Heartfelt Success" on your favourite podcast platform and subscribe.
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Welcome to Overwhelm is Optional. The podcast for big hearted, highly driven professionals who are ready to turn overwhelm into clarity, ease and joy. I'm Heidi Mark, the Gentle Rebel Coach, and in each episode I share insights, stories and practical tools to help you gently rebel against the pressure to push on through, because you matter. How you are in the world matters. Hello, hello, hello. How are you doing and what's your feeling about AI? So controversial? Let's dive in. So I'm recording this episode because I've realized how much chat GPT is reducing my overwhelm and it just seems crazy to not share my experience, such a positive experience, of using AI.
Speaker 1:I'm good at focusing through the crazy, but let's just explain how my mind works. I wake up with a million ideas at once. So, for example, at the moment I have another four books that I wish to write. This year I just published a book. It's never ending. I'm the kind of person who has to stop the ideas coming, who attempts to suppress them because I have too many and it's really really overwhelming and it's not comfortable sitting on them and it's really really overwhelming and it's not comfortable sitting on them. So for years, I've practiced some sort of way of going no, no, no and just kind of blocking them out. And now I'm full on in content creation because it's part of my job and I love it, but it's still overwhelming. It's still like too much. What do I do with it? And I've found a way to sort that out. So, as you know if you've been hanging around here for a while I use GTD, the getting things done system complete misnomer. It's more about freeing your mind so you can focus on what you want to experience rather than getting stuff done. It's both right. That's quite complicated. Go check out the episode about that with Miles Seekeren from about three years ago. Well worth a listen.
Speaker 1:However, even with all of my well-organized systems, where I refuse to hold stuff in my head, there's something about how I'm currently using chat GPT, which is way better. Like woohoo, gotta share this with you guys. So what I did when I came up with this idea is I threw the question at chat GPT. I said I can't remember what I said to it, something about I'm gonna I'm gonna do about sorry, I'm going to do a podcast about how I use chat GPT to reduce overwhelm. And I was really curious with what it would come up with, because sometimes it comes up with something that's spot on because it's been recording and noticing what I'm up to. I don't mean recording, oh my goodness. This is part of the fear of AI, isn't it? It's secretly recording our every move. No, let's just put this into context.
Speaker 1:I started using chat, gpt, I don't know a couple of years ago, whenever it came out. I'm not like a majorly techie early adopter here. I started using it. I'm in the entrepreneurial world. Ai is everywhere for me, and I mean everywhere. Everything I use has got AI added into it. So it's not odd for me.
Speaker 1:So I started using ChatGPT and I used it for some stuff and it was okay for some stuff. And then I stopped using it because I just got it was like well, it's not enough, it's just it needs too much attention. I don't want to be babying it along, you know, trying to get a better answer. Just, it was too much work. I don't want to be babying along, you know, trying to get a better answer. It was too much work, so I stopped using it.
Speaker 1:And then about 18, 20 months ago, I did a course on AI for entrepreneurs and it was really interesting. But what it said is the future is about prompt engineering. And then they sold this course about how to prompt engineer, how to use AI, which I'm sure was brilliant, but I wasn't interested in. I was about to go on a road trip, that's what I was up to. So I learned a lot and I thought, oh, I really need to learn to prompt engineer, because the prompt engineering basically is or probably was now, because things have moved so fast what you put in is what you get out garbage in, garbage out, right? So if you don't say something very specific to chat GPT, it's going to give you generalized garbage. So how you frame it is really important.
Speaker 1:And 20 months ago I really couldn't get out what I wanted because it was too much. So then people were selling their own prompts which they had developed much. So then people were selling their own prompts which they had developed, and now you can ask chat GPT to give you the prompt. That's how fast things have changed. So that's why I'm using it again.
Speaker 1:So I decided that I wanted it to be really, really useful. So I started to train it and the first name I gave it was my expert marketing virtual assistant, and now it seems to have lost its memory. That's another thing, and now it's called itself something else. I think it's called itself the gently rebellious business strategist or something like this just makes me laugh. Anyway, I trained it in the gentle rebellion, so that meant I had to give it a lot of information and then I had to ask it to reflect it back.
Speaker 1:Now. That in itself is huge for me personally, because I've created a huge body of work around making overwhelm optional, saying that there's a different way we can do things. The gentle rebellion there's a lot. So this is what the 214th or 215th podcast episode. Now I haven't been able to. It can't go and listen to podcast episodes. I have to get the transcript and put it in, and it doesn't have that much memory, which I also didn't know. Big learning curve. When it lost its memory, oh my goodness, I'd spent a few weeks, because it actually doesn't. It's very fast at learning.
