Entrepreneurial Overwhelm

Kris Plachy: Hey, I'm Kris Plachy, host of the Lead Your Team podcast. Running a million dollar business is not easy, and whether you are just getting started with building your team or you've been at this for a while, I'm going to bring you honest, specific and clear practices you can use. Right now today to improve how well you lead your team.

Let's go ahead and get started.

Hello, gorgeous. How are you today? Thanks for tuning in. I hope that you are happy and healthy and wealthy and wise, all the things. We're having a great time. Beautiful summer. Loving it all and wish you were here. When are you coming?

I'm waiting to meet you. I'm talking to you. Seriously. I know who you are. You're sitting there. You listen every week. You love the podcast. You've binged to them. You've listened to them all. Maybe some of them, many times you keep thinking, maybe I should work with Chris, but I should be able to do this on my own.

Because every time you listen to a podcast you're like, oh yeah, I need to do that. I need to do that. I just talked to someone yesterday and we had a 15 minute chat. She was a, she's a friend of a friend and she's having some challenges in her business, and I kind of walk through what. I heard her say and what I would recommend, and she's yeah, you're exactly right.

I need to do all of that. I'm like, all right. And she said, okay, I'll call you and let you know how it goes. Okay, didn't do it. But here's the thing. I know because I have a coach, so I know that we have the best intentions. But see, there's this other part that happens, which is life, and it gets in the way, and then we don't do the things we think we should do and we wanna do because we don't have anybody who's really in our corner.

I, I would be lost without my coach, Natalie. I just love her. I, she's, ugh heaven. So listen, I see you. I can hear you, and I think you should just raise your hand, make an appointment, come to how to ceo register.com. Talk to Amy. She is amazing. She and I have known each other for 14 years. She'll answer all the things and then you're gonna know for sure.

And then we're gonna meet and it's gonna be amazing. Okay. All right. So today we're gonna talk about overwhelm. I actually have a four-part course that I created on overwhelm that we sometimes offer to folks when they start the How to CEO program, but also it is part of our lab, which is our continuity program once you do the 12 weeks of how to CEO e o.

And what I thought I would do today is give you kind of an overview of really about overwhelm maybe in a way that you haven't thought or heard about it before, and hopefully in a way that gives you some relief. And some ability to give yourself a little permission to move forward in a different way.

So first of all, I wanna really help you understand that I really understand overwhelm. I come from a long, a long life of overwhelm. I. You know, I have this very vivid memory of when I was a younger woman with four year olds, or five year, six year old son, and two year old twins. And I shared this story recently.

I think it was on Instagram, I'm not sure, but it's just such a vivid memory. And I was sitting, I. In a playroom that we had built onto our house, and it was a pouring rain day. It was cold. I had these twins who were little and so cute, but very busy two year old twins, and they were watching the backyardigans.

If you, if you have kids who are in their teens ages, you know who the backyardigans are and And I was sitting at this little tiny desk that we had in our playroom because I worked in a company at the time, I didn't have an office. And and I just figured out how to make a website and I made one and I figured out how to put pictures in it and I figured out how to upload music.

And I uploaded this song by James Taylor which is still. A huge favorite of mine. It's called like Everyone She Knows It's a beautiful song. If you don't know it, download it. And I just sat there and I created this whole website about how women needed a moment to think, and women needed a pla, need a place to go where they can just think and reflect and be.

Filled up because as women, we are just filling other people's cups all day long. And I don't say that burdened, I don't say that like begrudgingly. I just think that's a truth. And if we're gonna be those people, which I, I want to be that person, I want my family to know that I'm here and I will support them and I will do everything that seems reasonable to do.

So I, I have no problem with that. In fact, I. I like it. I also know that in order to do that and do that I have to take care of myself or then I do get resentful. I do get mad, I get burdened. I. Am I, hopefully I'm speaking everyone's truth, not just like old, crazy anyway, and so I just had this vision at that time, right?

Every woman needs a moment to think. And of course I wanted to create like this whole environment where it was, instead of going and playing bunko or you know, whatever it was at the time, which I just did not find stimulating. I wanted to have a moment to think sort of experiences where we would get together and Hold each other up.

And that's what I do now. I have Hawaii retreats. I have a program called How to C e O. It's your moment to think y'all, it's your two hours, three hours, depending on how many of the calls you come to Every week. You can come one hour, you can come up to four. It's your moment to think and you need it. So anyway, so my point being it's just been years and I've known that we all women struggle with overwhelm.

