Freedom Focus Formula
Overwhelm is a Choice
25:19
Overwhelm is a Choice
IN THIS EPISODE:
071 - Overwhelm. It's that mind-racing, waves-crashing-over-you feeling that we're all familiar with. If you're not careful, overwhelm can lead to a state of paralysis, which in turn kicks off a shame spiral. And then you're really in the muck. 😳
So this week's podcast is about recognizing the signs of overwhelm, mindfully assessing the situation, and making a plan for moving forward. Because while overwhelm arises for ALL of us on occasion, staying in a state of overwhelm is a choice—not an inevitability!
What To Listen For:
- Why we're attached to being "busy"
- The ingredients of overwhelm (and what's missing from the equation)
- What to ask yourself when you're feeling overwhelmed
- Shifting the way you view your to-do list
- How to find your top priority, and what to do once it's clear
You'll also hear about my favorite new tool for circumventing overwhelm: the Project Tracker spreadsheet. (You knew it would involve spreadsheets, didn't you?!)
Resources From This Episode:
- Free project-tracking spreadsheet
- How to use the monthly tracker
- Houndvision Pet Photography Retreat (registration now open!)
- Connect with us on Instagram and YouTube.
- Explore valuable pet photography resources here
- Discover effective pricing and sales strategies for all portrait photographers.
- Ready to grow your business? Elevate helps you do just that.
- Check out our recommended gear and favorite books.
Full Transcript ›
00:00:00 Hey everybody, Nicole here from hair of the dog. And today I am back with another podcast talking about overwhelm, who out there has felt the overwhelm. I'm pretty sure every single one of us because we're business owners. I let alone all the other times in our life and our personal life, that causes us to feel a little bit of overwhelm too.
00:00:22 But today I want to talk about that overwhelm and help you see that overwhelm is a choice. I gosh, think I can already hear you guys. It's okay. It's okay. Calm down. I know, I know I can already hear you. I work a full-time job. In addition to my photography job, I really don't have the support or the time.
00:00:44 I don't even have a time to take a shower each day. I'm doing this all by myself without any help at home or in my business. I get it. I've been there, but it doesn't have to be that way. This overwhelm is one of the most common challenges that my students face. And quite frankly, that I face, I am not immune to this feeling of overwhelm.
00:01:10 I have been there actually. I was there earlier this week, which is one of the reasons that I thought, oh, I really should record this podcast because it is a very real feeling. It is something that happens to all of us just this week. I was sitting down and making a list of all the things that I have going on. Now,
00:01:30 those of you guys that have been around hair of the dog for a while, you know that I tend to have a lot of irons in the fire because there's just so many exciting things out there. So many exciting ways that I can help pet photographers, improve their craft, grow their business. And one thing that gets me out of bed in the morning is to help you guys.
00:01:47 I love seeing breakthroughs and I love seeing when you guys hit your goals and are doing things that you thought were out of reach just a few weeks or months ago. So anyway, I always have all these projects that I was, that I'm working on. So I wanted to kind of test out a new way to try to keep myself on track, kind of like a habit tracker,
00:02:08 but towards my projects. And I started writing this project thing down and it started out as five things. And then as I thought of other things I was working on, I added that. And then I added that. And then I added that and let's see, I think I ended up with 16 projects on my project, tracker 16. Hello, overwhelmed.
00:02:31 Nice to see you again. That immediately sent me into just, oh my gosh. So much stress and so much self-talk of, you're never going to get this done. Oh my gosh, there's no way. This is just crazy. You might as well cut all of these things. There's no way you're going to be able to get this done. You know,
00:02:50 all that self-talk that just goes down into that shame spiral that we've all been in. You know, you just feels heavy, feels hopeless and you just keep piling it on with that. Self-talk so I get it. I've been there and it doesn't help that in society. We kind of wear this busy as a badge of honor. How many times do people ask you,
00:03:12 Hey, how are you? And we're so quick to answer, oh my gosh, I'm so busy. It's accepted. In addition to that, many of us also tie our self worth and our value to busy that if I'm not busy, I'm not doing a job or I don't deserve to be making the money that I'm making. How many of our parents said when we were little that you need to work hard to be successful.
