Getting overwhelmed is something everyone from every walk of life experiences. Parenting, employees, friendships and entrepreneurs all experience that sense of being totally overwhelmed and frustration, anger, stress, etc. starts to take over. This causes us to make mistakes, do things we regret, and affects our health and well being in a negative way.
Uncertainty – When we don’t know how to do something, or we are learning something new, we can feel very overwhelmed, feeling like we don’t know what we are doing and we can feel incompetent.
Overload – Entrepreneurs take on the personal responsibility of everything in their business. Although you may have good people in place in your business, the work overload can cause you to feel like there is no “off switch” and you feel exhausted.
Things go wrong – Despite best planning and organization, things can and will go wrong. It is simply part of the process in creating success.
Disorganized – If we are not organized, we don’t know what to tackle first…it becomes very stressful and it is easy to lose patience with those around us.
It usually isn’t just one thing that causes us to feel overwhelmed. It is usually a combination of all of these things and more. For instance, you may be uncertain about something new you are learning, and then you are overloaded with work. Just when you feel like you are getting on track, something goes wrong and you have to troubleshoot. If you have been overloaded with work, you may have become disorganized. It is a domino effect and not just one thing that causes overwhelm.
Successful entrepreneurs understand this is all simply part of the process that any successful entrepreneur encounters.
When all of this is happening, it can lead to:
Feel like giving up – Many entrepreneurs simply give up…they have convinced themselves it is too hard and pack it in and go back to being an employee. It isn’t the business that failed. It is the individual business owner allowing overwhelm to take over and destroy their dreams.
Taking anger out on others – This anger is often directed to those we love most, our family, our friends, and our loyal employees. The result of this, creates another issue we have to deal with – guilt. Guilt then fuels the overwhelm, the anger, the stress and the feeling you want to give up on your dreams.
The solution to all of this is much simpler than most people realize. When you feel overwhelmed, stressed, angry, discouraged, disorganized, uncertain, and things are going wrong, you can feel like a spinning top out of control. It is vital to just pause, close your eyes, take a deep relaxed breath, and assure yourself you CAN handle whatever is in front of you. Ask yourself better questions that help you find solutions. Questions such as:
What can I do about this?
Who would have an answer on this?
What haven’t I thought of?
What do I need to do?
Can anyone else help solve this?
They key to understand is that you can and do have the capability of developing this type of mindset. You can remain calm, confident, positive, happy, and feel the enjoyment and self satisfaction that is a result of pushing through all of this. It is like being the captain of a ship. YOU are driving the ship (your mind). You have a choice to either give the “steering wheel” away and give up on your dreams, or recognize, as the captain, YOU have the wheel and YOU must learn to steer through the storms, just as every other captain does in bad weather. Don’t allow yourself to sink the ship because the weather is bad….push through the storm, the waves, the rain, and you will find the ultimate feelings of success that all successful entrepreneurs are rewarded with, because they were willing to find their true human potential.