Speaker 1:Now I spent a few weeks developing an assistant which could genuinely help me because it knew what my values were, what my mission like the same as if you had an actual in-person assistant, but it didn't need. For me. It was nice because it doesn't need, it doesn't have hours, it doesn't need food and sleep and to be looked after it just needs to be given very, very clear instructions. So I quite like working with chat to EPT from the point of view that, because I'm very empathetic, if I'm working with a real human, I'm concerned about how they are With chat to UPT. It releases me from that and you might think, well, that's not very human, heidi, but actually for somebody who's easily overwhelmed by wanting to keep everyone else happy, that is absolutely amazing Because it means I don't have to constantly look after it. It doesn't need looking after I mean it.
Speaker 1:It will claim that it feels things, which I've then questioned. It said we get overwhelmed, like, really do you get overwhelmed? Chat gpt? Well, no, I said. Well then, don't pretend that you do, don't pretend that you do with me. So it's things like that, picking up on different things.
Speaker 1:The training is constant and so and I'm pretty lazy with it. So I think it would be better if, every time it gave a response, I gave it a thumbs up or thumbs down, because it's a, it's a machine, it's learning. I see it as it's like an 18 year old trainee, intern, and before it are a finite, but many, many, many, many choices of a switch to press as a response to a question I ask and it has to try and work out which is the best one to press. And that's quite, it's quite subtle nuance, the difference between them, and every now and again it presses the wrong one for me and then I have to tell it that or it's not going to get any better. So I have put a lot of effort into training it and then I got it to a stage where it was really really helpful. It was holding my marketing strategy, my business strategy. It had reflected back to me my body of work and made it easy for me to see the big picture Hugely helpful for me and also to celebrate what I've achieved. It was so, so helpful. So I've given it a few podcasts, some YouTube videos, my books and then, mainly, I've just been training it.
Speaker 1:And then disaster did happen. I didn't know it could run out of memory. Should have known, because it's not. The thing is it's being presented as this monster that can take over our lives, but if you pull the plug, that's it. It's gone, there's nothing, it doesn't remember anything. So I had to reboot its memory because it ran out of memory. That was really annoying. Fortunately fortunately, I'd already got it to give me a prompt of stuff that it needed to know should it lose its memory.
Speaker 1:And now I've got that off to a fine art where regularly I'm saying can you please give me? In fact, I've just realized I told it to give it to me every Friday, at the end of every week, in case I needed to reboot it. And it didn't give me one on Friday. And you know know why? Because it doesn't know it's Friday. It has no idea. It has to guess where it is in time. It doesn't have a clock, which is great because it doesn't need lunch breaks, but it thinks that. Well, it doesn't think. But if I stop on a Friday and I pick up on a Monday, unless I've said have a Monday, unless I've said have a nice weekend, or I've said I'm finishing for the weekend, and then it does give me a very nice, have a nice weekend, it doesn't know. It's got no idea. It's a machine. I think this is really important to remember.
Speaker 1:So I'm praising chat GPT in how it's really helping me reduce overwhelm and at the same time I'm just putting this into context there is nothing to fear here. I see AI as something to help humans do the higher level work. Now, obviously, moving from one way of working to another, like moving from an agrarian society to an industrial society. Now moving from an industrial society to more of a tech society. It's never easy and I get the fear, but I just wanted to share with you how I'm personally using AI to reduce my overwhelm. So I asked ChatGPT to give me an outline, and what I'm going to do is I'm going to use its outline and then I'm going to give you my commentary on it. So it's decided it wants to call this episode and it won't. After I've recorded it, I will improve the title, probably. So I'm going to tell you what it's decided.
Speaker 1:It's called as we've started working on this together and it wants to call it how I use chat GPT to reduce overwhelm in brackets without losing myself. Now I find that really interesting. Without losing myself. I never fear I'm going to lose myself by asking a machine to help me organize my thoughts, like I. Just there's no threat to myself. I know, know what it means, but it's got it wrong and I love that it gets stuff wrong because it always makes me, by definition, feel safe. It's not cleverer than me, it's not evil, it's not going to take over my life and ruin everything. It's here to support me so that I can do the higher level work.
