It’s totally natural to feel overwhelmed at times in your business. Let’s face it, whether you’re a new coach or if you’ve been doing this for a while, there’s plenty of reasons why you might feel overwhelmed.

Quite recently I was feeling overwhelmed in my business and in this post I’m going to share a few of the things that really helped me manage that feeling and get some calm back!

This question actually came from Tatiana on Instagram so thank you to her for asking me to cover this!

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These are a lot of tips, and I wouldn’t suggest trying to look at all of these things at once (although they are interconnected) as that will probably just lead to you feeling even more overwhelmed!

Have a strategy

When we don’t have a strategy in our business it can be really hard to know what the heck we’re actually doing which can make us feel totally overwhelmed!

A strategy doesn’t have to be anything scary, it’s simply a thought out plan of action designed to achieve a specific result.

When we’re without that plan of action we can try and do too much, we might be doing things that don’t work and ultimately we might not be getting the results we want to get, all of which can feel massively overwhelming!

So my first tip is to sit down and just write out a plan of action / strategy for your business. If you already have a strategy, then it might be time to reconnect with that and see why it’s not working for you right now.

Take a step back

My next tip is to simply take a step back. Many of us spend loads of time working ‘in’ our businesses on all the day to day tasks like serving our clients or doing our content marketing. But we don’t give ourselves the time and space to work ‘on’ our businesses.

When we don’t get the opportunity to take a step back and have a birds eye view of our business that can be really overwhelming because we’re right in the mess of it all constantly.

When you take that step back it’s a lot easier to see what’s going on and what’s making you feel overwhelmed so you can make some changes going forward.

I like to think of these as CEO days where you get to step into ‘boss’ mode and look at things from that perspective.
When you take a step back, that’s when you can check in with your strategy, reconnect with your overall vision for your business and where it is you’re going and where it is you want to take things.

A couple of weeks ago when I was feeling overwhelmed I took a couple of hours out just to look at that birds eye view of my business. That enabled me to make some important decisions which have really reduced how overwhelmed I was feeling.

These CEO days / dates can also be a good time to look at how your business and life are interacting. Something that came up for me in my session was that there’s stuff going on in my life that is going to have an impact on my business and my overwhelm.

Having building work done and wanting to spend time redecorating isn’t a business thing strictly speaking, but it does have a big impact.

Factoring that into my business strategy for the next few months helped to ensure I don’t feel overwhelmed moving forward.

Take some time off

I want to shout this one from the rooftops! Sometimes when we get really overwhelmed it’s because we’re just not taking breaks or holidays. Maybe we’re trying to do too much at once.

And again, I think this is where we have to not silo our life and business because the two are going to interact. Often this can go too far the other way where we’re just thinking about our businesses all of the time and not taking a break.

Maybe this is about taking time out on a day to day basis. I’m a big believer in scheduling in ‘white space’ where you have nothing specific to do. One of my core desired feelings is ‘cosy’ an element of which is spaciousness and having white space in my schedule feels incredibly spacious to me!

Or perhaps this is about taking proper holidays / vacations. Another thing that came up for me on my CEO date was around taking proper time off. So now I can see which weeks in the year I take off completely, and then which weeks I reduce my working hours right now, like when the kids are off on school holidays for example.

From a mindset point of view, something I’ve been working on is seeing rest as productive because without it, it really is hard to be your best self in life or business and reducing overwhelm can certainly be a positive side effect of taking time off and getting more rest.

Also, I don’t know if you need to hear this but you’re allowed to take a break from social media as well!

Declutter your business

I know this sounds like something you should be doing to your utility cupboard but yes, you should be decluttering your business too!
This tip might be more relevant to coaches who have been going for a while and perhaps have quite a few offers going on or different services and lots of marketing efforts, but decluttering what isn’t working for you, can really help with overwhelm.

It’s important to note that this isn’t about just decluttering what’s not working. Sometimes an offer might be working on paper, but for you personally it’s stressful or unenjoyable.

I’ve decluttered various programmes in my business that were successful on the outside but just weren’t working for me in terms of the amount of overwhelm they were creating because they were no longer aligned.

As well as offers and services, maybe you need to declutter your desktop – physical and digital? Maybe you need to declutter your tech stack and unsubscribe from apps and software you aren’t using?

Decluttering can look like lots of different things but it’s a great way to simplify and streamline your business all of which can help to reduce overwhelm!

Get an organisational system in place

A great thing to do after decluttering – because trying to organise lots of stuff can actually add more overwhelm – is to get some organisational systems in place.

What in your business feels messy and unorganised? What can you put in place to help alleviate this?

Maybe you need a proper client onboarding system? Maybe using a tool like Trello or Asana would be useful?

It’s a super personal process to find something that works for you. I use Asana with my VA, but otherwise I’ve never got on with tools like this.

But Notion is a tool that works for me because it seems to work for my brain. Plus you can make it very pretty! Just search Notion aesthetic on Pinterest to see what I mean!

If Notion sounds intriguing then check out my Notion Planning Templates for Coaches here.

Maybe it’s not a tech tool, perhaps it’s a paper organiser – whatever works for you do it!

Outsource

Something else to consider if you’re feeling overwhelmed is do you need to outsource any of your tasks to a Virtual Assistant or other team member? Not every business will have the resources to fund a VA, but at a certain point outsourcing can be a really useful thing to do to reduce overwhelm and allow you to get some support.

Feeling supported in my business through my VA has felt like such a gift and I’d definitely recommend it when it feels like the right time for you.

Look at how you’re spending your time

Something else worth considering is to look at how you’re spending your time.

Maybe you’re trying to see too many clients at once? It can be easy to overestimate how many clients you can manage at once because whatever niche you’re in, it’s not just the 1 on 1 time with each client, it’s the support between calls, the energy required to hold that space for them etc, all of which can lead to you feeling overwhelmed.

If that’s the case then maybe it’s about reducing client slots and increasing your prices.

Sometimes we’re just spending time doing things in our business that just aren’t moving the needle in the right direction and alongside the decluttering tip, looking at how you’re spending your time in your business and making an assessment of that can be useful.

Mindset

Mindset might not be something you automatically think of when it comes to feeling overwhelmed, but it can play a massive role in how you show up in your business.

Whether we have really high expectations for ourselves, or we’re comparing ourselves to others and then trying to do too much, these kinds of things can have an impact.

How we feel about money and success can play into how we show up, how much we try to do and constantly striving for more / never feeling like you’re doing enough can absolutely leave us feeling overwhelmed.

So checking in with yourself on a mindset level can be useful when it comes to alleviating overwhelm. Not everything is a mindset thing, but in this case there might just be an element of that!

Next steps

If you’d like any support to help you with overwhelm I have some things that might help!

My Notion Planning Templates can help you get organised.

My Soul Centred Planning Process can help you take that birds eye view of your business

Or book a 1:1 Clarity Call with me if you want to do a deep dive and really work through what’s making you feel overwhelmed.

I hope you’ve found this post helpful! I’d love to know your thoughts on overwhelm, let me know in the comments.

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