Deconstructing Overwhelm

Sam. Hello, everyone. I'm Katie McManus, your practical business coach. I'm just adjusting. I'm over here on Tick Tock on my phone, and I'm with you guys on my computer. Happy Thursday, everyone. This week is a weird one, isn't it? Anyway, going live in a few different places, obviously. So I'm over here on Streamyard to Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. Hello, everyone. Welcome. I do love this to be interactive. So if you have any questions or if you want to add something to the conversation, please do pop them in the chat. And I'm over here on my phone on TikTok. Hi, Melissa. Welcome. Likewise. If you have any questions and hi. Not Martha. Great. To be clear about that. Welcome. Hi. Tonight we're going to talk about overwhelm. And I know whenever we talk about overwhelm, people get overwhelmed because they start thinking about all the overwhelm. And it also makes me think of 10 things I hate about you and Bianca saying, I know you can be overwhelmed. I know you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed? Anyway, tonight we're going to be talking about overwhelm and specifically how, like, your corporate job trained you to be overwhelmed as a business owner. Okay. The ways in which our brains work and how we're supposed to do work as employees is actually so unhealthy as a business owner, as an entrepreneur. So we have to deconstruct it. We have to, like, get rid of it. So I'm going to keep this one fairly short because I want you to be able to, like, get this information and be on your way, right? Because if you're overwhelmed, you don't need to hear me yapping at you for a real long time so you can get to the point. Right? Okay, so first and foremost, like, let's talk about overwhelm and how it shows up in your business. So when you're overwhelmed, and this is. I'm saying you, but I mean, me and my clients, like, everyone has pretty much the same experience here, and for some reason this thing is falling, so I just like. Anyway, everyone has the same experience, so overwhelm shows up. Like, you have all these tasks to do, you have so many things that you have to do, and you have an inability to decide which one takes priority. And because, like, you have all these tasks and. And you kind of have this, like, inability to choose one, you don't make any progress on any of them. So it just. It just stays. But it doesn't just stay and, like, stay Static in that way. What happens is they become more and more pressing, they become more and more urgent because you're now behind on them and it's never going to get better. And then you start making up all these stories in your head, especially if you owe people stuff that they hate you or that they're not going to want to be your friend or, you know, they might fire you. And that's not helpful, right? Because honestly, like, it's not going to change your to do list. It's not going to change the fact that you are responsible for your own income right now. Hi, Tx Mira. Welcome. And hi True. And hello everyone. Welcome. So we have to figure out how we get out of that, like operation system failure, right? And I always like talking about the Mars Rover. Okay? So they put a little robot on Mars and it had a lot of jobs to do. It had a lot of tasks in its little database. And what literally happened to this poor little robot on Mars is that it had so many tasks and it would start one and they'd be like, oh no, this is not the important task. And then it would start another one and be like, oh no, it is. This is not the important task. And then it would start another one. It literally just got over overwhelmed by all the things. Okay? And so like that should make us feel better, right? Because we all seem to have this belief that we should be able to operate like a robot, that we should be able to just like work it out and go from there. And that's not the case. Okay? If robot, if robots can actually get overwhelmed, like we can't have that expectation of ourselves that we should be able to just power through and figure it out. All right? So I want you to take a big deep breath with me, okay? We're just going to do this together. Okay? Okay. Your brain cannot brain doesn't have enough oxygen. Your brain also can't brain if it doesn't have enough lubrication, also known as water. So deep breath, okay? Overwhelm is normal. You're not fucking up. You're not a failure. The fact that you're overwhelmed and feeling like there's so many things that you need to get done, you're not able to do, it doesn't mean you're going to fail. It means you're human. Okay? We all go, we all get that way sometimes. You know, one of the reasons it's really great to have a mentor, coach, or at least business besties is you have people you can turn to and be like, I'm Overwhelmed. What should I focus on first? Oftentimes when my clients hit this point and they all do, every single one of them, they call me, they say, hey, I'm overwhelmed. What should I work on first? And we go through their to do list and we get it sorted and we set priorities, and we also come