When feelings of stress or overwhelm come up in your business, how do you respond?
Most business owners...
A. Freeze - their todo list feels so overwhelming they don't feel capable of starting at all. They procrastinate instead, doing everything except the tasks they're supposed to be doing.
B. Avoid or ignore the emotion - they march on with their many projects and tasks, pushing through the stress and overwhelm to do the work.
Which reaction do you have?
Without a little self-awareness, I fell under category A. I've had times when I've felt so overwhelmed that I just checked out and sat in front of the TV all day, went walking for hours in the woods, or messed around on my phone all afternoon.
But this didn't get me anywhere. In fact, each time I reacted this way to feeling overwhelmed, I was training my brain to make my freeze response a pattern.
Then I realised there is a healthier way to deal with feelings of overwhelm and stress when they come up.
A simple way to both manage the feeling, release it, AND get back into the swing of work.
In fact, this one simple strategy has helped me go from feeling stressed and frozen to having 7 podcast ideas, recording them all in one afternoon, and coming up with my next coaching offer.
Tune in to this episode to find out what it is!
You'll learn:
- 1 simple way to feel less overwhelmed in your business
- How to not let a bad moment turn into a bad day
- How to feel your feelings and release them
Click “play” on the podcast player below to tune in!
Transcript
I just got in from an hour break where I went on a very windy, wet, yet beautiful walk. I've come home with what was 3 and turned into 7 podcast ideas, 2 things I'm giving myself permission to simplify in my business, one Instagram story after I haven't posted on there in a week, and clarity on a new 1:1 coaching offer I have been really wanting to release.
What's more, I have more ENERGY this afternoon.
Yet, what you wouldn't guess from my state now is that my state this morning was completely different.
I was feeling stressed about my tiny home build, which if you watch my vlog, has been a rollercoaster of emotions and learning.
And that stress bled it's way through to my business. I woke up thinking I was going to work on a specific thing for my course, Simple Sales School, and then found myself feeling overwhelmed and unable to do anything.
But here's what I've learned over the last 10 years as a business owner:
In those moments, it is always best to allow myself to feel my feelings. Forcing myself to bury them and work is never good for me.
In fact, this sounds stupidly simple and obvious. Feel your feelings, don't bury them, or they come out sideways. Simple, right? Yet I think it's a lesson in emotional wellbeing that not many of us learned. And one of the biggest lessons of my life.
In fact, I spent 3 years of my life unable to move on from a particular traumatic event. It was on my mind every day, I couldn't let it go. I did All The Things to move on from it: therapy, coaching, read all the books, joined the memberships, did the meditations and the affirmations and you name it. And in the end, I realised one of the reasons it was still on my mind and heart was because I hadn't allowed myself to feel the feeling of regret. My mind or perhaps my ego had tricked me into doing everything BUT feeling this emotion of regret. Because it was afraid of that emotion.
And that was a big life lesson to me: that many of us subconsciously do things to AVOID feeling a certain emotion. But only when we allow ourselves to feel it can we actually release it and move on from it.
So back to feeling stressed or overwhelmed in your business. First, it's natural to feel that way sometimes. And when I do, I try not to avoid the emotion and keep working, and I try not to freeze and stop working.
Instead, I...
Name, feel and try to release the feeling in whatever way feels best, even if that's crying. Crying is a good thing, it's emotional release and it's so important for our wellbeing.
Journal for 5 mins if my mind feelings a little loud and I need to unscramble my thoughts and feelings
Then I do something to move myself out of that state - take a break, go for a walk, have a dance break in my living room
The times you feel you’re too busy to have a break, go for a walk, or even go on holiday are exactly the times you should.
If you keep working when your nervous system is in a stressed state, you won’t produce your best work, you’ll feel crappy when you're working, which will lead to you procrastinating a lot because you don't want to work, and eventually burn out.
And your problem ends up snowballing from you feeling stressed, to you being completely overwhelmed and unable to work for a much longer period of time because burnout can sometimes take months or even years to reocver from. And if you're self employed, you don't get paid sick leave. Not many self employed people can afford to take a year off.
But when you take the time to care for yourself, you get your nervous system to a calmer place again. And that’s when you’ll have more ideas, energy and motivation. And most importantly, you’ll feel better.
I could have let today's bad morning spiral into a bad day. But you don't have to let all bad mornings become bad days.
The next time you have a stressed/overwhelmed moment, let yourself feel that and then do something to shift your mood and energy before you sit back down to your desk to work. A bad moment doesn’t need to be a bad day. And if you try this and it still is a bad day, or you don't have the energy to try this at all, that's okay. Because tomorrow is a new day. We just get up and go again.
Free Masterclass
1:1 Coaching
Would you like to work together 1:1? I'm in the process of putting a private coaching container together and I'm only working with 4 new clients per quarter. If you'd like to be one of them and you want to learn more, join the waitlist here to be the first to know of availability and details.
Or DM me the word COACHING on Instagram. I'm @neshawoolery!
About Nesha
Hey there! I’m Nesha, 10-year traveling entrepreneur and host of The Simple Business Show. I teach freedom seekers how to make a full-time income online without working full-time hours, so they have the time, location and financial freedom to live the lifestyle they dream of.
Looking for more ways I can help you? Here they are:
Organize & Automate - Join 1200+ students and learn how to organize your entire online service-based business in just two weeks (on the side of your regular routine!) so you can stop stressing and fall back in love with your business.
Simple Sales School - Learn how to get a consistent flow of clients so you can build the income & financial freedom you desire.
Subscribe & Leave A Review!
If you enjoyed this episode, you can show your support by leaving a review, subscribing, or sharing your biggest takeaways on your Instagram story! Just remember to tag me @neshawoolery so I can see it.
Here’s how to subscribe and review the show:
Subscribe on your favourite podcast platform: iTunes, Google or Spotify.
To leave a review on Spotify: Open my podcast and click the “rating” button under my podcast name.
To leave a review on Apple Podcasts: Open my podcast, scroll to the bottom of the page and you’ll find the rating/review button.
