Written by: Dr. Toni Warner, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Building or growing your business, but there’s too much life to manage and anxiety or overwhelm is getting in the way? We’ve got 3 customizable steps for you to cut through the chaos and create more clarity, starting today!
I wanted to “get it all done” and “get it all right” at the start of building my therapy practice, and then again when building my mentorship business. I experienced a cycle of anxiety, exhaustion and resentment because I wanted to do all the things and I wanted to do them quickly. I mean, what ambitious entrepreneur wouldn’t want to perfectly execute in the most efficient way? But the truth of the matter is the pressure put on by this type of thinking only creates more stress, which ultimately results in less efficiency, less meaningful success, less satisfaction and much more anxiety than necessary. Whether you’re building a new business or seeking to up-level an existing business, the list of things that need to get done can quickly add up. It becomes easy to get caught up in the rush of things and throw yourself or your life off balance by either trying to do too much or trying to take action without clarity on where you really need to be focusing at any given moment. This can lead to a chaotic experience that impacts various aspects of your personal and professional life. No one wants that! To reduce anxiety and create more balance, clarity and focus in your business growing ventures, here are three steps you can begin implementing as soon as today!
Step one ‒ Be intentional with your schedule.
There’s plenty to do when it comes to building a business. It can seem like the list never ends (because it doesn’t; there’s always something more you could do). If you try to cram it all in for the sake of “getting it done”, you’ll likely do one of two things: feel overwhelmed and get stuck or overwork and burn yourself out. Not only are neither of those options ideal, they simply aren’t very effective and certainly won't leave you feeling satisfied with where you and your business are at. When I started my businesses, I tended to push myself hard and overwork. Later down the road I experienced the stuck-ness from mental overload that came with trying to focus on too much all at once. To change this, I had to figure out how to be more intentional with my mind and my time. A great way to become more intentional with your time (and your mind) is to have one streamlined, organized system that you can put all of your scheduling pieces within. Because a balanced life can’t be just about business, be sure to include your personal life in this system as well. You don’t need to share this overarching organizer with anyone, so feel free to be as
detailed as possible. By putting all of your scheduling in one place, you’ll be able to get a clearer picture of what you actually want and need to spend your time on in any given day or hour. Fill out your organized scheduling system each morning, and add notes on future pages to serve as placeholders for things you want to schedule on different days. Writing these future notes will help you prioritize for the current day as well as release the need to try and cram it all in now. Leave a section in your organizer that allows you to write reflections. At the close of each day, take a few minutes to write and reflect on what you enjoyed, learned or were grateful for. Book ending your day this way will help set a more positive foundation for your sleep that night, as well as your mood in the morning. Here’s a helpful version of the my custom-made intentional scheduler. Although mine has evolved over time, I started out by using a version similar to this one that I’m sharing with you here. It’s important that this overarching system is offline. Meaning, it’s highly impactful to physically write for this system to work in reducing anxieties. You can have a separate online system(I use Google Calendar) to keep your schedule in order and share it with others on your team as well, but that online system truly can’t replicate the same benefits of the hand-written one. You can download your free PDF template here and reference it to create your own personal intentional schedule. I use an evolved version of mine daily to navigate life as a mom of 4 and multi-business owner.
Step two ‒ Find a healthy way to acknowledge and manage your emotions, then practice consistently doing it!
As I’ve supported, collaborated and otherwise connected with fellow business builders, one common thing I’ve noticed a ton of is the lack of stress and emotion management. I tend to connect with the folks who have big visions, big dreams and big plans. They stay busy, constantly push themselves and relentlessly try to help others while pursuing all of their goals all at once. They ignore their emotions because they’re too busy to deal with them. As a result, the emotions get pushed down or eventually bust out, leading to more and more experiences of stress. Either way, this type of set-up is a recipe for (internal) disaster! I get it, there’s a lot to do and slowing down to deal with emotions can sound so inconvenient, unproductive and even inefficient. But, let me tell you what the research says. The research shows us that too much stress and emotional distress actually reduces our ability to execute effectively. It reduces our brains ability to tap into creative states, and it creates barriers to clarity (like brain fog). When trying to build, grow or run a business, things like clarity, focus and creativity are pretty essential, don’t you think? Let’s be honest, we are an emotional species. We all have emotions, whether we like it or not. Despite the bad wrap they often get, emotions aren’t a bad thing to have. They help us figure out what we do and do not prefer in life. In fact, your emotions helped you come to conclusions about what kind of business you wanted to build and why. So, the answer to dealing with emotions isn’t to work so much that they just get neglected. The answer also isn’t to give your emotions the driver seat and allow them to make all of the decisions for you. The secret answer to managing emotions effectively, is simply to be intentional about how you deal with them. There’s no cookie cutter method for managing your emotions because it will look different for different people. What will be important for this step, is that you choose to explore possible ways to slow down, notice how you’re feeling and what you’re emotionally needing, then consciously choose to tend to whatever comes up. Many people find emotional support and relief in regular meditations or journaling, while others do not. Your way may not be the same as your fellow entrepreneurs' way, and that’s okay. Although mine have evolved over time, a few things that have been helpful for me along the way are therapy, mentorship, brain spotting, walking and writing. You can incorporate this second step into step one, by scheduling in time for your emotion management methods using the template I’ve made for you here.
