3 Ways to Minimize Your Overwhelm

If you are trying to build your own business, chances are you feel overwhelmed most of the time.

Overwhelm is a real problem as that feeling of anxiety and confusion takes away from your ability to focus and get the work done that will move you toward success.

Here are three ways to minimize your feeling of overwhelm.

(Notice how I didn’t give you 101 Ways, that would just overwhelm you).

1. Clearly define your goal. One goal.

The truth is, you can work on 18 projects at the same time, feel extremely busy, and have nothing to show for your work for years.  Pick a goal. Define it clearly. An example is, “I will offer a paid webinar series on minimizing overwhelm in November 2012.”

Write it down. You are done with this step.

(See doesn’t that feel good? Not overwhelming at all!)

2. Do the work that gets you toward your goal. In a clear, step-by-step manner.

I know this sounds so obvious.   However, I talk to people every week who have a supposed goal of offering a webinar in a few weeks, but are asking me questions about Facebook marketing. Remember, you can do 18 things a day. But that is chaotic and overwhelming. Don’t do 18 things a day.

Write down a clear list of what you need to do to achieve your goal. In the webinar example you would need to obtain access to webinar software, learn how to use it, write the content, put up a sales page, set up a payment system, and develop a marketing plan. Those are the steps.

Honestly, there is work to be done in that process, but if you lay it all out step-by-step and then have a plan to implement daily, you will reach your goal without a ton of stress and panic.

3. Stop looking at other people’s stuff.

What overwhelms us the most is access to thousands of other people’s opinions.

We read blogs, Twitter feeds, Facebook updates and so many are giving us advice on how to do things.

Things like list building, marketing, content creation, personal branding. (Just now someone just offered me advice that my website colors aren’t right for me. That felt overwhelming for a minute and now I am just need to let it go as it is waaay too late to change my colors now.)

When you are focused on reaching your goals, put your blinders on, put your head down and do your work. Reading other people’s work is really giving away your time and power to someone else who is distracting your from YOUR success.

And that ‘s it! Three tips to minimize overwhelm….

• Define your goal.

• Do the work step-by-step.

• Ignore anything else that isn’t moves you toward you goal.

I’d love to hear what you are working on and how you are eliminating overwhelm in the comments below!