When you’re everything (and everyone) in your business – who is looking after you?
Asking this question often gets my small business owner clients thinking. As a business owner (and solo parent) myself, I have navigated some big life events and a lot of uncertainty. These experiences have brought me wisdom and taught me to be resourceful, creative and steadfast in my support for myself. And also helped in the guidance and support I can offer to others.
In an economic and global climate of uncertainty, it can feel easy to fall into the trap of OVERWHELM, CATASTROPHIZING or even DENIAL. It may even feel as if there’s nothing we can do, when in fact, some new actions are required.
Last week I presented a session devoted to this topic at a collaborative event for small business owners in Wellington’s CBD. The desired outcome for the session was that it be an engaging and insightful hour of self-reflection and knowledge building. Designed to help small business owners and individuals manage themselves, their business and the increasing mental load better.
The old adage, knowledge is power, almost always applies (unless you’re an overthinker, in which case set a time limit for your research!). Knowing WHY we are feeling a certain way, unpacking it, can help demystify and help us feel clearer on ways to manage what we can.
Here are some of the insights shared at the event, Three Steps to Manage Uncertainty Better:
Step 1: Knowledge is Power: unpacking uncertainty:
So what is uncertainty and why does it make us feel so icky? Uncertainty is defined as: the inability to predict future events or outcomes with complete accuracy. In short, ‘a lack of sureness about something’, according to Merriam-webster.
When you break this down, it relates to five things:
- Lack of Information
- Change
- Complexity
- Ambiguity
- Risks
Feeling It’s Beyond Our Control:
As business owners, or in fact anyone trying to gather more of a sense of security, this can leave us feeling; disempowered, second guessing ourselves, uneasy or even scared! Feeling that circumstances are beyond our control can be especially challenging if we have perfectionistic tendencies. Or are hard out recovering control freaks (I am sure we all know one, I am definitely familiar with this territory!).
Here’s the thing – we have all managed difficult and challenging situations before. On numerous occasions. When we learnt to walk and fell down, no one ever suggested we stay on the floor and just shuffled for the rest of eternity! We all have power and we all have choices. And a specific set of talents to help us. Not to mention our networks at home and in business.
Step 2: Finding A Level Of Acceptance:
So in reality, uncertainty is a fact of life. There will always be things we can’t control. And we are all dealing with a measure of it every day. Remembering that we are not alone – that everyone in the world is feeling more or less uncertainty than we are right now helps.
Accepting that there are things we can control, actions we can take, to reduce the mental load that uncertainty brings. In fact, taking ACTION (the right action) is the single biggest antidote to fear and overwhelm I know. I advocate for taking ACTION in almost every situation, every day.
Practically, if we review the above list, we can; seek more information, we can actively manage our feelings, resources and the opportunities that change can create. We can simplify our work, breaking down complexity. We can take the time to clarify ambiguity by asking good questions. Sometimes this can feel challenging but so is uncertainty.
So choose your hard! Accept that there will always be risks, but so too are there always opportunities. To get creative, and challenge ourselves to think differently. To collaborate and refine our approaches. All of this helps us to feel more confident, empowered and reassured that we can actually MANAGE this uncertainty better.
Step 3: Managing Our Mental Load:
Sometimes we unconsciously self-sabotage due to the sheer volume of tasks, distractions, and frankly, an inability to say NO!
When we feel like any of these statements apply, it’s time to STOP and do something different:
- MY LIFE feels like it ‘belongs’ to others!
- I am ALWAYS too busy to prioritize myself
- I havesomany distractions, I can’t FOCUS
- I find it hard to say no
Pause and Prioritising Ourselves: taking small steps
Sometimes life becomes a blur of endless actions (or procrastination) and we almost get stuck in fight or flight.
Taking small but consistent steps will really help with overwhelm. Purposefully choosing to slow down. Pausing and becoming more deliberate in our planning and prioritisation of ourselves is key. Reminding ourselves that taking action requires focus, and planning and patience with ourselves and others (even the world right now) is so powerful.
Managing Distractions:
Have you ever felt like your mind is like a snowglobe (when you shake it up the snow swirls inside a tiny glass dome)? And when you get distracted, or distract yourself, from the job that needs to be done, taking time to allow the snow globe (that can be our minds) to settle, can bring a sense of clarity. And allow us to see clearly what needs to be done. Remembering that we can and should delegate to others at times when you can’t manage everything yourself. That may be at work, anything that doesn’t HAVE to be done by you. Or it could be at home, again – there’s a lot of mental load that comes from life management or lack of it. Asking for help can be a game changer. Not feeling guilty for asking for help is a skillset all of its own! Maybe that’s nesst month’s blog.
Wrapping up:
To wrap up this month’s blog, I’d love to remind you that if you ever need a second opinion, some new strategies or support to help you feel more empowered and confident, you can book a free 30-minute strategy session here (this helps us both to see if we are a good fit and I offer what you need). Or if anything I’ve mentioned creates a question, or you’d like to offer some feedback, please vicky@vickyevans.com
Wishing you the power to press pause, the courage to take consistent action and the wisdom to take the WINS – every one of them!