756 How to Stay Focused & Grounded When the World Feels Chaotic

Welcome to the Next Level Life Podcast with Christine Corcoran. This podcast is made for the powerhouse business women who are ready to ignite their fullest potential. This is where we will dive deep into mindset breakthroughs and sprinkle in some kick up the butt motivation so you can scale your business with confidence and clarity. Whether you're craving more income, impact, or inspiration, this podcast will be your ultimate resource for all things next level. Listen in as we have authentic conversations with game-changing female entrepreneurs as we reveal the secrets on what it takes to rise and thrive. 5. So go ahead, ignite your inner fire, and let's get you taking massive aligned action. Are you ready to elevate? Let's go. Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for hitting download. I wanted to do an episode to speak to how to handle and navigate uncertainty in your business for a few different reasons. One, it's natural for us to have uncertainty and fear when there is chaos happening in the world. And if this time is any time, that's because there's chaos. There's always chaos in the world, and it can impact It can impact the way that we show up. It can impact how we feel about putting ourselves forward, putting ourselves out there, going after the next level goals. And it's natural. It's natural for you to have that reaction of uncertainty. Now, the other form of uncertainty can happen when we're uncertain in our business, right? So you're coming up against a couple of uncertain months ahead. Maybe there's something that's changing within your personal life. Maybe there is uncertainty with regards to your income. Maybe there's been certain circumstances personally that have changed, and then it creates a lot of uncertainty in your business. So I wanted to create an episode that will speak to both of these types of situations in order for you to be able to come back to this episode whenever you need it. So whether it's the economy, your industry, changes in business, even AI is creating a lot of uncertainty for people, right? Like I had a conversation with my coach the other day and I was talking to her about like, you know, where is it going to be in 2, 3 years' time? We don't know. So that can also have a level of uncertainty. And what is AI going to play into any form of online business? And so it's natural for us to experience uncertainty. I wanted to really dive into where that comes from, but also how to cut through the noise and just bring yourself back to your equilibrium, bring yourself back to be able to feel grounded and think clearly so you can start taking action from a place of confidence rather than from a place of uncertainty. Because honestly, like, when we're taking action from a place of uncertainty, it's never gonna work. Like, it's never gonna work. And we need your conviction when you are following through on an action in order for you to achieve a goal. And so having a long-term vision to stay grounded to is incredibly important. But even when that is threatened— so if you have a long-term vision, but then maybe AI is playing into that, or maybe there's other things that are playing into that, you're like, oh, I'm not sure what's going to happen. And so whenever I have anyone have any changes— and I see this in my, in my coaching containers as well— where people come to me and there's certain things happening. So there's a lot of change happening within their industry, or maybe in their personal life. And what you want to do is you want to bring as much certainty back to your experience, as as possible in order for you to be able to move forward. Because when we are stuck in uncertainty, we are stuck in fear, right? We have a fear response. It can activate our nervous system. Our amygdala kicks in, and we go into a form of fight or flight. And when you're in fight or flight, it's very hard to think about the solution. It's very hard to think about how things are going to work out when all you can see is the problem, or when things are really hard, or you can see things not working. right? So one of the first things we want to do is we want to bring as much certainty back to ourselves as possible. And we want to ask ourselves through a few series of questions of what can I be certain of right now, right? And your brain will naturally go to, well, I can't be certain of anything, right? But one of the biggest things you want to learn as a business owner is learning to not catastrophize, learning to not spiral. And that comes with catching it as soon as you start noticing it. So your inner dialogue, Your thoughts about what is currently happening and the way that your brain is describing your current experience is all the internal world that will impact how you feel. So the more awareness you can bring to that first and start to identify, hey, am I spiraling here? Am I catastrophizing here? Like, is that even true? And start to address some of your thoughts because we want to catch them as soon as possible. I love the analogy of like when you're in a spiral, right? Like when you're deep in a spiral, it can be very hard to pull yourself out of that spiral, right? And sometimes you just need to