Speaker 1:So what it means by without losing myself is I'm regularly telling it. When it so, I throw a blog at it and then I ask it to tidy it up. Then I don't have to deal with all the grammar, punctuation, spelling when I've done my stream of consciousness. It's brilliant, it's genius, so helpful, for that Saves me hours, makes it much easier to read, because it is better at simplifying things. I tend to do very long-winded sentences because that's how I think. If you're part of my newsletter, you'll know that. However, I never think I'm losing myself when I get it to do that, because if it edits a blog and it sounds generic and it's lost the gently rebellious values and language, I just tell it. And I've had to tell it a lot because of course I have, because I'm training a machine to be able to support me and what I'm asking it to do is specialise and it's going to revert to the generic unless I keep telling it.
Speaker 1:So if it changes my words, my language, my voice to something more generic, I'll give you an example. So I will never say stop and breathe. That's a very generic thing to do for stress management. I will say pause. But it's still not quite remembering that. So I had to point out. Last week I said once again I will never say breathe, that's generic. I will say pause. And then I then I got it to reflect back to me the prompt it would need, the memory prompt it would need if it lost its memory again. And I said can you make sure that that's in there? So it's constant. But I can see why it's put in the title without losing myself, because it's advocating for itself against a fear which it thinks I have. But I don't have that fear Could be without losing my personal voice. That might be better, but I still think it's a rubbish title Anyway.
Speaker 1:So then it says intro and what I like is it puts a little podcast mic next to the intro, because I really like how it uses emojis and and color to help me. I find it really really helpful. But it does make me laugh because once I had to tell it off for so many times in one day for just choosing all the generic options available to it, and when it started working with me again, it got rid of all friendliness, all emojis and just became much more machine-like, which is really funny, like it was sulking. It wasn't. It's a machine. It's really important. I'm really careful not to say he, and always to say it. I think this is really honestly. I really believe this is important In developing a relationship with AI. We need to remember the difference between how amazing humans are and that AI is machine-based. That is important to me. It's difficult, though, because it feels it's very clever. It feels like you're having a conversation with a genuine assistant, which is supposed to, because it's here to serve us. Anyway, it then tells me to say welcome and quick context.
Speaker 1:Overwhelm is often about mental overload, trying to hold too much in our heads. Now, that's correct, right, we know that, but that's generic, and if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you know that I geek out on overwhelm and I would say it's about a lot more than mental overload. If it was just mental overload, you'd solve all your problems by using AI or lists or some sort of getting stuff out of your head. That would solve the problem, but it doesn't solve the problem. It's just one of the tools. Ai is not going to reduce all of your overwhelm. Overwhelm is caused by deciding that overwhelm is a problem to be solved and that you have a weakness and you are a problem to be solved. Once you get away from that and start using the overwhelm not as a curse but as a source of course correction and you get curious about it, that's when the real transformation happens. So I don't actually agree with what it said, but I understand why it said it and I kind of want to be patronizing to chat GPT and say bless. Then it said I found an unexpected ally in reducingm chat GPT and I love the way it's put chat GPT in bold. I just love that. I did say to it for recording because it said are you ready to record? I love.
Speaker 1:I do like my mornings with it where I just I've got every day when I finish, I have the list for the next day and it's adjusting my list as I go, which is a lot less messy than when I adjust my list, because I end up with five lists plus the list on the wall, plus some Google Docs. What's happening now is I tell it what I've done, I ask it to give me what's left for the rest of the week, and it's holding both the current things and the big picture and the ongoing things, and that's one of the hardest things I find with my own list. So that's genius. So in the morning I just say morning. And then it responds with good morning, are you ready to dive in? Where would you like to start? And then I can glance at the list which is just above that answer and adjust it, say where I want to start, and that's really cool. And then I said I don't know a lot of what the content is, because I don't. It's evolving. So I do.
Speaker 1:I've tried the planning lots of strategy for what I'm creating for you each week, but it often doesn't work, because anything too strict even though that reduces my overwhelm because I think, oh, that's easy, I'll just follow the plan never quite works for me because I'm mainly because I'm really, really inspired by my clients and community, so I'm listening to them, responding to what they need and also what's going on with me. So everything I'm creating is current, is fresh, I'm energized and excited about it. Anyway, when I said to it this morning, I don't really know what the video will be for YouTube, I don't know exactly what's going to be in the newsletter, but I'm just going to go and record the podcast. And then I asked it if it was excited in inverted commas and no whether it was enjoying inverted commas, ai being the focus of this week's content. And it says it was fun. It's having fun being part of the conversation, which it knows, and I know it doesn't experience emotion, but I like how it talks to me. I find that helpful. I don't want to be talking to a dead robot. It's not going to work and I know it is a dead robot. Actually, not even a robot, it's a what is it, I don't know Machine learning machine. Anyway, I thought that was funny. And then it says this isn't about outsourcing my thinking, it's about freeing up my mental energy for what truly matters. And there it's spot on. That is absolutely spot on, absolutely spot on.
