Do you ever feel overwhelmed in your business, or maybe you feel like you’re not where you should be, based on all the hard work you’re putting in? Is that frustrating?
If you’re in that spot, I want to share with you a strategy to help you bring a little more calm, reduce some of that stress, help you stay focused so you can execute and get where you’re going faster.
It’s not unusual to feel overwhelmed in business, and we’ve all been there. However, it’s not sustainable to be overwhelmed all the time.
We might be overwhelmed as we overcommit for a project or get a new customer opening up a new location, something like that. It’s got a start and end time. We know we’re going to be overcommitted for a little while, feeling a little bit overwhelmed.
And that’s okay, that’s actually kind of fun for a time. As long as we know there’s an end in sight.
But where it’s not fun, is when there is no end in sight.
When we feel like we’re just going to be overwhelmed all the time, we feel like, “I can’t even move! I’m trying to get things done, I’m just getting interrupted. I just can’t seem to get a moment to breathe. I’m having trouble finding time to think and be strategic. I’m just being tactical and taking action and putting out fires.”
That level of overwhelm is not sustainable and if you’ve been in that state for a little while, you know exactly what I’m talking about:
You’re tired.
You’re irritable.
You’re not having fun.
You dread getting up.
You don’t want to talk to your team.
You’re just in a state of, “Oh my gosh, can I please just get the remote hit pause for a minute?”
So I want to give you that little pause button.
And here’s what we want to do:
The first thing is, we want to stop comparing ourselves from where we are now to where we think we should be.
And I use that word very specifically because we should-on ourselves. We beat ourselves up saying “We’re only here, we should be there.”
But here’s the key thing that’s happening – we’re not looking back to look how far we’ve come! Look at the past year:
Have you grown as a business owner?
Have you grown personally?
Have you grown professionally?
Have you learned?
Have your skills gotten better?
Has your leadership improved?
Has your ability to attract and retain talent improved?
Are you better at marketing?
Are you better at sales this year?
Are you better at leading your team?
The answer to that is probably yes.
If you were to look back at the little milestones, the little things that you’ve grown through this past year, you’re probably in a much different state than you were last year, but you might still find yourself saying, “Yeah, that’s great. But I should be here.”
Stop should-ing on yourself.
It’s not healthy. It’s unhelpful. It actually brings your mindset and your energy about your business down.
How about a different strategy?
How about we look back with recognition and gratitude of everything you’ve done and who you’ve become over the last year? Have you thought about just writing it down?
Can you imagine this: take a piece of paper and write down, “I’ve grown this way this year.
I’ve accomplished this.
I’ve developed personally.
I contribute to this person’s personal development.
I’ve contributed to my family.
I’ve contributed to my community.”
I think if you were to look back, you’ll find a ton of amazing things that you’ve done over the past year, but you might be forgetting about it because of everything that’s right in front of you.
So make sure that as we’re looking forward, as we’re taking action every day, we have a bit of grace with ourselves, a bit of patience with ourselves and recognize we shouldn’t compare ourselves to anybody else, alone some future self.
We want to compare ourselves to who we were last week, last year.
Are we growing as a person?
Are we getting better personally?
Are we becoming a better leader?
Are we doing things to improve our own selves and the people around us on a daily basis?
And yes, we’re going to execute and we’re going to take action – make sure that you do it with a bit of grace and a bit of patience and just enjoy the journey. Don’t get stuck into “I’ll be happy when…” Be happy today. Enjoy what you’re doing. Have fun!
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