close your laptop, go to bed, wake up the next day and start fresh, right? Like that sometimes is the solution. But when you are deep in a spiral, it's very hard to pull yourself out of it without necessarily external help, right? Someone else helping you see a different shift or perspective, helping you to see things from a different perspective in order for you to take a different action and get a different result. But when you're in it on your own, it can be really hard. And so what you wanna do is learn to actually catch the catastrophizing or the spiral earlier. Every single time. And so the analogy I love to think about this is if you were standing on the top of a hill and you had your car and you took your car off handbrake and your car was in neutral and you stood behind the car and you just sort of tapped it and started to like push it forward, it will start to get a little bit of momentum. And then from there, if you got in front of the car quickly, you'd be able to stop it, right? Without much force, you'd be able to literally stop it and be like, we're cool. But if that car starts rolling down the hill, the way that our thoughts can get out of control and the way that the worst-case scenarios play in our heads as we start to catastrophize, if you try to stop that car when it's halfway down the hill, you are gonna get run over, right? Literally gonna get run over. And so we wanna learn to actually catch our thoughts and have more awareness around us, ourselves catastrophizing and getting stuck in the uncertainty spiral earlier on. And the more we do it, the easier it becomes. So if you're someone that has a pattern of spiraling or has a pattern of catastrophizing or just worry, like sometimes it's not even catastrophizing, it's just worrying. Like if you sit in a state of worry, that can really cause us to stay in uncertainty because often when we're in a state of worry, you ask questions that are actually not answerable. Have you ever noticed that before? Like when you're worrying about things, you don't have all the answers, you don't have the outcome yet of the situation, and so you're worrying. You're worrying yourself into the future. And you're sitting in a state of worry and feeling it in your gut and you're feeling horrible about it, but it's not going to change anything because it can't change anything yet, right? Because if you're worrying about a situation in the future that hasn't happened yet, you can't change it yet. So we're sitting there in this stew of worry and it's not serving us in any way, shape, or form. So it could be worry for you, like there's so many different ways that this manifests. And so what we want to do is learn to actually catch it as early as possible. And when we're in a state of uncertainty, so if you notice your thoughts going to like, well, you know, the petrol prices, is that, should I start changing my prices? Or, you know, with all the war happening overseas, like, how is that going to impact people's spending? Or, you know, with my personal life, maybe there's something else happening there. We're like, what if that happens here? And what if that doesn't happen? Like, all of that can cause us to stay in a state of uncertainty. And when we're in uncertainty, you need to realize that that is a form of fear. Okay. When we address it as fear, then we can start to name it and feel it and process it and move through it quicker. If you try to avoid it, then you actually just trying to skirt around it and it never works like that. So there'll be some times where I'll be in a state of uncertainty and I have to actually name it out loud. And I'll say to myself, "Oh, okay, I'm scared of this thing happening," or, "I'm scared of this thing not happening," whatever it might be. And when I say it out loud, sometimes it seems a little bit silly, right? And so that's the whole purpose of saying it out loud, to actually bring some light and levity to it. So then you can address it, because it's not the case always. And so what we want to do is we want to bring as much certainty back to ourselves as possible by really determining, okay, what are my thoughts? What am I thinking about this certain situation? Is what I'm thinking actually true? Right? Most of the time it's not, or we don't have the answers to it. And so your brain gets stuck on the loop, and it's very— like, our brain will go into those loops, especially when there's a form of unanswered question, because your brain wants to find answers. right? And sometimes when we're in that loop, it's hard to pull ourselves out of it. But if, and if you're in a loop, you want to stop and bring yourself back to as much certainty as possible. So you ask yourself, what can I be certain of right now? What can I be certain of today? Right? And so I was saying this to a client recently, and she's about to move house, and she's going through a lot of changes in her personal life. And I said to her, what can you be certain of this week even? And I was like, you know where you're going to be sleeping tonight? You know, you're gonna be where you'll be sleeping for the next couple of days. You know what your kids are doing over the next couple of days. That will bring a level of certainty, right? So sometimes you need to