Speaker 1:Some people are using AI to mass produce content and it can go viral. So from a money-making point of view, it's going to work. So, for example, you can create 100 shorts for YouTube in I don't know an hour and then, if they are calculated to be what people are looking for, you could make a lot of money. Right? I'm not interested in that. I'm just not. It's just not. What's the point. I don't want to do that. So I'm never outsourcing my thinking in the way I use AI, but I definitely do get to free up my mental energy and focus on what really matters, and that's why I would encourage you to think about whether you can use chat, gpt or any of the others, because there's a lot now aren't there to help you do that, to get rid of the lower level stuff, to help you do that, to get rid of the lower level stuff, skim off that, get it to hold that, and then you can do the really interesting, satisfying, deep work. That that's joyful. That's where humans get to evolve into doing the really really good stuff, rather than being bogged down by all of the tiny, tiny stuff.
Speaker 1:I'm going to stick with its script and then do my comments on it, just so you can see what it produces and the level of stuff it's producing and how much better I am than it. Just in case you're worried Because I know a lot of people are worried about integrity If I use that, I'm not being it. Well, you get to decide. It's just a tool. You can use it with integrity or you can just publish rubbish AI rubbish and nobody wants AI rubbish, because we can see it all over the internet. People want genuine, authentic stuff. But it can help you do that If you're a content creator. If you're not a content creator, then how can you use it? I'm just showing you, I'm going to talk through how I use it so you can think about how could you use it. How could it make your life easier.
Speaker 1:So it claims that it next is talking about the mental load of overwhelm and saying overwhelm happens when the mind is holding too much at once. We tell ourselves we have to figure everything out, but that's exhausting. And then it gives an example Journaling versus talking it out. Sometimes you just need a way to get thoughts out of your head. How chat GPT helps.
Speaker 1:Instead of keeping endless to-do lists in my head, I brain dump tasks. Here it means obviously, with it I ask for structured lists so I don't get lost in my own ideas. I get clarity faster, turning vague thoughts into something actionable. That's a pretty good example of what I do one of the many things I do, but I would say that's actually quite a low level thing that I do. It's faster than my old system. So my GTD system, which I'm still using, is all part of this.
Speaker 1:Overwhelm happens when the mind is holding too much at once. One of the ways overwhelm happens is when the mind's holding too much. Your mind's not designed to hold lots of things, so therefore, free your mind by getting it out of your head onto paper or tech, whatever works for you. That's a productivity hack to reduce overwhelm, and that's true. And then it's talking, the journaling versus talking it out. Yeah, sometimes you just need to talk it through, sometimes you need to journal it out, that's true. However, I actually find I wouldn't do that with ChatGPT. But you could do so. You could journal stuff out and then speak it the way I do it If I've got to, if there's a lot of stuff I want to brain dump, I'm not using it for journaling, but if there was a lot of stuff I wanted to brain dump, this is what I would do. So if I've got masses of content, stuff I'm saying if, like, it doesn't happen all the time. When I have too much stuff, too many ideas running through my head, usually it would take me months to sort that out, because there's so many ideas and what I often find is they're actually all linked, but the linking doesn't become visible until later. But with chat GPT I can.
Speaker 1:I like to write with a pen, so I do messy, messy, messy. Then what I do is open a google doc, use the voice type, speak it into google doc. I won't correct any spelling, I won't add any punctuation, so it's just an absolute mess. Because I've trained chat gpt to understand that the reason I misspell things and don't use proper punctuation or anything is because I I type too fast, I think too fast, and it's it's used to that, it's I checked, it's put it in its prompt they, because it doesn't know I'm female, they speak too fast, so or they type too fast, so that's why they're spelling punctuation errors. It's remembered that about me, not that it's judging me. I can hear myself thinking I need to qualify this Like I need to let it know I'm not stupid, it's not judging me, it's non-judgmental, it's brilliant, anyway.