up with, like, two different lists of, like, really intense work and lazy work. Right? Because the intense work is intense and it takes a certain amount of brain power. Brain power that we don't always have access to. Right? And so we have to have lazy work as, like, our procrastination work that we can do while we don't have the brain power. So we don't feel like we didn't do anything in a day now. So you're gonna have a lot of grace for yourself when you get into overwhelm. There's also different kinds of overwhelm. I had a mentor at one point who was great at differentiating this. You know, like, we have the overwhelm of the tasks that we need to do, like, all the things that are on our plate, you know, for work, for our lives, for our relationships, what have you. And then we also have this overwhelm that comes from, like, all the ideas we have, right? Because, like, here's the thing about the people that typically end up in my world is you're super creative. You have so many incredible ideas, and they all seem amazing, and you want to, like, dance and play with them all, and you're so worried all the time that if you don't grab onto them and start working on them that they're going to just flit away and evaporate into. Into thin air. It's this weird, like, hoarding activity that we tend to do as creatives who are entrepreneurial, entrepreneurially driven. And let me just tell you, you're never going to run out of ideas, okay? That's not a thing. Okay? You've had ideas your whole life, right? You continue to generate ideas, right? And, like, the right idea will hit you and you'll want to do it, Right. If you have this fear of, like, I have all these great ideas, I need to capture them right now, then what I highly recommend is get a little. And I like to label that journal like the back burner book, right? Because you know when you're cooking and you have too many things and, like, you can't. You can't, like, cook them all actively all at the same time, like Thanksgiving, you kind of have to keep some things on the back burner. You have to keep them a little bit warm. You have to remember that they're there, but you're not actively working on them. All right? And then at any point, you can go back into your back, your, your back burner book and you can look for the idea that you want to work on. All right, that is absolutely an option, but you can't do them all. It just doesn't work. If you, if you want to read more about this, about how to, like, make a contract with an idea and actually see it through, read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. Listen to it on audible. Also, it's very engaging not to give you another piece of thing, another thing to do, but it'll really help you understand, like, the energetic nature of ideas and what we have to do with them. Okay. All right, now. Okay, so overwhelm. Let's talk about how overwhelm, specifically overwhelm, that we were trained to create for ourselves comes from our corporate lives. Okay, so there are three times, I'm sorry, three very, very common types of corporate, like, leak over overwhelm for entrepreneurs. Okay. Oh, my gosh. And who is here? Debbie Mitten. Oh, my gosh. Hi. Big Magic. It's such a great book. Right? I know. I, I honestly, I feel like I'm due to listen to it again. All right, so number one, I, I mentioned this in my post over on LinkedIn. If you're on Tick Tock, you didn't get to see it. But the number one thing that I hear is this belief that we have to earn our rest, right? So we have this belief and it's instilled in us, like from school, from college. If you had family that, like, you know, it's very common in immigrant families. Very common in families that come from, like, a puritan background, which my family did. Also very common in Catholic. I mean, it's pretty much just common in the Western world across the board. But there's this belief that you do not get to have any rest until you work hard enough for it. You better be exhausted by the time you get to bed at night. You better not sit down and relax because you haven't worked hard enough. This doesn't do us any favors. Okay? So first and foremost, rest is a human need. Okay? We walk around in these meat suits that require certain things like water and food and sleep. We need rest to be able to survive. It is not something that you have to earn at any point in your life. And anyone who makes you feel that way, they also have an unhealthy relationship. With rest. And with their work, with this belief around what a work ethic should be, okay? They are not a trusted source for this. You do not ever have to earn rest. If you are tired, that means your body needs rest. It means your brain needs rest. I can tell you, I used to be one of those people who would be like, ah, I'll sleep when I'm done. It's fine. I got it. Like, no big deal. And guess what? I burned myself out all the time. I was always sick. I. And. And it didn't work. Like, I would find myself, like, sleeping through alarms on my day off and sleeping till noon and screwing up my whole sleep cycle. Okay, we need rest. We