shorten the timeline you're focusing on and be like, what can I be certain of right now? And the more we do that, the more you will start to calm your nervous system down and calm the fear in your mind down so that you can start to think about things differently and you can start to move forward. Okay. So then we can take action, learn from that action, and then figure out what the next step is. So whether it's catastrophizing, worrying, stressing about things that we don't have the answers to just yet, we want to recognize what that is. It's all coming back to a place of fear, okay? And when we don't have the answers yet, we want to recognize, like, what are my thoughts saying to me that's causing me to feel this way? And we want to question those thoughts as much as possible, and then we want to bring in as much certainty as possible, and then ask ourselves, what would be better for me to think? 'Cause you have the power to change your thoughts. So what would be better for me to think in this situation? And this is doing the real work, like doing the real thought work where sometimes I'll literally write down the thought of what thought is causing the uncertainty. And I'll be like, is that true? Well, no, I can't be sure it's 100% true. It might feel like it's true in my reality right now. But, you know, let's just say like petrol prices and whether that's gonna impact, what if that impacts my prices and I'm gonna have to change my pricing on my offers? Well, I don't know that's for true right now, right? I haven't had anyone say no to me because of petrol prices. I haven't had anyone like have a sales conversation with me and be like, um, the petrol prices have gone up, so I can't invest in this in my business. No, we're not saying that, right? And you want to remind yourself too sometimes of the past, of things you have been through that have been hard. If you've got a business through COVID, you're doing pretty well, right? If you've gone through the cost of, cost of living increases and inflation over the last couple of years and you're still doing okay, you're pretty good, right? And so we want to recognize where we can pull as much certainty from the past and bring it to the present. And then go through questioning yourself and be like, okay, what's a better thought for me to have right now? Because if I think that thought, oh my God, people aren't gonna pay my prices because petrol prices are increasing. If that thought makes me feel uncertain or in a state of fear, how is that gonna cause me to show up or not show up? I'm most likely gonna freeze or I'm gonna hide, or I'm gonna drop my prices, or I might make decisions in my business that maybe won't serve the growth of my business, or it will pull me out of my long-term vision, or it will be off brand for me. Right? So recognize what that— how that is impacting you before then flipping it and reframing it. So then, okay, if that thought does not serve me, what's a better thought that I can have right now? And you want to find a simple next stage thought rather than it be a real big jump to the opposite. So rather than be like, oh, everyone's going to pay my prices because petrol prices are not a problem. Their brain's going to call bullshit on that. Like, it's not going to serve you. It's literally going to be like, bullshit. You don't know that for a fact either. And so what you want to do is go, okay, what's a more general thought that I can have that will serve me to take a more positive action? It might be, well, I don't know that for a fact right now. All I can be in control of right now is how I show up in my business. So I'm going to serve my clients. I'm going to add lots of value. I'm going to keep having sales conversations until I know for a fact that there's things that need to change. Right? Bring as much certainty to it as possible and find a more useful thought that's going to serve you to keep moving forward. The next thing I want to speak to is how uncertainty is part of the journey. And I think sometimes when we're stuck in uncertainty, it can feel like it's going to last forever, but it's actually temporary. It can feel like you're the only one experiencing it when every single person in business experiences uncertainty. There are always going to be times in our business where we're uncertain of what's going to happen or what's next, right? Or we're uncertain of our income or uncertain of something going well. Right? It's natural. It is normal part of running a business. And so what we want to do is we want to normalize it. And then we want to address it as whether it's external noise or whether it's you internally. Right? I just spoke to the internal. If it's you catastrophizing, getting stuck in your thoughts and spiraling, then we need to address that. The second thing that can impact this is what you're consuming. Because if you're stuck consuming fear-based content, then I guarantee you, you will be stuck in a state of fear. So if you're watching the news religiously, if you are scrolling constantly and now your algorithm has shifted to this fear-based content that is literally everyone talking about fuel prices or talking about the war or talking about uncertainty in the, in the economy, like whatever it might be, we