And as I sort of unpacked it for myself, here's what I realized. When I was young, I wasn't overwhelmed. In fact, I was talking to my daughter in the car last night cuz I was listening to the radio over the weekend and all these great songs from the eighties came on songs that I haven't heard in a long time.

Like a Luther Vandross song and the manic, the, the Bengals. I don't know. There were these songs that I hadn't heard that, you know, there's the eighties songs you hear all the time, and then there's the ones you just don't hear, and they all were being played, and it was amazing. And I knew all the words.

Which is shocking. I can't remember one, one lyric to a song today, but I can remember all the words from a song from 1984. That's crazy. But my daughter and I were talking about it. I said, you know, I think the reason that that's true is first of all, my brain was younger and more elastic in all the things imprinted earlier, but also I didn't have as much on my mind when I was 16.

And so it was easier to integrate information as a 51 year old Holy kaly, right? There's so much on my mind all the time. I no wonder, I can't remember who I talked to yesterday yet, let alone like music. So what I noticed in my own trajectory is I was really eager as a young woman to get started in my life, right?

I'm gonna go get a job, I'm gonna start making money and get a husband. I really did all those things in that order, and I was always willing and eager to take on more responsibility. So I get this job. I do really well at it. I get promoted. I get this really great boyfriend. We fall in love, we get engaged.

I'll plan a wedding, I'll plan a honeymoon. I'll run a team. I know let's buy a house. I organized the house. I organized the getting the mortgage. I organized buying the furniture. I organize decorating. I know let's start having parties. I organize the parties. I know. Let's get the dogs. I know. Let's have babies.

I organize the babies, the food. The household, oh, and by the way, let's keep getting promoted and taking on more responsibility at work. Like y'all, we do this. It's like we do it on purpose, right? We build our lives and women just keep accepting more and more on their plate. And again, I'm not saying this is a negative, this is just a truth.

And then we kind of wake up. And it seems to me that it happens to most women that I know anyway, in that latter thirties, early forties time, where you're like wait a minute. No, I don't wanna have another fricking party. No, I don't want everybody here at my house for the holidays. No, I don't wanna, I don't wanna have, I don't wanna take all the kids to all the birthday parties.

I don't want all the slumber parties. Wait. We start to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. But here's the thing, sister, love you created this. You made it beautifully. I might add. So don't, don't put yourself in a position to become victim of the own of the life that you actually built on purpose.

That's when overwhelm kicks in. When you start to tell yourself you are powerless to your circumstance. And in most of our cases, the circumstance we actually created. I remember a couple years ago, I was so quote unquote overwhelmed in my business. I was like, oh my gosh, I have so much going on. Oh my gosh.

Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. And I laughed at myself. I sat down. I'm like, you are hysterical. Everything that you're telling yourself now that you're overwhelmed by, you called in. So slow your role when it comes to manifesting sister. If you don't. I was doing it to myself. Even right now as I record this, I'm recording podcasts in advance because I'm leaving in two days to go spend a week with one of my best girlfriends, which I can't wait for.

But I'm leaving, and all of you entrepreneurs knows what that means, right? There's things I gotta get done and I can, I can watch my brain either wanting to tell myself, oh my gosh, it's too much. I can't handle it, or, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're designing our life on purpose. Don't fall into overwhelm and become this victim of a circumstance that you created.

So this, to the degree that you remain overwhelmed is also core, is parallel to the degree that you believe you are helpless to make change at any given time. You can change, you can change how you choose to think, and you could literally change what you decide to do with your time, who you say yes to.

You have overwhelm is an indication of too many yeses. And I would even add to that, too many passive yeses, obligatory yeses, yeses that do not vibe like a high level for you because that sort of takes us out of, because the potential then is stimulating, right? If you say yes to things that just invigorate you, that's stimulating, that's not overwhelming.

If you say yes to things that don't feel good to you, that's where overwhelming burden and resentment kick in. Let's take a look at the list, right? Make a list, everything that you have on your plate, everything that you tell yourself that you have to do, and then you need to look at each one of those things and really evaluate them from a feeling perspective.

Does this feel stimulating or burdensome? Now the, are there things in life that we opt up for that we just know we do? Yeah, of course. But you still don't have to do them. I remember when Brooke Castillo my, when I first met her as my coach in 2005, six, she said, you know, people were like I have to feed my children and I have to do this, and I have to pay the bills and I have to.

And she's you know, the truth is you actually don't have to. And my brain went, what? She's you don't, there are mothers who don't feed their children. There are mothers who don't pay the bills. How about we just decide you wanna be a woman who feeds her children. You're choosing to, you're choosing to pay the bills.