can't cheat ourselves of rest. I think it was Ariana Huffington who literally passed out, hit her head, and had a brain injury because she wasn't sleeping enough, and it caused her massive damage in her life. So we have to give ourselves rest. Not to mention the fact that, like, if you're tired and your brain isn't working, like, whatever work you need to do for your business, you're not going to get it done. Well, right? If you even get it done. I know, like, when I'm burnt out and tired, I'll sit at my computer and just be like, ugh, I know I have to do this, and I'll just, like, spin in my head constantly about it. But, like, I know I have to do this, but I just can't do it, right? And then I start feeling guilty, and then I start, like, making myself feel bad about it, and then I start making up this whole story that I'm going to, like, crash and burn my business all that time. I could just go and take a nap and then come back refreshed, right? Rest is the magic thing that makes us more productive. But, like, we have to rest for the sake of resting, not to be more productive. All right? And we get this from our work because, like, have you ever tried to ask, you know, your boss for time off? Right? You have to justify. Just finish this thing. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, I know the gen zers don't. The gen zers have way more cojones than. Than us millennials ever did? I really admire them for it, but we have to justify it. Like, also, like, if we're not feeling well, like, we have to justify going home, right? If we're, like, taking a breather and going to the. The, I don't know, what do you call it? The water fountain or the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee, to, like, Take a breather. Like, if you run into your boss or your manager and they're like, what are you doing? You have to say like, oh, well, I just needed a break. I needed a break. Like, we're constantly having to justify it in a corporate setting. That doesn't help when you go into working for yourself. Because guess what? There's no one to give you permission. There's no one to say, yeah, you have been working a lot. Yeah, you do deserve a break right now. Okay? Like, let's go. So stop holding yourself to the standard, thinking that you have to earn rest. It's not a thing, okay? If you need rest, you just need rest. Go and rest, and then you can get back to work later. You'll be better at it later. All right? So that's number one. The number one way that I see my clients being like, traumatized from their corporate nine to five, that screws them up when they become an entrepreneur. Number two, this is very, very closely related being busy at all costs because you have to fill up that eight hour day. Let me tell you, if you're offering an intellectual service in your business, if you're a coach, if you're a consultant, if you're a lawyer, if you're a copywriter, if you're a designer, if you're in marketing, if you're doing anything that requires requires you to have actual brain power. Babes, you're not doing eight hours of work. No, we don't even do eight hours of actual work when we work a nine to five, okay? It just doesn't happen. You spend time talking to your colleagues, you spend time going to the bathroom that's across the building. You go spend time grabbing lunch and coffee, like going to meetings that you shouldn't even really be in because they're irrelevant. And I hate that about corporate life. Thank God I work for myself. Like, you don't spend eight hours working. You probably spend closer to like 4.3 hours actually doing your job, doing the work of your job when you're working nine to five, okay? But when we start working for ourselves, we don't have a lot of those, like, other distractions because oftentimes we're working from home, right? So like, we think, okay, well I have to do eight hours of work. And of course, like, we are our bosses, right? So we'll know if we did eight hours of real work. So it's so easy when you start working for yourself to be like, okay, great, I'm gonna start at 8am and then I'm gonna work. And then like you take two hours to go deal with your dog with something and then you come back and you're like, oh, God, like I've only worked two hours, so now I have to do six more hours. And it's like noon now, so that means you're working till six, but then you have to eat lunch and then that takes another hour away, okay? So now you're working till seven and da, da, da. And by the end of the day, you're absolutely fried. Okay? Because like you're, you're holding yourself to the standard of doing eight hours of actual work. Okay? So that's one part of it. The other part of it is that like when you worked for a company, you had one job, you had one set of responsibilities. You had like one little lane that you had to stay to. You didn't have to do any of the strategic thinking to figure out what that job even entailed. You didn't have to do the job of the people in marketing. You don't have to do the job of people in sales. You didn't have to do the job of the CEO, of the janitor