I am in my second full month running my holistic business coaching practice full time and I was feeling overwhelmed. I had too much to do in a day and was beating myself up for not completing it.
Man, I mean I was not giving myself a break at all! I was doing the old figurative, two pound mallet to the head routine.
P.S. Do not try this at home, it is not kind, nor is it helpful. In fact, I realized, it was a recipe for self-sabotage! :)
While the “To Do” list was helpful, I was putting waaaaaayyyy too much on it and felt defeated. Secondly, I kept rewriting the same tasks every day on a new list, that sometimes grew longer!
Egads! Really, really not helpful.
The reason I was doing this was because, I am impatient. I am accustomed to being in a business of maintaining a large territory with lots of moving parts and pieces, which was very established. I was used to a level of success that was very comfortable and I was in an 11 year routine.
Being new to something is challenging. I am establishing a new schedule and routine. I am setting new daily and weekly accomplishment goals and I am figuring out the best ways to grow my business and serve my clients.
The tasks I am doing now are quite different than what I have been doing, yet they are very familiar.
I luckily gave myself a break. I took the gigantic anvil off my shoulder, laid down the mallet and realized this: I have built a business many times.
In every position I have started, it has been from a place much like this. I needed to let go of the overwhelm and find a way around it.
What do we do when we are overwhelmed? My best strategy is to stop and simply breathe. Then, take the steps to do something which will help me to gain and maintain clarity. This is my solution to the current challenge:
What if I made one list of tasks in a simple spread sheet that I could access and assess daily. Then, pick from the list each day?
And what if instead of putting as much as possible on the daily to do list, I picked 3 things that I really wanted to do that day?
Good news! It is working! I feel accomplished at the end of the day, I save time at the beginning of my day and I am feeling an “Ahhhh” because I am listening to myself and doing what I want to do verses forcing myself in ways that are not productive.
If you would like to talk about this way of organizing or developing a system for your challenges, give me a call. I offer a one time 30 minutes session at no charge . I can even share my spreadsheet.
Have a beautiful week my friends!
Shelly
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