wanna acknowledge like, is that serving me or not? Because you've got a job to do in your business. And if you are not in a good headspace to do that job, then it's your job to get better, to get back into a better headspace. Because you cannot control that stuff outside of yourself. And that's often what I come back to, is like, when I'm seeing any content— and look, it happens to everyone, right? When I'm scrolling on TikTok, there's sometimes stuff that comes up in my feed that I'm like, oh, I'm naturally going to have an emotional response to. So it could be an accident, or it could be a bomb going off in another country, or it could be something terrible that's happened in another part of the world. And I want to, yes, obviously have empathy for the situation, but I want to choose whether it's worthy of me to be diving into that empathy too much, when then it forms sympathy and you can get stuck in the emotion. Because if it's out of your control, if you can't make a difference in it, then you want to ask yourself, is it worthwhile me focusing my attention here? The majority of the time it's not, right? I can't change the war. I can't. I can't change Donald Trump going out and doing what he's doing. I can't. All I can do is change the way that I serve my clients. And how I serve my clients to get out of uncertainty themselves. So you need to decide what's going to be worthy of your energy and your emotions and be conscious of where you're giving away your power. Because if you keep giving away your power to things that are so out of your control, you will always be at the whim of those things. Whereas your mindset in your business is your responsibility. And when you work on serving yourself from this place of really honoring, okay, what is my mindset? How am I approaching this? What are my thoughts? What's useful for me to think in this situation to serve me, to show up in the way that I want to show up? You will be the one that will get through the uncertainty the fastest. And I've seen this time and time again. If you focus too much of what's going on in the outside world— and I'm not saying like ignore reality, like that's not what I'm saying. I don't— it doesn't mean you have to ignore reality. That's not what I mean at all. We want to be conscious of these things. We want to be aware of those things happening. But what I'm saying is that just don't overconsume. Don't get too stuck in it. Because really, if I asked you, like, how is this specifically impacting your business today? There's going to be very few industries that are going to say to me, this is exactly how it's— this is exactly how it's affecting me right now. Right? Now, the next piece of this is if you respond to that and you're like, yeah, but my clients are talking about it, then you want to be like, okay, how can I help support my clients to shift their perspective there as well? Because this comes back down to your marketing and your messaging. So if you are focusing on it, and I'm not saying you're focusing on this within your marketing, but if you know your ideal client has this hesitation or this fear also, then you want to think about how can I weave something into my marketing and my messaging that will serve them to change the way that they think about the situation in order for me to be able to still serve and still sell. Because one of the things that often happens, and I see it, I've seen it over the years, This always happens whenever we have economic downturn, a war, something terrible going on overseas, like all of the external things that are so chaotic. When these things happen, do you know one of the first things for people in small business to stop doing? They stop selling. You focus so much of your attention on what's going on externally, and I don't mean not have empathy, like absolutely have empathy, but is it within your control to change? And if the answer is no, you want to ask yourself, is it worthy of you then literally stop selling, to stop make money, which then means you will then not be able to pay your bills, not be able to feed your kids, not be able to do the things that you need to do in order to survive in business. And then what next, right? Like, it doesn't serve you in the long run. So we really want to be like, okay, I want to pay attention, I want to know what's happening in the reality, but really, is it actually impacting my current reality right here, right now? My business is going to impact the way that I show up and serve my clients. Is or not, because a lot of the time it's not. And so you want to bring yourself back to, okay, what do I want to do about this, and what's a better thought that I can have that will serve me to, to show up strategically and effectively without getting stuck in the fear and reacting instead of responding in a positive way that's going to serve the growth of my business? Okay, so some of the ways that I like to stay grounded and stay focused is one, obviously revisiting your goals, like coming back to your goals of like, what is my intention, what's my long-term vision and mission in my business, what am I working towards, and then what are my short-term that I'm working towards. And so I'm really focused on what I can control within my business. Secondly