of any of those people. You just had to do your one job. When you're a business owner, you have to do all the jobs, okay? Especially when you're first starting, you are doing everything. And not only are you doing everything, you're also having to do that high level strategy to figure out how the fuck do you do everything. Okay? That takes a ton of brain power. All right? This is honestly why a lot of clients choose to work with me. Because they don't have enough capacity to figure out all that stuff on their own. Right? So they choose to work with me so that I can help them figure those parts out. So I can help them figure out how are you doing your marketing and how are you doing your sales and how are you doing this and how are you doing that? So that they can just like be given some clear instructions that are customized to them so they can figure it out from there. Okay? There's no way you're going to be able to consistently do that level of brain, brain powered work for eight hours a day, 40 hours a week. Okay. You do need breathing room in there. Okay. Being busy. Like, yeah, I get it. Like when you, when you were working in an office and I used to do this all the time. Oh my God. Like if I were at my office and I had my computer open, I was like, I'm going to check Instagram. I'm just going to, like, be sneaky. I would have something else that I could immediately jump to because I didn't. Like, if my boss came in, they'd be like, what are you doing on Instagram? Why are you on Facebook? Are you slacking off? What's going on? And this goes into the third point. So you constantly have to look busy. I was talking to a client earlier today who was talking about how she has this background in working in restaurants. And, like, you know, I remember working in restaurants, you know, and she was talking about how, like, you constantly just had to be running unless you wanted to get yelled at. And I remember vividly this one manager I had when I was a teenager saying, if you have time to lean, you got time to clean, right? So, like, even if the restaurant is super slow, you have time to lean, you have time to clean. Mind you, we were only getting paid, like, $4 an hour because we were relying on tips to make up a livable salary. But that's a conversation for another day anyway, which leads me to my third thing that I want to talk about. So there is this belief that gets instilled in us when we work for corporate overlords that there is slacker behavior. Okay? Slacker behavior is basically like any of the activities that you would do if you were a slacker. And it assumes that people are inherently lazy, which I do not believe people are. Are people. Like, people will fill their time with so many activities, with so many passions. We're not lazy. We're just not interested. There's a difference, right? So, for instance, like, like I said, like, if you are working a job and you just needed a break from your email, you needed a break from slack, you just got off a meeting, you needed to decompress. Like, what is wrong with you going in, checking in on Instagram or Facebook? Like, your brain is actually telling you to do that because that gives you a dopamine hit. And you need a dopamine hit in that moment because you've used up all your dopamine stores, which dopamine, by the way, like, helps your brain actually, like, get up and do things, right? Like, watching a video of kittens playing can literally help you be more productive after you watch that. You know, when I was living in Philadelphia, I found myself, like, Saturday mornings because it was my first time living alone with a large dog. And so, like, I needed to get her exercise. I needed to, like, get my week set up so that I could, like, get her out to do walks on a schedule. And I Didn't have a lot of the flexibility that I had previously when I lived in a city without a big dog, right? So Saturday mornings, I always went into it thinking like, oh, I have to get all this stuff done. And I'd have a list. I'd have to go grocery shopping and I have to walk Luna. I'd have to do all these things, and then I'd be able to relax. And let me tell you how it usually go. I would get up on Saturday mornings, I would take Luna for a quick walk, I would come back, I would have some coffee, and I would sit there and I would dissociate on my couch, just stare off into space, and I'd be just like, spinning of like, I have to do this, I have to do this, I have to do this. But I couldn't get myself off of the couch. I couldn't get myself to get up and go because I was tired, because I needed the rest of the right? But I had this belief that if I didn't do it right then and there, I was slacking, I was lazy, I wasn't adulting properly, right? I decided to change this. I decided to try and experiment. So I gave myself an assignment every Saturday morning for a few months where in the morning I get up, I take Luna out quickly, come back, make coffee, and then I'd watch a movie. And not a new movie. I'd watch a movie that I'd seen a gazillion times. Okay, so, like, you've Got mail was a big