Every time I take a break from my routine, whether it’s a holiday or just some time off, I always struggle a bit to switch back into work mode. After a period of relaxation, it can feel challenging to return to the many tasks that come with running a small business and managing family life. It’s like the weight of both roles—the solopreneur and the “CEO” of my family—hits all at once.

In the past, this shift often left me feeling grumpy and overwhelmed, but this time I approached it differently and was able to overcome the stress more quickly. Here’s how.

Many years ago, I embarked on a journey to reduce overwhelm  (read about that here). The biggest two learning points in my de-overwhelming journey and process are as follow:

  • Put the self care in the diary first
  • Decrease the size of the mountain

1) Put the self care in the diary first.

I know this is going to sound counterproductive, but it really work. If you try to work harder out of overwhelm, if you wait until you’ve done all the stuff in your to-do list before you allow yourself to relax, to take the time to do the things that make you feel good (in my case, swimming, drumming, and dancing) then you never find the time to do these things. You are not only likely to remain stuck in the overwhelm cycle, but also to make things worse. You cannot create spaciousness from a place of scarcity. If you feel you never have enough time, the way to create more time is to give your mind and body the chance to experience what it feels like to be spacious and relaxed.

I’ve found that practices such as  reflecting in a journal every time I feel stressed or overwhelmed, putting a timer on for 5 min, simply starting with “what does my soul wants to tell me today”. Or doodling myself as a stick figure and writing speech or thought bubbles works well to, putting a timer on for 5 min and drumming. All of these things help my overwhelm settle down. What comes up, with either of these practises, is usually that when I feel there is too much on my plate, I actually need to slow down instead of trying to flog myself to work harder. Overwhelms is often a sign that you need to slow down.

When you feel stuck or stressed or overwhelmed, rather than trying to push through the stuckness, which usually doesn’t work, you can choose to do something that involves a bit of movement, and that makes you feel good instead. For me this means a walk in the woods, a swim in the river (I usually tell myself “fuck it I’m going for a swim!”) or a short 5rhythms dancing session (as in, just one short track I love).  This ALWAYS results in the stuck energy moving through and my being able to start seeing the forest for the trees, and starting to be able to get stuff done from a refreshed place.

Building up your sense of achievement rather than focusing on what you aren’t doing is also important. Another practice that I’ve found transformative is to use a “ta-da” list. At the end of each week I write everything I’ve done that week, self care, family and  work wise. I’m always surprised by how much I have accomplished, even when I’ve felt that this wasn’t a very productive week.

2) Decrease the size of the mountain.

Since I started working with authentic business mentor George Kao I’ve learnt the importance of capturing the process whenever I start anything new. This is for three reasons:

  • It helps understand the large numbers of steps and time involved in creating something (see Ta-da list above)
  • It saves time for the future, as you already have all the steps and tasks captured if you want to do it again (for example, creating an online course)
  • But most importantly, it decreases the size of the mountain. It helps to break down the impossible ascent into tiny, do-able steps. It creates a path where there was none before.

Imagine that you are facing climbing an enormous mountain. Or that you have to carve a track in a deep jungle with a machete. All the tasks, the thoughts about the tasks, they all get jumbled in your head and all you can feel is this enormous, impossible task. You feel exhausted just thinking about it, and you don’t know where to start or even want to start. It feels heavy, overwhelming and scary. Running away feels easier,  or pretending it’s not there. Yet you feel the weight of the “unclimbed mountain” on your shoulders all the time. Sounds familiar?

This is because you cannot see your way through. You just see the top, or the impossibly far destination. And this keeps you stuck in fight and flight, or freeze mode, because our brains have evolved to be very good at protecting us. A perceived danger is experienced by our nervous systems in the same way as a real one.

If you decrease the size of the mountain, as in capture all the tasks in small dividable steps, and then decide to maybe only do one, tiny step, as soon as you start to move, it creates a path, and the overwhelm gets resolved almost instantly. The energy starts to move, and you realize that the anxiety about doing the tasks was much bigger than the task itself. In fact, very often as soon as you start taking steps towards doing the task, the anxiety dissolves and you realized that you made a much bigger deal about it than it was.

I’ve found that when I procrastinate, if I start writing a list of what needs to be done rather than doing the actual task, it feels more doable to write that list than to do the task. And then when I’m ready to tackle the task, the list I’ve written creates a simple path I just need to follow, so I no longer procrastinate about it.

Here is one of George Kao’s blogs about it, and also a video about it.

I have had such an incredible journey doing this that I plan to create a course to help others do the same. I am offering one to one mentoring sessions to start with so I can get feedback and experience. Do get in touch if this is something you would be interested in.

Does this resonate with you? If so I’d love to hear about it.

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