How to deal with overwhelm in business

If you're feeling overwhelmed by everything need to get done in your life and business, then today I’m going to talk you through the 3 biggest reasons why this happens, and how you can get it under control.?

Until you fix reason three, you’re going to continue being stuck in the weeds, working 60 hour weeks and bottlenecking growth.?

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I just added a new video on my YouTube channel that covers everything in this blog and more.

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Every week I speak to CEOs who are feeling stretched thin and overwhelmed by everything they need to get done. ?

Most of the time when someone tells me they are OVERwhelmed though, they’re actually UNDERplanned. ?

Because they have so much to do, they just dive in blind?and attack the day, without stopping to think, prioritize or figure out what they need to do.

I'll talk you through a real world example on how to solve this. ?

As part of my Evolved CEO program where I help overwhelmed CEOs to take control of their life and business, one thing I offer are SOS calls. ?

These are to handle immediate problems that can’t wait until our next session. ?

One of the biggest uses of these calls is for when someone has so much to do, that they need help prioritizing where to begin. ?

One morning I got a message from a client facing exactly that. ?

He messaged me because for the last 2 hours, he’d been stuck in analysis paralysis, where because he had so much to do, he’d just been sitting there overthinking and not actually getting anything done. ?

We got on a call and I got him to start talking me through everything he needed to do. ?

It ranged from signing off a project to developing a job spec and preparing a board report. ? He also needed to call the dentist and renew his car insurance. ?

In the end, he listed off 8 tasks he needed to complete. ?

Now as he’d been talking, I wrote them down. ?

After which I took him through them one at a time, asking what needed to be done and what the next action was. ?

This helped him make sense of everything. ?

We were then able to prioritize them in order of importance, he realized he could delegate a couple of them and he left the call with a clear game plan. ?

You see, part of the reason you get overwhelmed is because you have all these competing thoughts bouncing around in your head. ?

It can feel like your brain is running at 100 miles an hour, making it difficult to make sense of it all. ?

This is why whenever you are feeling overwhelmed, the best thing you can do is slow down.

Do a mental dump of everything you need to do. ?

By getting down in front of you, you can then consciously disconnect from it. ?

Then go through it one point at a time, figure out what needs to get done and sort it in order of priority. ?

In the end, you’ll have a clear plan to take action on. ?

Reason 2 you get overwhelmed is fixating on the outcome. ?

Whether it’s a new project, a goal you want to achieve or a problem you need to solve, it’s easy to focus on the end result. ?

That can make what you need to do feel overwhelming or at times insurmountable, as you have no clue how you are going to get it done. ?

In these situations, you need to break it down, instead of focusing on step 5, figure out the first step you need to tackle. ?

Doing so will make it seem more manageable and you can then take action, make progress, reassess and then move on to what is next. ?

In the video above I go through a couple of examples of this and how to approach it. ?

The key thing to recognize is that many people shut down when they’re overwhelmed, as it seems like such a mountain to climb, that they struggle to even get started. ?

The way to get moving though is to take that first step, as every step after then becomes easier. ?

Like I said at the start, step 3 however is the most important. ?

Especially if you are stretched thin, stuck in the weeds and spending your days working in not on the business.

Because every week I speak to CEOs who are feeling overwhelmed by everything they need to get done. ?

When I dive into why this is happening, so often it's because… ?

- They’re overloaded, often wasting time on tasks they shouldn't even be involved in. ?

- Their days are being consumed by reactive problems, where they’re putting out fires and dropping what they need to do to solve other people’s issues. ?

- They’re not effectively delegating, meaning even if they do let go of a task it either doesn’t get done or comes back filled with mistakes. ?

This is why they’re stuck spinning their wheels, and not getting the time or bandwidth to focus on driving growth.

It's also why often they'll look back on their days and weeks, and despite being busy, not actually know what they did. ?

I’ve had so many CEOs come to me feeling burnt out and overwhelmed from the 60+ hour weeks.

Which is why our focus in my Evolved program has been to help them get back control of their role, life and business. ?

If you’re in that spot, then here’s what we need to do: ?

- Clearly define your role and responsibilities. This is how you can know what to focus on and prioritize, so that you can get out of everything else ?

- Focus on effective delegation, where you clearly communicate expectations, keep people accountable and ensure they follow through ?

- Look at how you structure your days and weeks to prioritize your time ?

- Ensure you defend your time, remove distractions, set boundaries and empower your team to solve their own problems

- Work on your mindset to tackle all the procrastination, overthinking and loss of focus ?

At this point I've worked with CEOs in 18 countries.

Which is why I've seen time and time again that once we get this in place, that’s how they can take back control of their days, helping them maximize their time to the point that they can find balance and actually enjoy the success they worked so hard for.

Now obviously you can go figure out how to do this all on your own.

But if you'd you'd rather have help getting out of the weeds so that you can focus your time on what truly matters, then you can find out more about my Evolved CEO program here ?

Alternatively you can drop me a message and let's see if I can help

So there you have it, 3 strategies to deal with overwhelm. ?

Like I said, so much of OVERwhelm comes from being UNDERplanned, where all those competing thoughts and priorities put you through a whirlwind of anxiety and stress.

By taking time to slow down and figure out what is happening though, that’s how can get it under control.