What To Do When You’re Drowning

Words become things. That's something I talk about all the time or think about all the time is like the words that you put out into the universe is what's going to return to you.

Welcome to the Decision Maker podcast with me, your host, Ali Bjerg. We've been given an amazing opportunity in virtual and digital entrepreneurship that's never been available in any other time period. We're living in a reality where the number of lives that we impact can be directly reflected by the dollars in our bank accounts. This podcast is all about deciding to become the person who deserves all of the success you can dream up and also teaching you the strategies and the tactics to bring it to fruition and make it all happen. Can't wait to jump into this episode. Thank you so much for being here. And let's get started.

Let's talk about what to do when you feel like you are drowning. This time of year, everybody's so busy. There's lots of events to attend, there's school things. If you have kiddos that you need to be at different programs, there's lots prep for with the holidays. We also are feeling all this pressure in our businesses. Like, it's the end of the year, we gotta finish strong. We have to make sure that we have everything buttoned up and that we can talk about how our year went and, and know that we finished all the way strong, but also like new Year, new me, right? So we also, we have to wrap up the year, but we also have to plan for the next year and make sure that we're positive and excited and we have plans and everything is buttoned up and tied with a bow. And it's. There's just so much treasure. I was feeling a lot of that this week. I have some crazy things going on personally in business and in life and. And I was feeling like I was drowning. So I thought I've come up with some strategies through the years of how to survive when I feel like I'm drowning. And I thought that could be really helpful to share here and just have a conversation about that of like, when you feel super overwhelmed, when personal life feels busy, when business feels busy, when you're, you're, you're emotional, like, what I'm going to do next, that feels very busy. How do we actually survive? So a couple years ago, I took this quiz called the Strengths Finder Quiz. It's by a company called Gallup. You can Google it, you can take it yourself. Figure out what your strengths are. I think it's really important to Know what your strengths are. And what I found out was my top two strengths. I can't remember all of them. I need to go look that up sometimes. But my top two strengths, I'm futuristic. Number one, I love to think about the future. I love to plan for the future. And then number two is that I'm strategic. So I love to plan strategies for the future. So this week has been an interesting one for me. I have two amazing consultants that are actually flying to, to my house in Minnesota to do a two day intensive with me all about my business. So I've had a, like a lot of different projects, all in the works and I haven't launched anything because I feel like I'm buttoning up all these different pieces and I have all these, all these different fish hooks out in the pond, right. Like I'm, I'm ready, ready to just hit that next level and scale and reinvent my business in a way. But I've been waiting on this intensive. I'm like, okay, well let's really dig in. Let's talk with these two consultants, spend two days digging into my numbers, sitting in person like whiteboarding and talking and thinking about the business. So I've been planning for this intensive for like probably three weeks now, just getting ready for them to come. Two absolutely amazing people. And I've, I've opened up my books to them and I've talked about all my struggles and all my mental problems that I have with my business. And they're coming tomorrow. Well, the plan is for them to come tomorrow. However, I live in Minnesota. As I look out the window right now, it's starting to snow and we don't know if flights are going to happen because there's a blizzard coming. So we don't know what's going to happen. And woke up this morning and my 11 year old has a fever. So now he is home sick from school. And you know when you have one kid sick but you have multiple kids, it's all coming right. Like everybody's going to get sick at some point. So I've got a sick kid blizzard coming. I don't know if the consultants are actually going to make it in and I'm powerless. There's nothing that I can do. So not only that, but I haven't. Catholic, Christian, we plan for Christmas. I haven't planned anything yet. I have no gifts purchased. My, I feel like I have, you know, like 30 different projects that are 95% done. I feel like I'm drowning. Like I feel if I just Sit here in this moment, I'm like, there is no way that this is all going to come together, right? Like that feeling of overwhelm. And I don't know about you guys, but sometimes when I feel like this, like, I just want to go watch Netflix and not actually do anything. So that's not going to work. I have to. I have to find the motivation. I have to dig deep and I have to figure out how to actually get the things done. I have people depending on me. I have students that are, you know, needing things from me. I have clients that are expecting things. I have lots and lots that I need to pull my weight. I need to show up for the people that I've committed to. If you listen to last week's episode, you know that I've also had changes on my team. Actually, those two weeks ago, I've had two different right hand women leave my team. So now I'm also hiring and I'm trying to figure out what. What was below the surface that has not been happening, that I thought was happening, where balls have been dropped because I wasn't aware that things were happening because other people were just managing it, right? Like, where were the holes in the systems? What has been happening that I need to fix? So there's a lot of that going on too. So basically, I feel like I'm living in a dumpster fire right now, if I'm being completely honest. So what do you do? Like, what do you do when you feel like that? When you feel like your business is a dumpster fire, or when you feel like you're falling apart, you're a hot mess? Like, whatever the story is, the very first step that I would really love to encourage anybody is like, drop the meaning. Like, don't make it mean anything. Don't judge yourself for it. Just state facts right? Like, okay, had changes on my team. I have to dig into operations and systems a bit more than I