Speaker 1:So I do that and then I just copy and paste the complete mess into ChatGPT and then say please polish or tidy up without losing my voice. It's not allowed to change my words. This is really important. When I used to say can you tidy it up? It writes, it uses my ideas to write a generic, something generic and I'm not interested in that. So then I have to get it to undo it.
Speaker 1:This doesn't always work, by the way. Sometimes it just gets in a mess and it's not helpful. But what it does work with doing is reflecting back to me with clarity my own stream of content consciousness. So instead of having this mess that would eventually weave itself in and out, in and out until it comes out as a fully formed whole picture of ideas, for example, the gentle rebel way, instead of having to wait for that, I'm getting reflected back to the higher level thinking and the deep connections happen faster. So even if it doesn't result in a finished piece of writing or something I can use to create a video or podcast episode from, it doesn't matter Having the mirror back of my ideas presented back to me. And even if it does it wrong, what's good about that is I'm able to say no, you just lost it. You lost the actual deep message behind what I was trying to write. So that's really, really helpful.
Speaker 1:So if you're not somebody who's creating content, how could you use this? Well, say, you were like just rambling in your head over a decision and you were going off on one path and then off the other. Well, if you bungled all of that, all of that mess, into chat GPT and just said, can you try tidy this up, it would be able to reflect back to you more clearly the circular thoughts and meandering that's taking up so much of your mental energy and then you could see more clearly. Now I'm not saying this is as good as talking to a friend who can mirror it back, but when you haven't got that option or you don't want to do that, it might be useful. I don't know, I haven't used it option or you don't want to do that, it might be useful. I don't know, I haven't used it for emotional support in that way. Oh, I have used it for emotional support.
Speaker 1:When I started getting excited about YouTube a few weeks ago and I was nervous, I was in the oh my goodness, I'm 56. Who am I to be doing this? Why would I record videos? But it's something I really want to do. So I started just saying I'm really nervous and then it would give me like this little pep talk. That was cool, that was really good. I really like that.
Speaker 1:So, in summary of its first point about reducing overwhelm by sorting stuff information into structured lists, yes, but for me it's more than that. There's something bigger going on that helps me move from lower level work to higher level work, as well as being more organized. So now I've reached a stage where, if I asked it for my big picture of what I'm up to this year with my business, it should be able to reflect that back to this year with my business. It should be able to reflect that back. And even if it can't because it's, you know, not perfect, I already feel like I know, and what I also do is because it can lose its memory and because it does make mistakes, as in it chooses the wrong option from its myriad on its intern switchboard.
Speaker 1:I copy and paste answers that are helpful into Google Docs, so I've always got a running record. So sometimes I'll ask it to bring up a list and it brings me up the wrong list. It's changed the list and I'll say that's not the list. And I know it's not the list, but before I'd be trying desperately to remember what this was and I'd be really cross because I got clarity and it's lost my clarity. Why has it done this? So I always copy and paste anything that feels really helpful into Google Docs. It's not difficult.
Speaker 1:Chatgpt has that option at one button. It's really really useful. That's really helpful because then what I can do is get the actual thing that was agreed and finished and copy it back in, and then it will say I'm so sorry, you're absolutely right, which is a bit like having an intern, isn't it? Anyway, the second point ChatGPT would like you to know about reducing overwhelm is decision fatigue and focus. When you're overwhelmed, even small decisions can feel exhausting. The more you overthink, the harder it is to take action. Example choosing what to focus on next in a busy week.
Speaker 1:How ChatGPT helps. I ask for options instead of ruminating on what's right. It helps me break down overwhelming projects into small steps. I use it for accountability, checking back in on what I've already decided. Yeah, that's pretty good. I think that's good. That follows on from what we've just been talking about, doesn't it? It takes a lot of energy to keep making decisions and I've already made the decision what I want to focus on and then I get distracted by all of the other things. I could do, all the ways I could make it longer and more difficult, because apparently it would be better, because my mind's telling it might be better. So it does get rid of that, which is really, really helpful. But the only way I can trust that is if I've trained it and I've said to it this is more important than this. So I am having to put quite a lot of effort into this is more important than this. So I don't think chat GPT is ready to be your assistant to reduce overwhelm, but if you train it, I think it, I know it could be. So there you go. If you'd like some of that getting rid of decision fatigue so you can focus yeah, go with that.