is I meditate first thing in the morning to get my mind focused, to get my mind grounded, so that way I am running the day on my terms, not the day running me. Because when we start our day by checking emails or scrolling on social media, watching the news, then we're literally responding to or reacting to what we're consuming instead of actually starting the day on your terms with your intention and getting your head right. Because You are not your thoughts. Your thoughts is the way that your brain determines meaning and finds certainty in the world, right? It's always looking for— to determine your safety. It doesn't— that through looking for certainty. And so if there's any form of uncertainty, it goes straight to a state of fear in order for you to protect yourself. And so we know our brains are not really on our side sometimes, right? They're something that— they're not wired for growth. It's not something that we, we need to actually It is actually something you need to manage, otherwise your brain can get away from you. And so what you want to do, it's like a toddler. Like, if you think about an unmanaged toddler will literally create chaos and havoc and literal havoc in your house. So you want to be like, okay, what are the boundaries? What am I indulging in emotionally? Where am I focusing my attention? And recognize, like, if you start your day right from the get-go of letting, letting the rest of the world in, then you're going to respond and react to that. Whereas if you start your day on your terms, set your own intentions for the day, and meditate so you're managing your mind and you're not— your thoughts aren't then in control of you, you're more likely to have those types of experience come into your existence to be like, okay, water off a duck's back, right? When someone tells you about the fuel prices or when the something on your feed pops up talking about the war, then you won't react as much or as deeply, and then you'll be able to again refocus your attention back to where it needs to be. And I just always ask myself, like, is this within my control? And if the answer is no, then I'm gonna ask myself, okay, do I wanna spend any energy here? Do I need to emotionally be invested here? And sometimes it feels like I do, right? And that's okay. Like, it's just where your choice is basically. Okay. So where, where you're placing your choice, because when it feels like it's out of our control and also you're focusing your attention on it and you don't have any options there, it can feel like a literally a place of state of fear. And that's where you get stuck. So refocusing your attention on what is within your control. And the last thing I want to say to this is understanding and knowing when to make pivots based on what's happening in the world versus whether it's on brand for you and your business and your long-term vision. So if you look back, right, like where are we in 2026? I like to go, well, I've been in business now almost 9 years. We've been through some really hard times, right? And even before that, I was running a business while we went through the GFC back in 2008. And so one of the things I always remind myself of is, one, things are temporary. Absolutely, things are temporary. Like, you could look back on COVID, right, and be like, I can't believe that happened. Like, it almost feels like it didn't happen, right? It's so weird. And yet, if we remind ourselves that things are temporary, it means that the bad things aren't always going to stay the way they are. It's also the same thing with good things, right? When great things happen, you're like, it's not always going to be like this. So make sure you take the time to be grateful. Make sure you take the time to really indulge, like, like, immerse yourself in this experience because before you know it, you'll be back focused on other things, right? And so always reminding yourself that things are temporary. Two, I always look for the patterns in the world, right? Because there's always different patterns in the world, right? We can look at back at what happened in Afghanistan and how that affected people. Like, all— there's always proof from the past. And I guarantee you will get through this too. And you've got to be the one to tell yourself that though. Right? Like, if you're looking externally for the world to make you feel safe or for the world to make you feel certain, you're not going to get it because the media loves to fearmonger and it doesn't serve us. And so we want to be conscious of like, okay, what am I giving my energy and attention to? What is within my control? Recognize that things are temporary, things play in patterns. There's always going to be times in the past that we look back on that were, that were hard, and you will have grown through that. So it's really about like taking radical responsibility for what's within your control and then making a decision to lead rather than follow. Because if you get caught up in consuming and just responding, you are a sheep. You're following. You're following what everyone else is saying. You're following what the news is telling you to think and feel about this situation, right? Whereas if you decide, like, what do you want to decide about you and