How I Manage Overwhelm

My top 5 strategies as a CEO, mom and person with chronic illness

by Amanda Northcutt, CEO of Level Up Creators

Part of my job and one of my personal missions is to change the narrative around how women of a certain age are viewed in the business world. I hope that I am setting an example of both vulnerability and leadership in that regard. As women, we are smart as hell, and have a lot to offer; Especially because of our age and also because of the many roles we play throughout our lives.

My Top 5 Management Strategies for Overwhelm

Overwhelm is a real problem that affects us all on some level. These are my top 5 strategies for managing daily overwhelm as a mother, CEO, and someone who has managed a chronic illness for decades:

1. Taking Care of Myself
2. Organization
3. Teams & Delegation
4. Mindset and Point of View (POV)
5. Learning & Growth

1. Taking care of myself

I prioritize getting eight hours of sleep. I will move heaven and earth to ensure the space for this, period.

I prioritize brain health. I meditate and pray, even if I only have time for five deep breaths and a “thank you”. I see a therapist regularly and take high-quality supplements.

I listen to and honor my body. I exercise outside, eat nutritious foods, and limit sugar and alcohol. I infrared sauna three times a week to “take out the trash”. I take ice cold showers, do infrared light therapy, and strength training.

I practice reframing intrusive thoughts. Change “I’m drowning and I’ll never get this all done” to “thank goodness we have an amazing roster of clients and I have a top-notch team. The business is working!”

I journal every day. It takes many forms, always gratitude, and then whatever else I need to get off my mind before bed.

2. Organization

I have lists and standard operating procedures for Everything. Not just at work. I’m talking health management, food planning & prep, travel, and more. We have recurring calendar events for maintenance of our home and things we own.

I meticulously take notes and write summaries. I take careful, detailed notes to reduce context switching costs as I bounce from task to task to task throughout the day. I always know where I left off and what to do next.

We keep our house clean. This is not a metaphor, my family operates best when our home is literally clutter free and clean.

I focus on the next right action. If there is no next action to take on a particular issue, I stop thinking about it and move on.

I externalize all of my ideas into a well organized system within Notion. And this is not just for work, my system covers: my healthcare, travel, house projects, books to read, people to reach out to, plus every single work detail. As a result, I’m not up at night, ruminating on things and stressing about what I might have forgotten, I have a system that I stick with, and it works.

3. Teams & Delegation

80% of my time goes toward tasks that only I can perform. When someone else can do a task 80% as well as I can, it becomes their task. That means I invest a lot in my teammates. Since I select A+ people, those investments of mentorship and knowledge transfer are always worth it.

I spend money to buy back my time and I relentlessly prioritize.

I have a team that helps out around the house.

I have a team of top-tier practitioners that manage my health.

And my team at Level Up Creators is made up of above the most brilliant, hard-working, and accountable business operators in the world.

My family is a team. Household work is divided up equitably between myself, my husband, and our 12-year-old son. There is no such thing as “women’s work” around here.

All four of these teams have been carefully selected, and they all have my back. Knowing that I am not operating on an island and I have a highly dependable crew surrounding me drastically reduces, overwhelmed.

4. My Mindset & Point of View

I stay grounded through relationships with my family and innermost circle.

I ask for help.

My intention is to be a helpful person. I feel successful if I leave each person I interact with a little better than they were before and learn something myself along the way. This lens reduces not only overwhelm, but anxiety and fear when the stakes are high.

I show up in life with curiosity, optimism, and kindness, rather than to push my own agenda.

Most things can wait. Everything will be there tomorrow and the next day.

I realize the work that my team and I do is life-changing in many ways, and is a positive force for good in the world, and it is also not emergency open-heart surgery.

5. Learning & Growth

I have a growth mindset.

I’m far more interested in getting something right, rather than being right.

I am a learning machine. I read at least a book per week across a variety of genres. Cross disciplinary reading is key to unlocking creativity. Continuous learning helps me feel completely equipped to solve any problem in my life or for our clients.

I have firmly established rhythms and triggers throughout my day that create learning opportunities.

Walk the dog ?? listen to a podcast.

Eating lunch ?? check my LI feed & catch up on reading saved articles.

Get in bed ?? read a book for an hour.

I ask people open ended questions all the time: Tell me more about that. What do you mean? Can you give me an example? How do you feel about that? How did you come to that conclusion.

I am resourceful and scrappy. I do NOT give up.

We’ve been in scary situations with my health where it seemed like there might not be a way forward. My response: &%@# that! Hold my (gluten free) beer and watch this!

I’m obsessed with mental models. They provide me with every possible angle of analyzing any situation. As a result, I think more creatively, have more empathy, have better problem solving skills, and make better decisions.

What I’m still working on

I have major work to do in the “play” and “fun” departments. No surprise if you’ve read this far, but I am a very serious person, and have to be intentional in my efforts to do fun things.

Chronic illness is a major factor here as it comes with extreme chronic pain. Hard to be light and breezy sometimes. So that’s a major area of focus for me right now.

And if you’re reading this and feeling overwhelmed at all the things you might need to do to manage your overwhelm, I hear you.

There was a time when I did none of these things.

I was a workaholic, sleeping maybe six hours a night, eating trash and drinking caffeine all day to power through my 80 hour work weeks, and using alcohol in the evening to calm down and take the edge off at night.

It only took a few years of that to have a near complete immune system breakdown in my mid to late 20s.

I completely restructured my life soup to nuts, and frankly, I’m getting much better results. Exponential ones.

YOUR next action to manage overwhelm

Don’t be like younger me.

Instead, incorporate a few of these practices that older, smarter, definitely wiser me does, and watch your life, health, relationships, and bank account change for the better, permanently.

I encourage you to pick 2 things of the 30 or so I’ve listed in this article. Choose what resonates with you most and will get you the biggest bang for your efforts.

I think you’re a badass and have tremendous value. Don’t let the weight that’s sitting on your shoulders crush you into a million pieces.

Fight back! You’re worth it and you can do your thing to the best of your ability if you feel like you’re drowning. We got this. Go do the next right thing!