00:03:36 Guys, the things that our parents said, they were just trying their best. They didn't know any better. Don't hold it against them. But the things they've said to us when we were little, we took literally and we have buried that deep in our subconscious mind. And so we have all of these beliefs that cause us to act in certain ways and cause us to have these feelings and cause us to hold onto that busy,
00:03:59 but busy has another, another thing too. Another advantage, the reason that we hold on to that, and that is, it becomes a really convenient and socially accepted excuse to not do what we said. We're going to do not do what we really want to do. And wait, why would we not want to do what we really want to do well?
00:04:22 Because there's part of us, that's scared of the outcome. It's scared of either the success or it scared of us trying and missing and failure. And so this overwhelm in this busy becomes a really convenient place to hide and a really convenient excuse as to why these things aren't getting done is just say, oh my gosh, I've been so busy. I'm completely overwhelmed.
00:04:44 So that brings that back to our overwhelm is a choice thing. But before we dive a little bit deeper into this, I do want to share a definition of overwhelm that I read an article that I was reading recently that really, really hit home. And one of the reasons that I wanted to do this episode today, and that is that overwhelm is busy with an added dose of anxiety and stress and a deficit of support and time.
00:05:15 Wow. That really nailed it and hit it on the head for me. Can you relate to that? You know, and again, we can choose to feel differently. The hardest part I think is recognizing when we're in this place of overwhelm and then being able to say, oh my gosh, I'm, I'm here again. Let me work to get out of this.
00:05:43 I am going to choose to change how I look at this situation. And one of the ways we can do that is to pay attention to our thoughts because our thoughts create our feelings and those feelings create our behaviors. So if we can change those thoughts, we can change the feelings and we can change those behaviors. And, you know, let me ask you this too.
00:06:05 If you're in that state of overwhelm, how can you possibly be productive? How can you possibly make things happen when you're in that state with all that extra anxiety and stress and feeling that pressure of not enough time, you guys, all of us have the same number of hours in the day. And we all have responsibilities. Of course, yeah. Some of us have even more responsibilities than others,
00:06:34 but everybody has an even playing field as far as time is concerned. So it is what we do at that time, that matters. And when we are spending that time in the state of overwhelm and in that stress and in that unproductive state with that terrible self-talk going on, we're not moving anything forward. We're just practicing that state of overwhelm and practicing more avoidance behavior from the stuff that we know we need to be working on.
00:07:04 Okay. So hopefully you're still with me and you're starting to see this, but maybe now you're starting to wonder, all right, sounds great, Nicole, but how the heck do I possibly get out of this overwhelm situation? Okay. We choose the overwhelm because it's socially accepted avoidance behavior. It lets us off the hook. I also want to specify that choosing not to be an overwhelm does not mean we have less to do or fewer responsibilities.
00:07:37 It is simply shifting our state of being shifting the way we are looking at our to-do list. Here's a couple of high level steps. And then I want to share my exact steps that I use to get out of that overwhelm when I find myself there. So some of our single steps are our first steps are number one to focus on a single priority,
00:08:04 not seven. You guys, this is the hardest thing for me, because as I said, when I started to make that list at the beginning of the week, and I ended up with 16 projects and these aren't like 16 projects like, oh, edit that one image. These are 16 projects, like create a new workflow course for the academy to create an online summit for the fall.