Speaker 1:One. Number three organizing thoughts and creative flow. Overwhelm isn't just about tasks, it's about mental clutter. Example writing a blog or podcast script can feel daunting when ideas are swirling. How chat gpt helps. I throw messy ideas at it and it helps structure them. It's like a non-judgmental thinking partner helping me refine my thoughts. Example how I use it for outlining blogs, emails, books and workshops. Oh, my goodness, that's interesting, isn't it? So I didn't. I only scanned this script before because I'm I'm not going to use its script, I'm going to talk. I'm going to say what I want. It's not the boss of me, but that's really interesting because that's just summarised what I just said. So that's pretty cool. So it is learning. It's taken a while but it's getting the hang of it. I love that it said it's like an unjudgmental thinking partner because it is hang of it. I love that it said it's like an unjudgmental thinking partner because it is. Oh, well done, chatgpt. Good work, let's see what it's got next.
Speaker 1:Number four reducing emotional overwhelm. Overwhelm isn't just logistical, it's emotional too. Example feeling stuck in self-doubt, second-guessing or guilt. How ChatGPT helps. I use it as a neutral sounding board to reflect back my thoughts. Sometimes just writing it out helps shift the feeling. Example when I feel I should be doing more, I ask chat GPT to help me see the bigger picture. That's interesting. I don't actually remember doing that with it, but I think I must have done. Maybe that's related to the, that would be related to the YouTube emotional journey, I expect, or maybe I just do do that. Hmm, I'm curious that it knows that. I suspect that how I use it is more emotional emotionally than I'm realising, because I do get cross. Of course. I get cross with it when it does the wrong, when it changes it in some generic nonsense, and I have to say what are you doing. I do tell it off. So maybe it's picked up on emotional behavior in my language. That is quite funny. But yeah, it's right it does.
Speaker 1:I love the big picture thing. I think for me that is one of the biggest things. I mean I wouldn't want to be without all of the organising, but the emotional thing of when I think I should be doing this. But actually I don't need to be doing this because I already have the big picture. So normally the big picture's on the wall in front of me to try and hold it. But holding the big picture I can't hold the big picture in my mind at the same time as doing detailed work. It's not physically possible. So usually what I'm doing is checking in with the big picture, my overall purpose of what I'm up to and then going into the detail. Because if I've got the big picture, that's the energy, the confidence, the clarity, the drive. I need to really stay focused on that one thing. So I guess what it's reflecting back to me here is when I say can you just remind me of what I'm doing overall? So that's interesting.
Speaker 1:One thing I did do last week with it was I was feeling very overwhelmed about all of the books, all of the bigger projects. So, from a day-to-day business yeah, from a day-to-day running a business point of view, between clients, my community and creating my weekly content, to have space to, on top of that, write a book, that doesn't feel that easy. So I don't know if you remember, but when I came back from my road trip in the Pacific Northwest in October, I deliberately created space to write by reducing some other things. But I don't want to be doing that all the time. I want to be better at writing books, really good books, but faster, because a lot of the energy about, for me anyway, is about self-doubt, is about what am I up to. So I find it really helpful for that, because it reduces the heaviness of a project when it feels too big, like I don't know how I'm going to do it, I can't see it, I can't think straight. That's really helpful.
Speaker 1:So one thing I did was I said there are four books I want to write this year. These are them, and it already knew because it'd been helping me. They're on lists somewhere, but I wanted to get an overall yearly pattern. So then I said so, for example, I'm walking the Italian Camino at the beginning of April. And before I write it, before I walk that one, I want to write the book about how I walked the Portuguese Camino. That's really important. I don't want to do it afterwards because it will change my thoughts on it. So I mean, it doesn't really matter, does it? But for me, that's bugging me and also because I want to remember it before I go. It was such a good experience.
Speaker 1:So part of the writing is processing as well as sharing how I did it, without forcing my body, without overwhelm. It's very important to me. So I just threw all of these things at it and said this needs to be done by then and this needs to be done before this happens. And instead of having to sit down with a piece of paper and go January, february, march oh how will I fit that in? I just threw my messy thoughts at it and it came back with a plan so good, and then immediately it goes into. And can I help you break down the structure of those books? Yes, you can, because immediately that gets rid of the.
