Do You Experience Overwhelm?
One of the things I hear all the time from business owners is that they are completely overwhelmed.
They don’t know what to do next. They’ve got a massive list of to do’s and they’re not sure where to even start!
Hey, look, me too! I used to know overwhelm well — for me it often resulted in procrastination, crazy working hours and certainly meant the important things in my business were not getting done! It’s not a word that we like to use cause it sounds really stressed out, and not sure what you’re going to do, a bit confused and nobody wants to sound or look like that in their business.
It looks like a swan — gliding along the surface, keeping it all together for people looking in from outside. Yet underneath the water you are paddling like crazy just to stay afloat. It looks ok but it feels awful and it’s unresourceful.
But when you are trying to run a business, look after your family, be a great partner, be a friend, do the stuff you need to do at school, do the stuff you need to do at home, it’s really easy to get into overwhelm.
What I would love to share with you is what causes that overwhelm. That overwhelm is caused by too many choices and the need to make decisions for each of those choices. It’s something that is a signal of success. I know it doesn’t feel successful — but without some level of success you are unlikely to have choices.
As humans, it wasn’t that long ago that we didn’t have any choices.
You didn’t get to choose what to eat because, it was what someone dragged home or what you found in the forest.
You didn’t get to choose what job you did. if your Mum and Dad did it, that’s what you did. If they were the blacksmith — you would become the blacksmith. If they were an actor then you became an actor.
You didn’t get a choice in all of those things and in a really short space of time, we’ve gone from having no choices to having a multitude of choices. When I was a kid, we had two tv channels, and when it rained it got down to one, so there wasn’t a choice.
Now pull up Netflix, pull up Light Box, pull out whatever it is you’re using to watch TV and you’ve got thousands and thousands of choices that we just never had before.
And what happens is, our inability to make a decision between those choices creates overwhelm.
It’s the same in our business, there are so many different ways that you can get to your customers. There are so many different ways that you can run your workflow or do your project management. There’s so many ways that you can create your content.
And because there are so many choices we get frozen — like a possum in the headlights going, “Oh my God which choice is right, I’m not sure which is right”
The problem is not that you’re overwhelmed — that’s a symptom of the problem.
The problem is that you’ve got so many choices. What you need to know, is how to make the right choices. The solution is to work out how you’re going to make a decision. Create a great decision making model and then move yourself forward.
Relax a little and just recognise that it’s something that has come along over a really short space of time, and as humans we are still adapting to how we can deal with it.
And in your business, it’s just the same.
If you want to have a proven framework for making decisions I include that in my Power Hour. Starting on the 1st of July 2019.
If you would like to know more book a free strategy session with me or you can just book straight in to join The Power Hour.
Free strategy session: Make An Appointment
The Power Hour online course: sarahgreener.com/annual-business-plan/