one. Encanto, great movie. And I'd watch it, and I'd watch it until I was bored. I'd watch it until I found myself just kind of getting up and tidying up the kitchen, right? I'd watch it until, like, all of a sudden, like, I have a load of laundry going, and I have this and I have that, and I've cleaned out the fridge, right? I would watch this, and sometimes I'd watch two movies. Sometimes my brain just needed to turn off enough so that I could rest and be tuned out of the all the to do list items. But the magical thing was, as soon as I got bored, as soon as I, like, had given my brain enough time to actually rest, I would get up and do everything I need to do, right? And I'd get it done sooner than on the days that I actually was able to make myself do it. Slacker behavior, like what gets labeled slacker behavior is actually slack self care behavior in a lot of instances. All right? So, like, if you Find yourself, like, needing to look at your phone. Like you might have an addiction, but, like, also you might just, like, need a break. There's this amazing book, and I misplaced it somewhere in my chaotic home, but there's this amazing book called Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller. And he talks about how, like human beings, we daydream. We just have. Our brains are constantly going. The only time that our, our ability to daydream is completely turned off is when we're immersed in story. So, like, when we're thinking about our to do list, like, we're just constantly like, running, running, running. But if we're watching a movie, if we're listening to a book on tape, if we're reading, if we're immersed in some kind of story that's turned off, those voices are gone and we actually get to focus and rest. So, you know, sometimes, sometimes you do need to watch a movie in the middle of your day. Sometimes you do need to go and just turn on an episode of an old Grey's Anatomy, you know, series and just zone out for a little bit before you can get back to work, right? In corporate America, that would be a big no no. You would get written up, you'd be put on a performance improvement plan and you would be out the door, fired as soon as they could work you out. But as a business owner, like your job, your number one job is to maintain your energy, right? Because you can't do your job if your energy is not good enough, right? If it's not, if you're not refreshed. All right, so these are the three things that I want you to really think about when you're thinking about how you're going to design how you do your work as a business owner, right? Especially if you're coming from a corporate setting and working for other people. Some things to look out for. If you're leaving a corporate 9 to 5 to work in your business, guaranteed, you're going to know show calls, right? That jump from complete structure, other people managing your time and telling you what to do to, oh my God, I own my whole schedule. And like, what, I have all this free time now, Guaranteed. Don't even like, just, just know it's going to happen. You're going to no show some client calls. You're going to show some sales calls. You're going to just be sitting there and be like, oh my God, like I' all this free time, which I do. And then you're look at your calendar and you're think, I just Missed this. Damn it. Like, it happens. It happens. And it's going to happen to you. I guarantee it. You're going to get overwhelmed by all the activities that you think you need to do. I guarantee you. You need to do about 5% of the things you need to do. Okay? Your top priorities, number one, visibility, right? Because you won't be able to stay in business if you don't have clients coming in, right? So you need to be visible, you need to promote your work. You need to show up on social media, okay? Number two, money in, right? So if you have anyone who is waiting on a proposal from you, if you have a client who, like, said yes to working with you, you have to send them the contract and you have to send them the link to pay. If you have DMs waiting in your Instagram inbox from people who, like, want information about your program, go. Go get it. Go do it. Right? That is. That is number two. And number three is client work. And I know it seems weird that it's third, but, like, you have to take care of the sustainability and longevity of your business above everything, okay? You will get the client work done, I promise you. But you have to prioritize that stuff first, okay? And then everything else just comes after that. So, anyway, I hope this has been super helpful. Thank you guys so much for being here. Bill Tabani. So Sono Girl, hello. Hi, Vanilla Bean. Dylan B. Welcome. I hope this is useful. If you have any questions or there's anything in particular that you're struggling with as a new business owner, then feel free to DM me or to comment on this post and tell me, because I'd love to have an idea of what I can talk about tomor. So, Anyway, I'm Katie McManus, your practical business coach. Thank you so much for being here tonight and I hope you have an amazing evening. Bye.