Step three ‒ Get clear on your relationship priorities.
An often missed aspect of building a business is relationship management. Identify what relationships matter to you and why; then hold yourself accountable to prioritize them. One of the reasons I was attracted to becoming an entrepreneur was that I’d get to make my own schedule. This seemed great for me because I had three young children at the time. I wanted to be present for them while also present for my clients in a career I was passionate about. Yet, in the early stages of building my psychotherapy business, I caught myself spending way too much time spinning my wheels over things I didn’t need to stress myself about so much. I’d spend weeks at a time trying to craft my own website, create my documents from scratch, and try to get the videos edited ever so precisely. Rather than pausing for breaks or asking for help, I found myself drowning in it all alone and spending way more time than I wanted on these tasks. If I hadn’t caught myself, I would have continued down that path and wound up sacrificing the very time and presence with my kids that I’d been desiring to build my business for in the first place. Oftentimes people say that they chose to start a business, at least in part, because they thought it’d benefit relationships that are meaningful to them. Perhaps it’s “providing for my family”, or “giving back to the people who helped me”, or “to give me the time and financial freedom to be with friends and family more”. Ironically, when anxiety, stress or time demands related to your business take over, it may very well be those same or similarly significant relationships that suffer as a result.
We all want to build or grow a business to amplify what matters most, not to sacrifice it. To prevent your business from taking too much mental space, energy and time away from the other essential parts of your life, like important relationships, it’s vital that you build in an accountability system for yourself. Of course, you can’t hold yourself accountable for something that you’re unclear about. So, first, you’ll need to write down what relationships matter most to you and your lifestyle right now and why.
Next, you’ll want a streamlined way to hold yourself accountable for intentionally prioritizing these relationships. If you’re a visual person, you may want to put pictures of the person, place or thing within your visual field so that you see them at a specified time during the day. If you’re more into audio, you may want to record yourself stating a sentence or so about these relationships, and then playing that audio back to yourself for a few seconds each day. Another simple but helpful method is to incorporate reminders into your daily organization system (discussed in step one), by writing down what relationship you’ll take time to focus on and when during that specific day. There are many ways you can incorporate reminders of your priority relationships into your daily organization system. You’ll want to find the way that works best for you by practicing different options to see which feels best.
As you can see, each of these steps builds up off of the other. In unison, they create a powerful yet practical tool that’s highly customizable which means you can use it at any stage of life or business. Implementing these three steps will aid in reducing the overwhelm and enhancing focus to free up energy for what matters most as you grow your business (without sacrificing the other meaningful parts of your life).
For more guided support on how to implement these three steps to reducing anxiety while building or growing a business, you can grab the 3-part video series. This video pack is super practical and even comes equipped with opportunities to submit questions you may have along the way. From interpretation to implementation, this video-guide is there to help (and includes the free PDF from step one for easy access). A video overview of this article is also available and is free to access here.
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Dr. Toni Warner, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
For high-impact videos on all things success and satisfaction, visit Dr. Toni’sYouTube channel here, or submit your questions to receive video response free and anonymous here. Dr. Toni is a mom of 4, psychotherapist, mentor, speaker and author. She’s founder of Authentically Me Psychotherapy, a private practice in PA specializing in anxiety, bipolar and trauma support. She’s also founder of Bold and Balanced Coaching, a coaching and consulting business where she teaches parenting professionals how to effectively reduce stress, boost success and experience more ease and satisfaction at work and at home. Trained or certified in a variety of powerful methods such as Brainspotting, Dr. Toni infuses research and techniques that incorporate the brain, body and mind in her work with clients. You can find her best-selling book, The Reset, A High Achievers Guide to Freedom and Fulfillment on Amazon. When she’s not diving deep into her work, you can find her silly dancing and singing with her children, walking in nature or enjoying one of her delicious delights- homemade latte, fresh bread or chocolate!