00:08:26 Start my nonprofit. Like these are big two dues in big projects. So I get it. I 100% get it. And it's really hard to focus on one thing, but it is so important because if you're focusing on building 10 bridges at once, you're never going to finish. You're going to be in that permanent state of road work forever and ever,
00:08:49 and ever. And you're going to start to feel question really, is it worth because you're not going to be seeing the results that you want to see and you're going to feel strung out and tired and exhausted because you're going to be switching from these different projects all the time. So pick one project to focus on right now, focus on today. Number two,
00:09:15 breathe, take a deep breath. That overwhelm is an actual physical response. It's an actual stress response. So our body does all of the things that it does when you're in a fear or stress response. As if there was a bear outside your house, that's going to eat you. You start to have those same responses. When you get into this state of overwhelm and breathing,
00:09:42 sitting down, taking some deep breaths, closing your eyes actually creates physiological changes in your body that takes you out of that stress space. So it is so important if you can't sit down and meditate for 20 minutes, but there's a great line that says, if you don't have time to meditate for five minutes, meditate for 20, which is really, really,
00:10:06 really true. So yeah. So just take a minute and breathe. Number three, maybe you look at all your priorities or look at all your responsibilities and start to see if there is somewhere that you can say no, that there's someplace you can delegate that there's something that you can delete. That is no longer important. I came to this conclusion long ago when I started my business over 10 years ago,
00:10:29 that my to-do list would never be done. And I fully accept that. Now I just know it's going to roll from project to project. Priorities are going to change. Priorities are going to shift. And some things on that to-do list are just never going to get done. And that is okay, but we can look at that list and we can ask ourselves,
00:10:47 okay, what's really important to do. Now, what can be deferred? What can be delegated? What can be deleted really, really important to do. And then number four, one that many of us skip over, but it's such a critical piece of the puzzle. And that is to celebrate, celebrate our progress. Celebrate our wins. Our brain is wired to remember the threats,
00:11:13 remember the problems, remember the failures. It automatically pushes down any of those good celebration, remembrances, things like that just pushes it down. And we, we don't remember them nearly as clearly as the times we messed up and it's just how we're wired. So we need to kind of retrain our brains to look for that. Good to remember that. Good.
00:11:40 And if you're not sure about that, let me just ask you this question, go ahead and write down all of the things you've accomplished in the past six months, that's hard to do, right? You start to sit down. You're like, I know I've done great things, but then it's just really hard to recall them. So celebrating even as much as writing it down and maybe celebrating by taking a walk,
00:12:01 reading a book, something really, really simple, going to dinner, grabbing some ice cream, making some brownies, ice cream and brownies are usually my favorite way to celebrate. But by doing those little things, it actually creates a memory in your brain that helps cement that celebration. And really, truly does start to change how our brains are wired about these things.
00:12:25 All right. So when we are feeling that overwhelm, that's the time that we need to ask ourselves some questions. So whenever you're feeling it, write this down, ask yourself, okay, I'm an overwhelm. What am I avoiding? Because truly that overwhelm is an avoidance behavior. So we're avoiding something. That's question number one, question. Number two is to ask ourselves,
00:12:51 how is that overwhelm serving me? Wait, Nicole, the overwhelm is not serving me. That's why I'm here. That's why I'm listening to this. Oh, contrare it is. It is serving us everything that we do serves us in some way, maybe not in the way we want. Maybe it's not serving us in a beneficial or impactful or positive way,
00:13:17 but it is serving us. Usually it is keeping us safe. It is keeping us safe from potential failure. It is keeping us safe, even from success. A lot of us have stories and beliefs tied to success that if we get to successful, people are going to want too much from us. It's going to change our relationships with people in our lives.
00:13:40 So there's a piece of us that wants to stay safe. Our brain hates change. So we want to stay exactly the same. Even if we know we want something else, we would rather stay comfortable with what we know, because what we don't know, even if it could be better, it's uncomfortable and scary. So that is usually when we're in overwhelm 9.9
00:14:04 times out of 10. It is because we are avoiding something and it is still serving us in some ways. So just shining the light on that is going to be a great and easy way to start to make progress forward. Just like, you know, when you were a kid and in your room and you're like, mom, there's something in the closet and you turn on the light and you shine some light in the closet.