usually do, but I get to fix things. I get to be so aware that I know exactly what's going on and we can build a better mousetrap, right? I'm not sitting here in judgment. I'm not sitting here, like crying about it. Like, oh, so and so left and I'm alone and everything is falling apart. Like, I'm not. I'm not making it mean anything. I'm not frustrated by it. I'm excited. I'm like, oh, I get to fix this thing now. And if I just get through this moment, if I just ask for grace from all my students, and for myself especially. And I just look at facts and I only look at the facts. And I think, okay, we need a better system for our accountability calls. What can I do to fix it? So if I sit down and I just, you know, mentally plan that, then I can come up with a way to fix that. So the very first piece of it is make sure that you're not living in judgment. Make sure you're not in this world of like, I'm terrible, everything is terrible. My business is broken, I'm broken. Like I will catastrophize super fast sometimes, but I have to stay up here, I've got to stay super aware and just state facts to myself and just talk about this is what's going on. It doesn't mean anything about me, doesn't mean anything about my value as a human or my, my prowess as a CEO. It means nothing. It's. These are the facts of what's happening right now. So just live in this world of like, huh, isn't that interesting that I made that mean something about my value as a human? Like why did I go there? That's really interesting. How do you live in this non emotional state is something that I've definitely learned over time. It's sometimes harder than other times, depending on what the topic is. But for the most part, living in this state of just interest, of curiosity, of looking at things and wondering why it is that way and you know, if you were to change it, what could it look like if it were in a different world? I've worked with a lot of clients where they immediately are like, of course this is happening to me. And of course I have things falling apart. Like they just expect things to be terrible, right? And then things are terrible. Like it's literally, that's how things work. You get what you expect. Words become things. That's something I talk about all the time or think about all the time. Is like the words that you put out into the universe is what's going to return to you. So if you think things are going to be terrible, they're going to be terrible. If you think you're going to have a bad day, you're going to steal your coffee and you're going to fall down the stairs like that. Just the nature of how it works. You're going to create your own reality. So if you can stay away from the like of course thinking like, of course this is happening to me because I'm terrible. We don't want to do that, right? So say keep it high, keep Your thoughts high. Don't judge yourself. Don't make things emotional. Don't make them mean anything. Just try to keep it neutral. Just try to observe things as they're happening. There's this really amazing book that I love that's called Wise Heart. I'll have to tag. I cannot think of the exact title of or the author. I'm thinking of somebody else. But it's basically Buddhist principles. And it says this one thing that the author is teaching as he is learning about Buddhism. He's teaching this concept. Emotions are basically like clouds in the sky, right? Even if it's thundering or storming or raining and really, really cloudy outside, you know, the sunshine is still behind the clouds, right? Like, just because it's cloudy, it doesn't mean that it's always going to be cloudy or that the weather is going to be terrible forever. So if you're in a mood or you're in a moment or you're struggling or you don't feel like you're thriving in the moment, it's going to come back around. Things are going to change. It's going to turn around. You just have to just get through it. Just like, you know when it's raining, you just hunker down inside and it's fine. Strategy number one is no judgment. Strategy number two is get it out of your head. So, like, I carry something like this around with me all the time. It's just this white notebook. You can get sketch pads if you go to, like, I don't know, any Target or craft store or whatever. It's just plain paper. Sometimes the pages look like this. Like, sometimes my children get access to them, but most of the time, this one's really sketched in. Most of the time, I use these not only to, like, map out funnels and have different ideas, but I use it to create my entire checklist for the day. So I will brain dump every single thing that I need to get done. I'm definitely more of, like, a paper and pen person. I will take this and, like, send a picture of it to a team member to have them get it up and click up or something like that. But for the most part, if I have it right here, I will keep this on my desk at all times, and I will just write things down as I think of them. I learned at one point that we're basically computers. The way our brains are created. We are created to process things, not store things. So I guess maybe that's not true because computers store things, but our brains are Only created to be able to think about things, and then it leaves our brain. So if we think that we can remember all these different checklists for, you know, personal life, business planning for our families, like all the different little segments of life that we have to be prepared for to manage this time of year, we can't. Our brains are not created to store all of these different thoughts simultaneously. So when you're trying to do that, you're setting yourself up to fail. So the only way to keep yourself sane is to get it out on paper. And then you can just let that pressure off of yourself. Like, I don't actually have to remember all the things. It's all right here. So the more you can do that, the more you can not necessarily create a to do list, but create a brain dump list, then you know exactly what you need to do next. The other thing that I do with these lists that I think is super helpful, that I've. That's helped me know what to do or know what to focus on next, is looking at the list and trying to figure out what the big domino is. So the big domino, there's this concept where they, they did this study on if you have a tiny domino and then another domino and then a little bit bigger domino, this domino, even if you start and there's math behind it, obviously, because physics. But if you like push this tiny domino down and there's a little bit bigger domino and another bigger domino