your business and what you're gonna do about it? And you get to make those decisions for your business. Now, when it comes to making big changes in your business, like creating a new offer or adjusting your offers or your pricing, changing your industries that you're working with, like thinking about making any form of pivot within your business, I would always pause and just ask yourself, am I making this decision from a place of fear or emotion, or am I making it from data? I'm a big believer of making sure you've got the data first before you then make the move. We want to make sure that you're not just reacting out of fear, reacting out of temporary emotional response to a situation. Like, for instance, like, I'm— I don't know whether this will bite me in the butt, but I'm going to say it anyway. The fuel crisis, right? It doesn't directly affect me, right? I work from home, no big deal. I don't really use a lot of fuel. There are going to be other people that have businesses that do rely on a lot of fuel. And so they're going to have to make leadership decisions based on that information and that data within their business in order for them to make the changes that will serve them to stay in business long term. Right? It's just the case. That's exactly what's gonna happen, right? They're gonna make a decision and they're gonna move from there. Yes, they're gonna be more directly impacted and they're gonna be other businesses that aren't directly impacted, right? And that's okay. It's normal with any type of crisis, right? Like who knew through COVID that you should have shares in toilet paper, right? We didn't. With hindsight, we now know this. I just remind myself that when you think about the society, right? And you think about the government managing society, they will always make decisions to make it better for everyday person, right? Because otherwise they just won't get back into office, right? Like, we've got to think about how they're also a business. And so with the fuel crisis, I knew they would step in, I knew they would do something. And I just don't get too indulged in the negative emotions or the fearmongering of what it could mean, of like, oh my God, the Strait of Hormuz is shut and we're not going to be able to get our fuel, and what's that going to do for our fuel prices? And then like, I just keep reminding myself it's temporary. Things will get sorted. It's not my responsibility to make those decisions of like the fuel prices, right? I can't make those decisions. I can't step into Parliament tomorrow to make those decisions. So what can I do? I'm going to support myself within my business. I'm going to support my clients. I'm going to show up and support my audience. I'm going to record my podcast. I'm going to do everything I can within my control, and I'm just not going to give too much attention or energy to things that is completely out of my control. And then what did we hear? Literally today, the government made this shit shift in decision and change in tax. And so they're not going to apply some— I can't remember the name of the tax they were talking about— how they're just going to make these changes and it's going to drop the fuel price by 26 cents, right? Like, they're making moves in order to support our people. And so I just remind myself of like, it's going to get better, it's going to get better, this is temporary. I, again, with any pivot, like, just be conscious not to make the decisions from emotion. And I would just come back to regulating your nervous system, getting into a good mindset, good headspace, and then ask yourself, what What is the data my business is telling me? And then what decisions do I wanna make from this? Because it might be a good decision to make a pivot, right? It might be. It might be a good decision to create a new offer for your people. It might be a good decision to change your pricing within your business. But you don't wanna do it from a place of emotion because you'll end up making the wrong decision. So being conscious of that, look at the data of your business, give it time, don't make it too quickly because what will often happen, and I see this has happened in previous times when we've had, um, uncertainty in the world is that people make bad decisions that impact their brand long-term. So it becomes like completely off-brand for them to make that decision or make that change, and then they regret it down the track. So just be conscious not to make those types of decisions. Make sure that you're making them from a good place rather than from a place of fear or doubt or uncertainty. All right, I hope you've enjoyed this episode, and I hope it served you in some way, shape, or form, and I hope you come back to it again and again whenever you need it. And I hope I hope that your business is full of abundance, full of opportunities, and you are so excited for your next level. All right. Enjoy the rest of your week and I'll speak to you soon. Thank you for listening. And if you found any value out of this episode, make sure you hit the follow button so you get access to the episodes as soon as they are live. And make sure you come hang out with me on Instagram. You can find me at Christine Corcoran_Coach. Have an incredible week.