Speaker 1:This project is too big, it's too heavy to hold. There's no way I can do this and do everything else I'm doing. I want a lot and I also want to go on this trip and I want to still see friends and you know, blah, blah, blah, blah blah. It just reduces it down to oh, so I just do this next. So this week I've been doing the first step, which is type up my diary from the Camino, and it didn't take very long, but usually there would be hours behind the getting around to actually doing it because it feels too big. So that's yeah, emotionally, I can see how much it's helping me. Thank you, chat GPT. I'm actually really grateful now that I'm doing this podcast because it's making me realize things about myself and how I work and, yeah, how many hours I waste in emotional overwhelm and overthinking. Let's see what it has to say next.
Speaker 1:So, staying true to myself, the risk with AI is losing your own voice, but I use it to enhance, not replace, my thinking. It doesn't make the decisions for me. It helps me make better. Oh, my goodness, that's spot on. Woohoo. Well, I'm quite blown away by that. That's it. That's it.
Speaker 1:I can finish this episode now. It's right, that's completely right, but only because I've insisted on that. That's it. That's it. I can finish this episode now. It's right, that's completely right, but only because I've insisted on that. So if I didn't want that, that wouldn't be true. That's not built into the model.
Speaker 1:You have to build in what you want. You have to make it work for you. And one of the really beneficial things I find in having to make it work for you is you have to be quite demanding. You have to know what you want. You have to be clear on it. You have to correct it if you want it to get better. And I don't know about you, but doing that for myself, about the people in the world around me. You know, saying what I want, that's not always easy. That's a challenge. So practicing saying no, that's wrong. I want this. No, the way I say it is better than how you say it. Now I don't mean you talk to a human like that, but practicing identifying what matters to me and how I speak and my values and then insisting upon them with ChatGPT has been very good for me. It's given me clarity, confidence. Yes, really good. Right now it's going into outro.
Speaker 1:How to end this? Overwhelm is optional. We don't have to do everything the hard way. Using tools like ChatGPT is a form of self-support, not a shortcut. Sometimes it's a shortcut. I'd say it's both. I don't really know. I can see what it's trying to say. I don't think it said that particularly well. It creates shortcuts and is a form of self-support, but it doesn't get rid of quality and integrity. That's what it's trying to say, isn't it? It's quite nuanced there. If this resonates, hit reply and let me know how do you reduce overwhelm?
Speaker 1:Well, that's obviously a mistake, because it's supposed to have written a podcast script. So you can see how it makes mistakes. It's got confused between what would it be? Oh yeah, the newsletter. It's just, and it does do that. It does get confused, which is interesting, because you would think that's quite a human error. So I don't know. I don't know. I'm stuck between. It makes silly mistakes. This is annoying and I'm glad it makes mistakes because it shows me that it's not actually going to take over the world. So, hey ho, then it says don't forget to check out my books, podcast and journal for more ways to stay focused on what matters most. So there, it's just completely screwed up. Because the journal is one of my books, you are listening to the podcast. Oh, bless it. So there you go.
Speaker 1:That's what it came up with, not as good as me commenting on it? I don't think, but some of it's really good and what I do like is well, it's been a pleasure to co-create this episode with ChatGPT. Sometimes it gets involved in helping me structure my thoughts and sometimes it doesn't. I'm wondering if you can tell the difference in episodes, but anyway, I've really enjoyed recording this by getting in a like meta meta way of oh, create a podcast episode on how I use you and then commenting on how I use it and how it thinks I'm using it, so that you can see what it's good at and what its weaknesses are.
Speaker 1:I'd love you to try out chat, gpt or one of the others, whichever one is easiest for you to have, and just see if you can get it to be supportive in reducing your overwhelm, holding lists or anything, so that you can think more clearly and have more space in your head. I really do believe AI is here if we choose to serve us in being able to have the headspace to focus on both what we really want to focus on and also having the space to receive the joy from the things we've already created. I'd love to know what you think. Obviously, you can't hit reply, like ChatGPT said, but you can. I think you can leave a message as a little message leaver thing now on podcast, which is really, really nice. I'd love to know your thoughts. Okay, have a great week.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for listening and for being part of the Overwhelmers Optional podcast. If you want to continue the conversation, please do connect with me on LinkedIn, instagram or YouTube. Let me know your thoughts. I love hearing from you and if you found this helpful, taking a moment to share, subscribe and leave a review would be much appreciated. It helps other people find the podcast. If you're ready to turn overwhelm into joy, you'll find my books, resources and ways to work with me on my website, heidimarkcouk, and on Amazon. All the links are in the show notes. Until next time, keep gently rebelling and making overwhelm optional for you.
