Ready? I’m going to hit you with a harsh truth: You are overwhelmed in your business because you choose to be overwhelmed.
Listen, building a business is HARD, this is not in debate. It’s absolutely the most challenging thing I’ve ever done and continues to be. BUT if you are truly overwhelmed all the time by your business, then it’s because you choose to be.
You are the only one that can stop and fix the reasons you are overwhelmed. Here are a few places to get started helping you beat overwhelm and get off the burnout train.
You have poor boundaries/processes with clients
As a service-based entrepreneur part of your job is managing your clients. If your clients are constantly stressing you out, wasting your time, and making your day-to-day miserable than it’s time to start fixing that.
It’s important to learn from struggles that pop up with your clients and address those issues through your processes and boundaries.
Don’t over promise, set realistic deadlines and expectations that you can manage, and have policies in place that require clients to hold up their half of the work. You 100% should serve your clients as best as you can, but part of that is giving yourself space and time to do your best.
I have offer a package that can help you create a better onboarding process for you and your clients. Check out the the ONBOARDING BETTER package!
You are unrealistic about your schedule. You overload your plate
You are 110% a badass, superwoman boss, but that does not make you actually physically superhuman. Sorry to burst that bubble.
You do only have 24 hours in a day, and you need to stop pretending you have more. I have seen so many bosses try to maintain a schedule and list of tasks that are just not doable. Every week they are frustrated and stressed because they can’t meet this unrealistic schedule and manage their business.
Take a step back, stop the “have to” and cut your schedule to be one you can maintain. Your schedule is not going to magically fix itself.
SO many entrepreneurs put more stress on themselves than necessary. STOP trying to do a million projects on unrealistic deadlines. And here is the other secret, the deadlines you set are up to you. If you need more time– give it to yourself!
You lack focus
Speaking of a million projects going at once, yeah we need to stop that. FOCUS needs to be your new mantra. When it comes to new initiatives or projects in your business, you need to start finishing one before allowing yourself to start a new one.
Every quarter plan doesn’t need to be full of this new thing, and that new thing– all requiring launches and hours and hours of work. If you are overwhelmed keep it simple, choose only one new project to launch a quarter.
Guess what? If you finish that project, you can start a new one!! Why stress trying to get four done at a time when you can finish one and start a new one just as easily with less stress.
You don’t know when to hit pause
The fact is, there are times in your business you will need to hit pause to be able to get ahead or catch-up. If you are feeling overwhelmed, hit that pause button and fix it! Feeling stressed and frazzled is not going to fix itself, and you might need to take some time off from your routine business activities to figure it out.
Check out the 6 times when a break is the smartest move you can make for your business.
You don’t see your business as a work in progress
You should see all your work as a work in progress, too many entrepreneurs get stuck on perfect before letting the version out into the world. This slows your growth, and the longer you wait to release your thing, the slower it will take to improve it.
The longer you work on a single project trying to perfect it, of course, the less time you have to do other things in your business. See how that works! 😜
You focus too much on the future than addressing what needs fixing now
There are always things in your business that are going to be more exciting and fun, but there are also things that you REALLY need to do to make your business run smoother. You can’t always be focusing on the next project/idea without getting some of the foundations in your business established to support those projects.
So maybe your project for a quarter is not starting something new, but it’s getting a system or process in place you need to support an existing project. Like setting up your email funnel for the new course or service you created last quarter or automating your on-boarding process.
Not sure where to get started or what to focus on in your business operations?
Join me for From Hot Mess Express To Smooth Operations: The 7 Essentials Of Business Operations Workshop. In this workshop, I give you 7 key operations categories to help you cut the overwhelm and narrow down what in your business operations could use some attention.
Looking for more one-on-one personalized help with coming up with a game plan to get your business operations more organized and optimized? Check out my Smooth Operations Audit!