Overwhelm is a state of mind that can sabotage your success and create unnecessary stress. Here are fifteen of my favorite techniques I use to help my clients (and myself) dissolve the feelings of overwhelm and feel inspired and powerful every day. Each of these techniques can be implemented in under 12 minutes (and some even in a nano-second) — the idea is to recognize how one simple shift in your approach to running your business can make a HUGE difference in your level of sanity!
1. Say No to BSO
Bright Shiny Objects are the enemy. Every time you chase an idea that isn’t aligned with your real profit and power you are wasting time, money and energy. All those distractions add up to a lot of overwhelm if you aren’t careful.
2. Prioritize Better
Make a habit of prioritizing the tasks on your to-do list. Spend your time on the most important activities first thing in the morning.
3. Stop Letting Distractions Take Over
Just because the phone rings or a new email shows up in your inbox doesn’t mean you have to jump on it. Control your temptation to let distractions run your day and you’ll achieve ten times more of the important results on your list.
4. Hang Out with Successful People
When you spend time with productive, successful people you start to recognize how important having good time management are to your success. You can learn a lot from people who are committed to achieving their big goals.
5. Use a Green Light Formula BEFORE Saying Yes to an Opportunity
A “green light” formula is a set of criteria that you evaluate to make sure each opportunity or idea really does fit (and you aren’t just getting caught up in the excitement of something bright and shiny.) Create a list of important questions to ask yourself or learn how to create your own Green Light Formula with my handy system.
6. Strengthen your Boundaries
Weak boundaries mean you’ll find yourself taking care of everyone else’s needs before our own. Learn how to set stronger boundaries around your time and energy so you don’t let other people’s overwhelm become your own.
7. Know Your High Payoff Opportunities
When you know what activities make you the most money and propel you forward the fastest, it’s a lot easier to prioritize your time. Get clarity on what activities are the highest payoffs (and learn how to get the rest of them off your plate!)
8. Delegate Tasks that Burn you Out
There’s no faster way to land in overwhelm than spending your time on tasks that drain your energy. Learn how to delegate the activities that burn you out to someone who thrives doing them and you’ll not only have more time but you’ll also have more energy!
9. Take Time Away from Your Business
It seems counter-intuitive to take time away when you are busy or overwhelmed – but that’s exactly what you must do! Taking a break will clear your mind and help you re-prioritize what’s really important.
10. Overcome Your Busy Addiction
A busy addiction is a strategy where you think you are getting things done – but what’s really happening is you are exerting a ton of energy without any real results. Recognize the signs you are over-committing because you are used to being busy all the time.
11. Eliminate Low Profit Offerings
A big reason many entrepreneurs are overwhelmed is low profit offerings. Often we create an offering but discover much later that the cost it requires to generate a profit is ridiculous. In the marketing world we call these offerings “dogs” and you should dump them as fast as you can.
12. Stop Compulsive Creativity
Every time you create a new program or generate a new offering, you have a million steps to making it profitable. Most visionary and highly creative business owners have to learn to channel their creativity into making what they have work better in order to increase profits and decrease overwhelm.
13. Use Time Chunking
Time chunking is a strategy of lumping like-activities together so that you can use your time more effectively. If you jump between different types of tasks your brain can’t focus or get into the “groove.” By chunking similar activities or working on one project for one hour, you can work faster and get more done.
14. Develop Better Self Care Habits
A big contributor to overwhelm is our physical energy and state of mind. If you don’t prepare your body of high productivity, you’ll find your mind spinning and your energy waning. Getting a good night’s sleep, eating healthy food and limiting addictive products like caffeine and sugar can help you nip overwhelm by having more focus and energy.
15. Redefine Success on Your Terms
A revolutionary idea is to redefine what success means to you. Far too often a new entrepreneur will just follow the path set by their mentor instead of deciding what they want success to look like when they get there. And most likely, you’ll feel burned out and disconnected from their path – cause it’s NOT yours. By taking time to get clear on what you really want you’ll make better, more inspiring choices for your time. Remember, we are all unique individuals (that’s why we became entrepreneurs) so make up your own rules for success!
Melanie Benson Strick, known as America’s Leading Authority on Optimum Performance, has a gift for guiding fast-paced, creative entrepreneurs to thrive in their small business. Melanie is an optimizer – uncovering costly breakdowns and de-railers while super-charging profits– ultimately freeing the entrepreneur to experience exponential growth by doing more of what they love most. Get my free optimize your results gift at http://www.successconnections.com.