- Slow down enough to get some important CLARITY because clarity is your power.
Understand very clearly where you are, where you want to go, why you want to go there, what’s working in your favor and what is slowing down your momentum (even if it’s you). Once you have clarity, you can begin asking yourself what one small simple-to-execute step you can begin taking today. Incremental successes tend to lead to massive victories. Hint: sometimes that one step is actually one thing not to do.
2. Don’t keep asking yourself “how”. Ask “who”.
Who can help me? Who can mentor me? Who can I model? Who has already done something like this? Who is an expert in this area? Ask for qualified help. Even Einstein said that you can’t solve a problem with the same mind that created it so don’t beat yourself up. Just get some help. Yep, even if it means an investment. (Isn’t saving yourself weeks or months or sometimes years of trial and error worth the cost?) Then ask yourself, who do I need to be in order to reach my desired target. And then show up committed to being your best consistently enough to start seeing those results.
3. What are you making your TRUTHS?
When we are feeling stuck or overwhelmed, sometimes our minds tend to create some pretty convincing (but often very flawed) versions of the TRUTH. Ever found yourself thinking something like “nothing ever seems to work” or “I want to do something that I love but it’s hard to make money doing that.” Your present tense statements work like the programming code for your subconscious. Learn how to still make authentic statements but ones that carry the potential for success. For example, “I’m ready to focus on finding a way that I can find more passion in what I do while still making a great income.” You TRUTHS propel you or stop you in your tracks so choose wisely.
4. Move it. Move it. Move it.
Ever noticed that when we start feeling overwhelmed or anxious, that’s when we sometimes start believing that we don’t have time to get our bodies moving. Even if it’s only 5 minutes of heart pumping, dopamine producing dancing in your living room, find a way to get your heart rate up. Pull your shoulders back. Chest out. Stretch. And BREATHE from your diaphragm. Bonus points if you find a way to go out into nature and deliberately focus on the critters and the clouds. When circumstances feel uncontrollable, controlling your body and the nutrition that you feed it can feel like a victory. Remember to acknowledge yourself for a job well done!
5. (You knew this was coming…yep) Take time to meditate at least once a day. Where your focus goes, your energy flows so focusing by default is a sure way to derail yourself.
True, meditation can be a great way to relax and when you practice it consistently right before bed, it can be a terrific way to train your mind to go right to sleep. However, what many people forget is that when you practice pulling those wandering thoughts back into the meditation, you are building your focusing muscle. After several weeks of training your thoughts to go where you tell them to go, this ability starts to show up in your non-meditational moments. Times when you might previously have allowed your mind to head down a stressful rabbit hole. Prefer to practice your deliberate focusing by taking a walk in nature, a bike ride or a run down the beach? Also, great ideas. The point is to start claiming your ownership of your point of focus.
6. What are you making this time, this experience or this situation mean in your story?
Is this the beginning or the end? Is this an opportunity or an agony? Are you defining this moment by the memories of the past or the vision of a compelling future? Whether you allow your next move to be influenced by those things that you can’t control or by the things that you can control, that can be the game changer. Change your story and change your life. Ask better questions and you’ll get better answers. It’s hard to feel overwhelmed when you are standing in your place of power.
7. Don’t mistake unfamiliarity and “not yet done” for fear and “can’t be done”.
Our minds sometimes get quite comfortable living within a fortress of impossibilities. If you are feeling stuck or overwhelmed, before you allow yourself to label what you are feeling as fear, try asking yourself if this is actually just unfamiliarity. Most likely it is. And a great remedy is to start looking outside of your own story. Listen to some podcasts that share the stories of others who have ventured into their own “unfamiliar zone” to do great things, create thriving businesses, launch impactful foundations and basically do things that once may have seemed impossible.
At one time or another, all of us feel overwhelmed. Feeling stuck doesn’t make you weird and it definitely doesn’t mean that you are damaged or flawed. It simply means that you are human and most likely on the cusp of something amazing and great. So take a moment to pause, throw your superhuman cape into the wash, know that you are on your way to something freaking great — and oh by the way, you are MORE than enough. You cannot miss the boat because you ARE the boat. So anchors away!
