Head Above Water: How to Deal with Overwhelm

| 3 mins 47 secs

As a business owner, you’re no stranger to stress. Your to-do list is longer than the Lord of the Rings books, combined. Your phone buzzes more than your teenage daughters’. Your schedule is more jam-packed than a New York subway at rush hour.

Bottom line: you’re busy.

There are times when it feels like you’re doing everything in your power just to keep your head above water. The threat of a tide pulling you under is always present.

As an entrepreneur, I understand too well that hopeless feeling when you’re just too overwhelmed with the daily grind of running your own business. Stress halts your ability to live a good life. It’s like that unwelcome dinner guest that just won’t leave, but worse: it’s also degrading your overall health.

Running a business should fulfill you, not slowly kill you. So, think of these following tips as the floating devices you need to prevent drowning:

Find clarity

Anxiety feeds off of the chaos of uncertainty. Clarity is the antithesis of stress. So, the first step is to clear your mind. Take a few moments to spring clean your head: get rid of all the unnecessary thoughts that take up space.

How much of your stress is fabricated by your own over-thinking? Lots of times, we create our own stress. Understanding how much of what stresses us out is really just us worrying over nothing will put things into perspective.

Map it out

You’ve cleared your mind of all the junk making you stress for no reason. Now, you need to get everything else all out on paper (or screen) in front of you. Visually map it all out: what are your most pressing concerns and what do you need to address them? What are your goals and priorities? Can you foresee any obstacles that could hinder you? How can you counter those obstacles?

It’s all about planning and preparation. You may not have all the answers right away, but you’ll have the clarity and foresight to sail smoothly even when the waters get rough.

Delegate, automate, or detonate?

Sometimes there really is too much for you to do by yourself. This is when some critical thinking comes in. Ask yourself: is this task something you should delegate, automate, or detonate?

I know, you like to be in control when it comes to your business. But your need to be hands on with everything is wearing you too thin. Ease up and delegate some tasks to others if it’s not absolutely necessary for you to do it yourself.

If a task needs to be done online, like posting on social media at regular hours, find a software that can automate the process for you. Though you may have to pay for the software, the time and stress it saves you is more than worth it.

Finally, is the task really necessary at all? Will it help you move forward to where you want to be in your business? Is it a good use of yours or anyone else’s time? Did you answer no to all of these? Then, perhaps it’s best to hit that trigger and detonate the whole task.

Giving up on a task doesn’t mean failure, it means you’re smart enough to recognize when something just isn’t worth it. Plus, there’s no better feeling than crossing something off that pesky to-do list that you didn’t want to do in the first place.

Execute, one step at a time

A giant pile of work that needs to be done immediately is intimidating to say the least. Sometimes the work ahead of us can seem like a giant mountain looming threateningly above us. But bite-sized manageable chunks of work that can be done in allotted time periods is less so.

Analyze how long you realistically need to do each chunk of work and add a little bit more time. Wiggle room is vital for handling stress. That way if a problem comes up unexpectedly, you can figure out a solution without the added pressure of a time constraint.

Running a business isn’t supposed to be easy. But nobody enjoys those chest-pain inducing, anxiety-saturated moments of pure panic and stress when they can avoid it. Stress can cloud your judgment, affect your health, and eat at your time.

Follow these tips to combat stress and enjoy your business.

How do you tackle stress? Let me know in the comments below!