Episode 28 Transcript

Heather:

Welcome back, you guys. We're in episode 28. Now, I wanna start this episode with a question for you. What creates overwhelm for you? What does? What actually creates overwhelm for you? I'll start. I'll give you some things, thoughts or actions that I have that create overwhelm with me. I think it's good to start with this because once you know, you're able to work on it, right? So the first one is comparing myself to others. That is a big one. you know, going on social media and scrolling through feeds and going, I should be further along. I should have more of that. I should have less of that or whatever it is. Right. When you see other people on specifically social media, but it could be at a business conference because we all put our best foot forward. As you know, I don't have to tell you that, but we all do that. Right. We put our best foot forward in those environments, especially on social media. So I always have kind of lived by this thing, be a producer and not a consumer, my little motto for social. But that's something that stresses me out for sure. Cause I'll just start to think, oh, you know, pour me and go into that stressy feeling. Another one is thinking, why am I not further ahead? Why am I not further ahead? Then what? Well, comparing myself to others, right? So that's another one where I'm just sitting here and look at my age or I look at my, I always go for like the lack of accomplishments rather than the accomplishments. And I start stressing about that. Another one is, not hitting my expectations or knowing that I could have done better. So have any of you guys ever not hit your expectations? Have you ever failed at a launch in your, you know, a product or a service that you launched to the world or got a new website and it didn't work or whatever, you know, new team didn't work. But that whole thing of, you know, just have these expectations for yourself and you just don't get there. Another one, so I'm pretty good at being present, I think, not all the time, like none of us can be 100%. But so when I know I'm not, it's hard because I just have so too much going on right there in that moment and I'm trying my best to be present with the thing I'm working on, but then I know inside, oh, I missed a mark on that one. So that's another one. Maybe some of these, I'm just giving you ideas for me. And some of these might help you as well to sort of think, yeah, you know, that thing, that's the thing that always triggers me. Um, another thing is spending too much time on devices that I feel can stress people out for sure. Right. Because think about all the different factors of that. You might be on your phone and you, again, you're on social and you're getting stressed from that, or you're checking your email app. You're getting stressed from that. or you're on your computer or whatever it is, you're just spending a lot of time on devices and you feel as such that you're bombarded by messaging, which can be pretty full on. Another big one saying yes, when I know I should say no. I have definitely been pretty bad at this in the past and there's been like opportunities or I think there are opportunities that present themselves to me. And instead of going away and thinking, is this gonna actually fit into my goals and my outcomes for my life and my business? I immediately go, yeah, that sounds great. And then I ended up spending huge amounts of time on failed projects. Oftentimes it comes from external people that are approaching me for things and I just don't do my due diligence or I don't look into it properly. But that is another big one saying yes when you know you should be saying no. And then you regret your decision. Another one is not spending that little bit of extra time to train a team member. or finding the right contractor. And instead I just do it myself. So I used to be really bad at that as well. I'm getting better, but you know, it's that sort of mindset of, and I have a really great actually interview coming up in the next episode, that sort of playing the martyr of your time and thinking, oh, I'm better than everyone and I should be doing this. You can get oftentimes caught up in that sort of way of thinking, right, as a business owner. but it just ends up stressing you out because you're stuck doing everything yourself. So not spending that little bit of extra time to train somebody or find the right person for the role, that is something, you know, that's important and that can add a lot of stress if you're not doing that. Another one, dwelling on the past, getting too caught up in the past. Maybe that's you comparing your current situation to the past. You know, you think about like, people that hang out from high school and all they talk about is like, how good was the past? How all these really great stories. And then you might start thinking, yeah, and I don't really like my life the way it is right now. Um, that could be one or dwelling on the past in the way that you're dwelling on past failures that you think are failures. I remember my previous business I had, uh, before this one. Um, I, it didn't, it failed basically. It didn't, it didn't do well. And I was, beating myself up on that over and over and over and over again. And a friend of mine, Linda said to me, but instead of looking at as a failure, why don't you look at it as just a stepping stone, just a stepping stone to get from where you were at that time to where you are going. It's just a step in the path of your life. And it's kind of just an interesting shift for me because I was just dwelling on it so much that I failed. I failed. I worked so hard. I got nothing from it. Not having enough social time is another one that can stress you out. especially if you're out socializing and then you're stressing that you should be working. That's another one. Thinking for me, you know, this comes off and on, but thinking that I should have been a better stepmom. I'm always questioning that, you know, so much so that I ended up, I was in therapy for a little while and I was even talking through that with a therapist and I was just like, I just don't feel like I've been good enough, you know? She's like, says who? But that's a huge one. If you have kids and if you're running your business. then you're gonna probably have some regrets in there. Maybe some of you somewhere along the line. So those are me, that's me. Those are just a list of, I think, things that come up for me that can kind of kick me into overwhelm or stress mode. And I just thought I'd give you some ideas as a starting point. But what about you guys? What about you? What stresses you out? Again, we're doing this exercise because it just helps you to know what things that maybe you can work on. If you don't know, you can't do anything with it. So think about it, you know, what gives you stress in your life? What gives you stress? And another good question on the flip side of that is what makes you happy? And then what gives you a sense of accomplishment? Cause that's important. You want to feel like you've accomplished things. And if you're a hard worker and you're growing your business, oftentimes you don't stop enough to look at your accomplishments, but what gives you a sense of accomplishment and What can you commit to that is good for you right now and in the long term? Just a couple sort of prompts to perhaps get you thinking from stress to proactivity. And I'll give you some ideas on that whole list of things that stressed me out, how I manage those things so I don't actually linger in those for too long. So the first one is. managing my calendar better. And I'm sure maybe a lot of you guys could do this as well. I've spoken to this a lot in previous episodes, not only solo episodes, but people that I've interviewed. A lot of the business owners I've interviewed so far say the same thing. You've gotta take charge of your calendar. Don't