00:14:27 Oh, it's just a pile of clothes. Same thing with this overwhelm. When we ask ourselves, what am I avoiding? And how is that serving me? Why am I afraid of that? Then we have the answers and we're like, oh, I see that. That's not really a big deal. And it's a lot easier to move forward. All right.
00:14:43 So what does it look like for me that I found for my process to help get me out of overwhelm? I have how many steps, three steps. Number one is I make a giant brain dump because what, when we're in that state of overwhelm and your brain is like big looking like times square instead of a nice serene mountain meadow, it's really hard to concentrate because we have so much anything's going on in there.
00:15:12 And that is my brain 90% of the time, why I have piles and piles of papers and lists on my desk because I need to get it out of my brain or I can't focus. So when I'm in overwhelm, the first thing I do, I grab a piece of paper, always a big pad of paper, because there's going to be a lot of things that come out and I make a list.
00:15:33 I write down literally every single thing, business, personal, all of it comes out onto that piece of paper and makes a giant list. Step two is I do that breathing and a little bit of a different way. I'll just kind of get quiet for a minute. I'll take a couple of deep breaths and I'll start to connect with my intention. If I'm overwhelmed about my business,
00:15:59 what's my intention with my business. Where do I picture my business two years? What is the most important pieces of my business? What parts of my business, fill me up? What parts of my business are really the why of why I do this. What's the important thing to focus on here. Getting quiet, taking those deep breaths. They get out out of that stress space and are able to actually start to focus.
00:16:23 We're able to see what the intention is, the whole reason that we're doing this so that we can connect with that intention. And then when we come back and look at that list, it's a heck of a lot easier to determine what's important and what's not as important. So then you can go through that list and you can and choose the most important pieces.
00:16:43 And again, look at delegating, deleting or deferring some of the other things on that list. All right, number three is to make a plan, to make a plan, to work on it and figure out when it works to get it into your calendar. So for me, every Sunday night, I sit down and I look over my week. I see what meetings I have,
00:17:07 but podcasts, interviews, I have scheduled. I'll just all the different things. So I have a general idea of what days are going to be really busy with a lot calls and what days maybe are more open or give me a lot of white space to actually get some of this heavy done. And then I find those open white space chunks, and I schedule priority number one.
00:17:30 So you might be wondering how I choose my priorities. Just tell you I do that big list. I get kind of quiet and I get in tune with my intention of what the whole goal of this whole situation, right? It is. And then it becomes a little bit clear and I will choose the number one most business priority. And my goal is to touch that every single day,
00:17:55 even on those days, that I'm really busy. I have a lot of calls. I have a lot of meetings. I will make sure, I at least spend a couple of minutes doing one thing on that number one priority, because then at the end of the day, I feel like I've at least moved that ball. The number one priority ball forward so important.
00:18:14 So I have that number one priority. And then I also have a list of secondary projects. Remember what I said before about it's really hard to choose the one thing. Yeah, I can't, I literally can't. So I have found this works for me to have my number one priority that I commit to touching every day. Other than the weekends, I will try to take some time on the weekends.
00:18:37 And then my secondary projects are usually two other actual projects like creating some content or creating a new program or writing copy for, you know, different, different pieces of the business or secondary projects or also education. You guys. I believe so much in education. I can't even fathom how much money I've spent in 10 years on all of my education. It's well over a hundred thousand dollars easily,
00:19:06 if not close to $200,000 over the past 10 years on my education. And I'm always buying new courses, I'm always learning because I love to learn. So I write down my three most important classes that I'm going through because I have found that I tend to start off. I'm like, yes, I got a new class. I start off with a bang.
00:19:32 And then about halfway through, I kind of drop off because another one I'm like, yes, I got a new class. So I'm going to go into detail. And so I was never actually finishing any of them, which becomes again, really frustrating and takes me back into that overwhelm cycle. So what I've found has worked really well for me is to have those priority pieces,
00:19:50 whatever courses that are important to me right now to have those and go through each one, just do one lesson a week minimum. If I have time for more, I'll do some more, but I at least want to take one step forward each week with each of those. And this has been really, really helping me feel productive and stay on track with the most important pieces.
