What haunts you as an adult?
As a kid, Halloween represented fun costumes, candy, and time with friends. But we also found thrill in the scary aspects that came with the holiday: creepy decorations, scary costumes, haunted houses, etc.
While a good haunted house will still get to you (or at least me) as an adult, I think we now have new things that haunt us as adults, and especially as business owners.
As business owners, our “haunted houses” may be filled with unwritten content, impending deadlines, and piling up administrative work. Fortunately, our trips through these haunted houses are limited. But we need to know how to get through them when they pop up!
I recently found myself walking through one of these haunted houses. There seemed to be so much writing and reading and THINKING to do in a short amount of time. While it felt overwhelming at first, I was able to come out of it pretty quickly. (It helps when you’re doing something you love!)
Let’s talk about some tactics to deal with overwhelm as a business owner so you can be the superhero of your business! We love what we do, and we started our own business to lean into our joy!
Make a plan
One of the most effective ways to start to alleviate the overwhelm is to make a plan. As soon as you create a plan of action, you’ll start to feel better. This plan allows you to see on paper how you’ll actually get everything done.
This decreases the mental load by allowing your brain to simply follow the already-created plan and put its energy into actually completing the work. This allows you to tap into your creativity and focus on the task, rather than everything else you may need to do.
At this point, you might raise an objection: “But Jamie, what if I make the plan and it makes me feel like I have too much to cram into my allotted time frame.”
There is always that possibility. However, by having a plan, you are now able to take action. By looking at the plan, you can evaluate if there are items that you can push out further on your calendar or if there are items you can request extensions on.
A plan sets you up to be able to adjust as needed and then dig into the execution. You can see how everything will get done which mitigates the uncertainty in your mind of, “Will I be able to get this all done?”. Even if you make a plan and are doubtful, you can now make the necessary adjustments.
Break it down
This tactic probably comes as no surprise and is one you’ve likely heard before, but it doesn’t hurt to have a reminder. If we try to think of a full project all at once, it feels much more daunting than it needs to be. Our brain tries to think about how to complete the entire project rather than focusing on what needs to be completed first.
If we break the project down into segments and place those smaller chunks into the plan, it becomes much more manageable to wrap our brains around the “how” of the execution. When you look at the individual tasks, it becomes much easier to think about completing each of those sequentially rather than digging into one big project with no plan of attack.
This also helps to build your confidence and quiet the overwhelm. Each task checked off your list is a victory that you can celebrate and something you’ve accomplished rather than something lingering.
Just start
Potentially the most important thing you can do is just start. In states of overwhelm, it’s easy to procrastinate. While it’s important to make a plan, it’s more important that you don’t use the planning as a way to delay starting. Make a plan and move on. It can always be adjusted later.
Once you get started, the overwhelm that’s been built up in your head starts to subside. For one, your brain is focused on actually doing the work rather than focusing on how much work you have to do. Additionally, you’ll likely find that you are able to get through the work more efficiently than you anticipated or that the task wasn’t as daunting as it seemed.
Similar to making a plan, starting allows you to know what you don’t know. If you get started on a project and realize there are gaps you need to fill in, you now have visibility to those gaps and can start to take action to close them.
Action leads to powerful insights.
If writing a book is a lingering project on your mind, let me help take that off your list by doing the planning and starting the work for you! Let’s chat about it on a free discovery call!
Disclaimer: This blog should not be construed as providing, or intending to provide professional financial, legal, psychological, or other professional advice. It is simply meant to share my experiences with those who may find them relatable and helpful.