and like they exponentially increase in size, this tiny domino through this chain reaction, chain of events, whatever could end up knocking down a domino that is the size of the Sears tower. That was the experiment that they set up and it would work. So when you can figure out the big domino or maybe the tiny domino, since I talk about tiny things a lot, what is the tiny domino that's going to be what actually knocks over your Sears Tower? So if there is only one thing that you can get done for the day, or maybe two things you can get done for the day, what is going to have the biggest impact and the biggest impact not only on your overall to do list, but on your brain? Like, what is the thing that you can knock off your to do list that's going to relieve the largest amount of stress? So maybe it's the thing you've been avoiding. Eat that frog, right? Like that quote of There's a whole book about it of eating the frog, doing the thing that you really don't want to do, doing that first, getting it off the to do list. You don't have to think about it anymore. You can just check it off. Because I don't know if you're like me, but I will avoid doing the frog thing. I will avoid eating the frog for weeks if I had to. I will avoid the one thing that I really need to do. And then when I look at it and I sit down and I do the thing, it takes five minutes, maybe 10, if I can really sit down and focus and get my brain, you know, put my blinders on, my funnel vision that I talk about when it comes to launching funnels and businesses, get the funnel vision and actually do the one big domino, then it's done. It always takes way less time than I think. Like, I will build it up and up and up and up in my brain and then not do it and then finally get it done. And I'm like, oh, yeah, that was super easy. So think about that. Like, make your list, figure out what your big domino is and check it out. Um, and if that's the one thing. So you have sick kids at home, and there's only one thing that you have time for, there's only one thing you can get done that day, at least you know, you got that done. The last thing that I'll say, the last piece of this that has been my survival strategy is thinking in this moment of, like, right before I created this video, I was sitting in my office, and I was, like, looking at the piles of paper on my desk, and I was thinking about all the things that I had to get done before my next call and all the things that are on the schedule and all the things like planning for tomorrow, wondering if my kids are all going to get sick, wondering if the consultants I hired are actually going to make it into town. You know, is it all going to work out? Is it all going to explode? The one thing that I thought of is, like, I have this to do list right here in this moment. If I think about what is the. The one thing for me, for myself, for my brain to be able to tackle everything else, what is the one thing that I really need in this moment to feel good? Like, what is for my. My mental health, my, you know, my level of sanity, what is one thing that I can do to feel good in this moment? And for me, it's usually go for a run and take a hot shower and then get back to work. So if I can get those things done, if I can get some happy endorphins going, like, go exercise, whether you go for a walk, whether you do you know, go play with your dog, whatever, get some happy hormones rolling. Then I'm going to get way more done than if I sat here and I'm like just staring at my desk like, oh my gosh, there's so much here. I would end up procrastinating and probably going on Facebook and doom scrolling for the next four hours. So if I can make myself go exercise, go for a really good run, get a good sweat on, go take a hot shower and then put my hair in a high ponytail and like get to work, I'm gonna get way more done than if I just fight it and fight it and fight it. I don't have time to work out, I don't have time to take a shower, I don't have time for anything. That's not a productive way to think, right? So think about for your mental health, what is one thing, what is your mental health? Big domino too. For me it's always exercise. And I will procrastinate any day of the week by going to take a hot shower and getting back to work because I know I will be way more productive afterwards if I put myself together, take, you know, the 30, 45 minutes to really take care of myself first, then it's going to pay off exponentially inside of my business if I can at least make that commitment to myself and then get back to work. So hopefully those strategies are helpful. This is what I've had to do, what I've had to learn, what I've had to fight through and systems I've had to set up and an understanding and grace that I've had to allow myself to be able to get through a decade of working at home and having kids that are unpredictable and schedules that are unpredictable. And you never know. Like you can't always plan for what the day is going to look like and oftentimes times your plans disintegrate anyway. So how do you survive when. When you can't always plan for exactly what life is going to look like? Those are the strategies that I've used to keep moving forward and keep growing and keep building momentum and not completely losing myself in the process. So hope you have an awesome day, make sure you subscribe, make sure you follow along. Like, I love sharing tips like this about business growth. Having this mentality is what's gotten me to 5 million in my business and what's going to help me get to 10 million a year. So I'm going to keep growing, keep sharing these strategies and I hope that you have a fabul rest of the week and this helps you accomplish something. And I'll see you on the next episode. Let me know what questions you have, what you want to talk to me about, or what you want me to share about, teach about. If you ever have anything that you want me to cover in these episodes, let me know, send me a message and I will see you on the next episode. Thanks.

All right, fam, that's what we've got for today's episode. Please make sure that you subscribe to this podcast to make sure you don't miss any updates in the future. Also, please send me a message on Instagram. I would love to know any takeaways that you had or any questions that came up for you. And if you'd like to get support in your business, head to my website and book a call with a member of my team and learn about all the different ways that we can support you as you grow on this journey as an entrepreneur. Thanks so much for being here. Talk soon.