There are so many things we can be doing in our businesses and lives. So many pulls on our time, our focus and our energy. How do you decide what to do and what not to do so everything that needs to get done, does? Where do you start when there are SO many things that need to get done? Let’s talk about all that in today’s episode.
Listen Now:
Training:
Kids. Family. Business. There are a lot of things that we need to get done in a day and a lot of times it can be SUPER overwhelming. I know there are days when I’d rather crawl back in bed and eat brownies or binge watch Netflix instead of tackling my to-do list.
Maybe you feel like you should be further along in your business by now or feel like the people around you that are succeeding have left you in the dust and you just don’t know how to catch up or where to start.
Or maybe you want to get all your ducks in a line before you start rockin your business, so you are waiting for the perfect live set up. The perfect box of jewelry. The perfect background before you really get started.
Girl, this episode is for you!!
I can honestly say, I’ve been where you are. I’ve struggled with all of these things. Sometimes I still struggle with these things. But I’ve learned a little trick to move forward. To get moving that I want to share with you.
The “secret” – there is NO perfect time. No perfect setup. No perfect day of the week to go live. No magical time when everyone is online to see your posts or your live sale. There is no perfect lighting kit or setup. It’s all gravy. Things that keep you from getting where you want to go. From moving forward.
Your unconscious mind likes to stall, to put off things that it isn’t familiar with. Things that might be scary or unknown. So when you are starting out your business or getting ready for a live show or even a home party or event, your mind is going to come up with all kinds of reasons why you can’t or shouldn’t. It’s trying to protect you from things that might be uncomfortable. Trying to protect itself.
So it will come up with a million things to distract you. To make you stall out so that you don’t have to experience that space outside of your comfort zone. But here’s the truth – if you don’t get uncomfortable, you don’t grow. Things can’t get better. You NEED to get outside of that comfort zone so that you have the opportunity to grow!
When I first started going live regularly, my family was living in a camper trailer. I went live outside on the dirt with some trees behind me. The weather started to get colder so I moved my live setup into my suburban. That’s right ladies – I went live in my car. And when that wasn’t working anymore, I found a conference room in an office building and went live there.
There were times when I would drive around with some of my kids in the back of my car looking for a wifi signal strong enough to support my Live show. I’m truly embarrassed by some of my earliest live shows. They make me cringe. But, I did them. They are done.
Done is better than perfect. Let me say that again because it is SO important. Done is Better than Perfect! If I had waited for the “perfect” time and setup to do a live, I would have missed out on SO many sales and even some team members! Sure, those videos might be a little more professional, but I would have missed out on SO much! So stop making excuses for why you can’t and figure out how you can.
If you are listening and thinking, “I’m totally motivated and willing to do whatever I need to, but where do I start?” or maybe you are suffering with information overload – too much to learn, too much to do, so where do you start?!
Start from where you stand. Do what you can do to just get started. Look at your goals and see what will get you there the fastest. Start with 1 thing and when you have that mastered, add another. If that looks like going like just 1 time a week with 20 pieces of jewelry – do that. Then when you have that mastered, move to 2 times a week or go live for an hour instead of only 20 minutes.
Make a list of the things that are priorities in your life. The top 3 things you want to focus on and then write down the baby steps to get to that. One of my favorite phrases right now is “baby steps is still movement” because a lot of times I want to jump into things with both feet. I try to do everything at once and tend to burn myself out. But if I lay out smaller steps that I can take and build up to those bigger things then it’s a lot more do-able.
For example, with my live sales, I started out showing 5-10 pieces of jewelry 2-3 times a week. It was all I could handle. My kiddos would fight and yell in the background and it was really stressful. As that became more normal, I bumped up to 1 hour shows 1 time a week and then 2 times a week. Those 1 hour shows are now 3 hour shows, 3 times a week. Did I jump right in and do 3, 3 hour shows a week. Nope. I had to build up to that.
Let me just take a minute to clarify 1 point here. Don’t use my advise on this show to justify less action than you could or should be taking. I don’t want you to think that you can take itty-bitty steps once in a while and your business will grow by leaps and bounds. That’s not how this works. Massive, consistent action are what is going to bring the big results that you want. What I am saying, is that if you are frozen with a deer-in-the-headlights kind of look or feeling that those massive actions are just too much to comprehend and /or implement, break it down into smaller, more do-able chunks until you can build up to all that awesomeness.
A classic example is my kiddos and cleaning their rooms. They stand in the doorway, looking at the massive pile of toys, games, clothes, blankets and sometimes even food and they have NO idea where to start. So they don’t. They sit there, playing with a toy or just staring at the pile or the ceiling. They are frozen by their perception of how much work they need to do so they never even start.
Usually I go in, put the blanket and pillow on the bed along with the stuffies and suddenly the pile is a lot less massive. Then they are encouraged and energized and start cleaning too. That little action was enough to jump start their energy and help them feel more empowered.
The key here is to just take action. Grab the closest thing near to you and put it away. Or grab the nearest piece of jewelry to you and post it on FB. There is something about taking action that makes a difference. Once you get some energy flowing somewhere, anywhere it’s a lot easier to keep going.
Let’s get a little scientific. Have you ever watched a rocket launch into space? For that tiny capsule to get into space requires a much larger rocket and a lot of fuel. Like a lot. It’s estimated that about 90% of the rocket before launch is fuel for the rocket to break free of the earth’s pull. That’s a LOT of fuel required to create the necessary speed and thrust to get that rocket moving.
Newton’s 1st law of motion is “an object in motion tends to stay in motion”. So that rocket, once it gets up to a certain speed will require a significantly lower amount of fuel to keep going, to keep moving forward. If that rocket was to slow down or event stop, it would need all that fuel again to get going. To get up off the ground.
So as you get going in your biz, it’s a lot easier to stay going. To keep moving forward. Gaining momentum and increasing in speed. Sometimes life will require to slow down a bit, but just don’t stop because its so much easier to speed up if you’ve slowed down instead of starting all over again.
So if you are feeling overwhelmed, pick one thing to do and get it done. Even if it takes all day. Knock it out. Then tomorrow, knock out another and another. Soon you will look back and see all you’ve done and how far you’ve gone. Start from where you stand right now so that you can get to where you want to be.
Resources:
The Five Second Rule by Mel Robbins – this book is one that has helped me a LOT when it comes to feeling overwhelmed and not knowing where to start. It an easy read and one I know will help you too!