00:20:16 And then the third piece of that is recording daily wins such an important piece of this puzzle, even though it sounds pretty, you know, pretty basic. And a lot of people hear that and they're like, well, okay, I know that. And they don't ever actually do it because they think it's not really that important. And how much of a difference can it make,
00:20:37 makes a huge difference. So I really, really implore you guys to try that. And then the way that I track all of this is I got this from my friend, Heather, Heather Latin, and you guys know her well from being on the podcast. She had created one, but then I kind of switched it up a little bit for something that works for me.
00:20:52 I create one for the month and it is just a spreadsheet. And then a left-hand column. I have week one, week, two week, three week four. And then I have numbers, you know, one, two, three, four, five. I list basically every weekday day, except the weekends. I don't have the weekends on the chart.
00:21:09 And then that's the left column. And then on the right column, the first column says priority number one. So whatever that project is, that's the first column. And I want to check on that column every single day, even if it's 30 seconds, five minutes, I want to check on that every single day. And then I have project priority two and three,
00:21:31 and I want to make sure that I have a check once a week for that. So each day I just do a little check on the line that has the number of that date, of what I worked on priority one, two and or three. And then I also have education one, two and three. So I have six columns. And then at the end of the week,
00:21:50 I just look at that past week. So if it was, you know, June 1st through fifth, and it's the end of the week, I look and see, make sure that I've checked each one of those. And then on that week, one column, I just make a check on all the ones that I have done that week. And just seeing those checks is really kind of self-reinforcing,
00:22:08 especially for someone that might have a history of rewriting entire lists, because there was a mistake and it needed to be just beautifully color-coded and perfect. I might have a problem. I know some of you guys out there can relate to me, but anyway, that check mark becomes really reinforcing for me. And then the most important column is just the last column,
00:22:33 the seventh column on the end. It just says when. So each day when I make my check marks, I also write a win there. And this has helped me keep on track. It has helped me stay out of overwhelm because when I start to find myself in that overwhelm shame spiral, it's really much easier to pull myself out and say, okay,
00:22:55 I just need to move forward. I'm feeling this overwhelm because I'm choosing to avoid working on this next piece. And that usually comes up because maybe I get to a point in my project where it's no longer fun and easy, where it gets a little bit harder where maybe I don't know what the next step is, or maybe I need to do something hard,
00:23:17 like write, write something or create something that I'm not entirely sure how to go about it. Or maybe there's a piece of tech that I need to learn and I don't really know how to use it yet. So I'm kind of avoiding it. So then my brain says, oh, quick switch to that overwhelm because then you're allowed to avoid it. And that having this list and having those check marks just really gives me a visible way to check in and get out of that space.
00:23:47 So anyway, I hope that you guys have found this podcast helpful and that you can take some of these tools to help get yourself out of overwhelm when that overwhelm inevitably strikes, because it happens to all of us, let us know in the podcast community, if you have found it helpful, or if you have any tricks of your own, and I will see you guys next week,
00:24:10 have a good one, everybody. Bye. Thanks for listening to the hair of the dog podcast. If you want to check out the show notes for access to any of the links that we shared in this episode, as well as any of the additional resources. This was episode 71. So simply go to www.hairofthedogacademy.com/seven one. Thanks for listening to this episode of hair of the dog podcast.
00:24:34 If you enjoyed this show, please take a minute to leave a review. And while you're there, don't forget to subscribe. So you don't miss our upcoming episodes. One last thing, if you are ready to dive into more resources, head over to our [email protected]. Thanks for being a part of this pet photography community.
Welcome!
I'm Nicole and I help portrait photographers to stop competing on price, sell without feeling pushy, and consistently increase sales to $2,000+ per session - which is the fastest path to a 6-figure business. My goal is to help you build a thriving business you love while earning the income you deserve.