let it take control over you. So managing that better, setting up a really good system where everything is in there so you can move things around when you're not feeling up to it. I talked about decision fatigue in a previous episode. You know, I'm constantly moving things around in my calendar if I realize like my brain just can't think anymore for the day, I might move an easier task from the next day into the end of a day before, for example. So managing your calendar better. Another thing is getting good at delegating and, and I stress the word and, and training people. It's not just about delegating, it is ongoing training. You can't just go, hey, here's the systems and procedures or here's something I want you to do. See, go off and do it. You've got to get good at constantly training, providing resources, checking in. That's actually what I've realized is makes the most difference. Before my other business that I used to have, we would just sort of like delegate things and then everything fell apart because we didn't have good training, we didn't have follow-up, we didn't have that sort of support system that you need if you are going to delegate. I think that's why a lot of people freak out about delegating as well, because you're just literally like, oh, no one can do it as good as me, or I can't find anyone that's good enough because it's a different human being. It isn't you, it's somebody else and they don't know what's going on inside your head. They cannot read your thoughts. So get good at delegating and also get that training going that you need to support them. Another thing is creating great systems. So systems and procedures, documents, however that looks in your business. And we actually do talk about that coming up in the next episode as well, which you definitely will wanna tune into. So with your systems, it's looking at things that, you know, you do a lot of, and how do you package that up into like a training, a step-by-step, and then you either use it at first, but then eventually you're gonna wanna give that to a team member to help you out. So. something that I do on my team. So one of the women on my team, Prue, she's always developing these for me. Whenever there's something that's coming up, I'm like, okay, let's create a system for that. We have like just documents that say, step one, do this with a screen grab or whatever. Sometimes a loom video that I make, that will go in there. And what we're gonna do is every single year, we're gonna go back to the library of documents and look at which ones no longer apply, which ones need to get better. So it's something that you don't just create once and like go, cool, it's done, all good. You wanna revisit those, but creating good systems. Go outside, you guys. Go outside and ground yourself in nature. This is also something that so many of my guests have said so far. If you've been listening for any amount of time, you'll be hearing anything from, I go outside in the grass and I take my shoes off, or I go sit in the sun, or I sit on the deck, or I take a walk. It's a consistent theme over and over and over again from people that I'm talking to. And it is important. And for me, I like going out on our deck. It's winter here in Sydney, so it's really cold. But if it's sunshiny going out there and sitting on the deck, or even just sort of sitting near the window and staring outside for a little while, just get away from the computer when you can and preferably get outside and get fresh air. That's huge. Another thing you can do to sort of help your overwhelm is being realistic with how long something takes. Important. That's why if you have a good calendar system, you look at what you've done in the past and you constantly change, like you literally go in there and be truthful with yourself and go, okay, well, this project actually took me three hours so I need to change it in my calendar from the one hour I thought to three hours. However you do that with yourself. but calendar can be an easy thing. Because then as you go forward, you can look back on certain appointments that you've had or certain projects that you've worked on and you can see how much time it took you. And then going ahead, you have a more realistic idea of how long it will take. This is a big one for me, a big work in progress, because I am always underestimating how long something takes. So then I put too much in my calendar for the day. So I'm working out this right now, but it is a big one because then you... What happens is that you can never get anything done you want, and then you're beating yourself up about it. So that's another one. Managing expectations of anyone, your clients, big one, big one managing their expectations of your project together, your team, yourself, expectations for yourself. Another good one to help with stress is building an incredible on boarding process. for new clients, new team members coming into your business. That is a huge one and that can be a great system that you develop and tweak and get better at over time. But with our clients, there's so many touch points when you come on board with us from the calls that we go through to the introduction to the team members, to personalized videos from me, to checklists. There's... And yeah, sure, could I get better? I'm sure. But there's a lot of different touch points to really hold the hand of that person, to manage their expectations. Because as you know, you guys, you may think, okay, I've told this client exactly what they get in the project, but, and it seems like they got it, right? They understood the agreement, but then they don't, they haven't read half of it. Or they've said yes when they should have said, no, I don't understand because sometimes we feel stupid and we say, Yeah, sure. I understand, but you don't. So there's this huge piece of stress that can be alleviated if you help to hold the hand of the client or the team member, really through a great onboarding process. That's another one. And make sure, and this is the last one, make sure that the time you schedule for yourself stays put, make sure. So... If you have an exercise routine, make sure that you commit to those days that you're going to the gym. I go to Pilates at a minimum four days a week. It's always the same exact time and day every single week. I know to never ever schedule anything over on the top of that socially or with work, because it's very important, your health, right? So make sure that your time is locked into your calendar. Do it in advance, do it for the year, lock in a holiday, whatever that looks like for you. and then you know that you're committing to yourself as well. So hopefully that helps just give you some ideas. I don't know why this episode came to mind but I was just sort of thinking it might be interesting to have a conversation with you around starting to be aware of what is actually stressing you out. And that's why I gave you some examples for me, some of those you might resonate with, some of them you might have different ones, but what actually stresses you out? And then once you know that you might notice a theme in and amongst it. If it's a lot of comparison, I just stuff. Well, then you've got to look at systems or ways. So you're not all the time looking at other people's social media feeds. How are you going to control that? If it's something to do with expectations or, you know, painful clients, there's something in there to look at. Maybe it's better sales processes or pre-qualifying or onboarding. What are the themes? That's where you start, and then that's where you can look at how you're gonna use systems, team, and mindset to get through those moments. All right, well, that's it for this episode. Thank you so much for tuning in. As always, I really appreciate your support, and I can't believe we're almost to episode 30. We're getting close. Okay, guys, talk to you soon. Bye.