You don't have to, you just don't like the consequence. But that's not a have to, that's a choice. And you're having to all over the place. I'm, I'm willing to bet that you have a lot of things in your brain that you're like, oh my gosh, I have to, no, you don't. You really don't. You just don't like the alternative.

So tell yourself the truth. You stop creating a burden relationship with your circumstance, especially if it's one you created and you can deconstruct your commitments. You can say no a lot more than you say. Yes, I certainly do. I say way more no now than I used to say yes to. It's wonderful. The more you say no, the better you get at it, I promise, right?

So let's make that list of where you're telling yourself is just too much. All the things you think you have to do, and then we really have to just ask, okay, what stimulates what burdens? And then what do you wanna do about it? What are you willing to do about it? Sometimes there's just times in our business and in our life where it really is a head down moment.

You know what? I wanna make the goal that we set. I want to, I have an employee who's not working here anymore, and there's a hole in my business and the work has to get done. So for the next two weeks I'm in, I'm gonna do it. And you're gonna do it with grace and love and not anger, and you're choosing to do it because of what you're working toward.

There are those moments we just tell the truth. But if you're chronically that way because you're not hiring well, you're not building the team that supports the business, you're not investing in the conversations that get you the results that you need in your business. That is different. That is not growth.

That's hiding. It's not stepping up and being the leader that you wanna be in your business. And the same thing is true in your personal life. Are you saying yes to everybody? Are you compensating for people not doing things in your household? That's why I got a personal assistant because I just got so sick and tired of, of, of constantly asking for help and not getting it that I'm like, you know what?

I'm just gonna get help and I'm gonna pay someone who's gonna help me. And she is like my favorite part. She comes and she takes care of things in my house and we have a beautiful relationship and I don't, you know, hate my family for not doing their laundry because she does mine. And the laundry room's always clean.

What is it that you need? My love. And stop using your circumstance as a reason to feel bad. You created this. You can totally deconstruct it, but you have to first decide that you're in a choice relationship. That's in everything in your life that you signed up for it, you raised your hand, and even for those things that you're gonna, I know you're yelling at me.

I didn't sign up for this. I didn't. You still show up for it. Why accept that, that it's a choice. Whatever it is, you really are choosing it. There is peace. There, and then you can decide, okay, so this is what I've been choosing. Now what am I gonna do about it? Or do I wanna keep choosing this? What if I said yes to that?

It really should have been a no. And what am I doing regularly that lights me up and stimulates me? Or drains and burdens me? Let's tell the truth. Overwhelm is an emotion. That comes from a belief that there's too much to do. I'll never get it all done. There's, there's people, too many people want too much from me.

Nobody helps me. You name it, there's lots of thoughts that drive that emotion, but we get there. Most of us, in my experience, arrive here at this sort of, you know, second half of life by choice, by accepting a lot of responsibility because it was fun. It was fun at the time to decorate the house and make the dinners and go grocery shopping and have the babies and figure it all out.

And it was fun. And there are things I think about it that are still fun. And then, but no, maybe all the time. So tell yourself the truth. Okay. And overwhelm is not an enemy. It's just like an indicator light. It's like if, if we had a control panel, it's not the alert like, we're gonna crash light. It's the warning light.

Ooh, ooh, ooh. Pay attention. You're either not managing your mind or maybe you said yes too much, or you said yes to things you don't love or you're trying to do too much too fast or right. It's just a little warning let's not be in an anger relationship with overwhelm. Let's just let it tell us what it needs to tell us and move along.

Okay. All right, sunshine. This is the last week to get your hat a CEO journal. Do you want one? It's white, it's beautiful, it's embossed. It's very pretty. In order to get your had a c e o journal, you have to write a lovely review on iTunes and share it with us so we know it was you because everybody has weird iTunes names.

We don't know who you are, so you have to tell us directly. This was my review and send us your information and we will send you this beautiful journal at our cost. We are only mailing them to folks in the us I'm sorry to my other friends everywhere else. But please if that's something you are down for.

Go ahead and write that review, send it to us. [email protected] or you can share it with us at ins at Chris Plaquey, coach on Instagram. And we'll get that journal to you. And in the meantime, if you're really overwhelmed, you probably need a coach, maybe you should come to how to c e o.com, register and book an appointment.

I'm ready. Are you? Have a good day. One more thing before you go. In a world of digital courses and online content, I like to work with my clients live because I know that when you have someone you can work with, ask questions of and meet with, you're so much more likely to get the success that you want.

So head on over to how to ceo live.com. To learn more about our very exciting, very exclusive program just for female entrepreneurs. We'll see you there.