How to Deal with Being Overwhelmed by Your Small Business

A Proven 6-Step Framework to Create Mental Clarity, Build Momentum and Accomplish More

If you’re just starting to build your business, you might be experiencing what I call “business overwhelm.”

There can be a lot to learn, including marketing, sales and operations, just to name a few!

But while business overwhelm is real, there are millions of people all over the world who have decided to become entrepreneurs – and the truth is that they aren’t facing any more or less challenges than you face today.

If you’d love to know a proven framework for building a successful coaching business, and for dealing with business overwhelm when it arises, then what I have for you today will be extremely helpful!

How to Deal With Being Overwhelmed: The Brave Thinking Activation Process

What I’m about to share with you is called the “Brave Thinking Activation Process,” and it’s a great way to determine exactly what action you should take and when. It’s a foundational principle of our curriculum at Brave Thinking Institute.

1. State of mind

As you’re determining which action steps to take to build your business, an important step to consider is your state of mind in the moment.

If your mind is full of fear, nerves, anxiety, restriction and/or concern, then the action steps you decide on are going to be very different than if you’re in a state of confidence, love and/or optimism.

The key state of mind that I recommend you get into before putting together an action plan is what I call “calm confidence.”

You can put yourself into a state of calm confidence by focusing on the vision of how your business would look if everything worked out.

That said, a great question to ask yourself is:

If I had the coaching business of my dreams, what would it look like?

Think about the business you would love to have, not just in terms of the number of clients you want to serve and the amount of money you’d like to have in your bank account, but also in terms of your daily routine.

• What would you do on a daily basis?
• What would you do on an annual basis? How many vacations a year would you take?
• How many hours each day, week and month would you be working?
• What would the interactions with your clients be like?
• What sorts of results would your clients share with you?

When you’re in a state of calm confidence, you won’t be tempted to take a step that isn’t appropriate.

You won’t waste time worrying about what steps to take next week or next month.

Instead, you’ll choose steps that make sense in the moment and take baby steps to create the business you envision.

2. Source

Once you put yourself into a calm, confident state of mind, you can begin to source ideas of what you might take action on.

Keep in mind that these are simply ideas – you may choose to follow through with them or you may not.

But this isn’t the time to evaluate these ideas or to determine whether they are good or bad.

At this stage, all you need to do is to let your ideas flow.

Often, when you first begin to source ideas, the first ones that come to mind aren’t necessarily the most brilliant ones, but if you allow the flow of ideas to keep coming, they just get better and better! The point here is to make sure you think of several ideas.

Think of the flow of ideas like pumping water out of a well. The water that first comes out tends to be dirty, so it has to flow for a bit before the clean, pure water comes out. So as long as you don’t start evaluating your ideas at this stage in the process, the ideas should flow freely.

You see, the first currency of the universe comes in the form of ideas. In other words, ideas are highly valuable!

To begin the process of sourcing ideas, I recommend asking yourself this highly calibrated question:

When it comes to building the business of my dreams, what steps can I take where I am, with what I have?

Next, write down every single idea that comes to mind.

3. Select

Once you’ve taken the time to put yourself into a good state of mind and to source your ideas, the next step is to select from the list.

You have an internal meter that happens to be one of your six mental faculties.

The six mental faculties I’m referring to are Imagination, Intuition, Will, Perception, Memory and Reason.

The internal meter that I’m talking about right now is the faculty of Intuition.

If you really tune in while you evaluate the ideas you’ve sourced, pay attention to whether you feel expansive when you think about them.

Do you feel like the idea would serve your business in a way that feels expansive to you, or do you feel restricted or contracted when you think of this particular idea? Circle the ideas that make you feel expansive.

4. Sort

Your next step is to take all the ideas that you’ve selected and begin to sort them. In other words, start numbering them based on which ones you’re going to do first.

For example, you might have five ideas that you feel a sense of expansion around but you may not feel equally expansive about all of them.

Perhaps you’re mostly interested in two of the five ideas that you circled. So go ahead and put a number next to the idea that feels the most expansive, followed by number two, three, four, etc.

5. Schedule

This is where you can really begin to put it all together. Go ahead and get your calendar out and write down exactly when you’re going to take the first action step in service of building your dream business.

You may want to take action in ten minutes or perhaps you want to wait until 8:00am tomorrow.

Whatever your plan, it’s important to schedule the action as soon as possible.

6. Serve

Now it’s time to actually take the action! I use the word serve here because this step is about serving your vision, or serving the mission of building a business that you truly love owning.

Serve your business (and your dream) by taking the action.

Let’s recap the 6 S’s in the Brave Thinking Activation Process

When you feel overwhelmed, stop and take some deep breaths. Then follow these steps:

1. First things first: Get into the proper state of mind.
2. Once you find yourself in a state of calm confidence, start sourcing ideas.
3. After you’ve let your ideas flow to the very last drop, select which ideas are best ideas using your intuition.
4. Sort them based on the ones that make you feel most expansive.
5. Schedule your action steps.
6. And finally, serve yourself and your business by following through.

Remember this:

All successful people experience moments in which they feel like there’s more to do than they can possibly accomplish.

When you find yourself feeling this way, which path will you take?

Will you freeze and remain stuck, or will you do what you can with what you have?

The truth is that it’s impossible to learn everything about how to run the marketing, sales and operations of your business in a week.

But you can take baby steps in the direction of learning a little bit every day. And the best thing is that once you begin to take steps, you’ll start to build momentum, and running your business will get easier.

You’ll probably even be surprised by how much you’re able to accomplish!

Is your dream to become a life coach, but you’d like more support to determine if it’s right for you?

If you dream of making a profound and lasting impact in the world, but aren’t 100% sure about what it takes to be successful and make a difference in the lives of others…

Then watch this FREE, short video that will provide answers to some of the questions you may have about being a life coach!

Click here to find out if life coaching is the ideal career path for you. In this free video, Mary Morrissey, founder of Brave Thinking Institute, will guide you through a simple but highly effective “litmus test” to determine if you truly have what it takes to be a successful transformational life coach.

Together, you’ll explore whether or not life coaching is the path to your dream life!

Watch Here.