When you’re starting a coaching business and even if you’re much further on in your business journey, it’s common to experience periods of overwhelm.

Whenever we are doing something that is new to us – be that starting a business or doing something we’ve never done before to try and grow it, we’re experiencing what is often a very steep learning curve!

None of us are born with an intrinsic understanding of how to ‘do business’ rather it’s something we learn and then hopefully apply our intuition on top of that learning. As adults who have already felt competent in a job or career, that feeling of being a ‘beginner’ can be really overwhelming!

Add to that, that there are so many ways you can grow your business and lots of different advice out there it’s normal to feel totally overwhelmed by it all.

So how can we start and feel more clear and calm in our businesses and reduce that feeling of overwhelm? Here’s 3 ideas to help you.

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Simplify

It sounds like an obvious one but I know from experience that simplifying things can be harder than it sounds!

Most of us are trying to do too much in too little time. Multitasking usually adds to feelings of overwhelm, but occasionally we do need to hold multiple projects and tasks in our business at once – which is why I feel that planning is really essential.

However, there’s a lot of stuff you’re probably doing that isn’t an effective use of your time or brain space and perhaps needs to be let go of.

Start by listing or mind mapping out every single thing you can think of that is floating around in your brain when it comes to your business and what you think you should be doing.

Can you group any of those things together that are related? Can you immediately let some of those things go? Or can they be mentally ‘parked’ for another time? I have a list in my Notion account (where I do all my planning) where I store ideas and thoughts that I don’t want to forget but that aren’t relevant or important right now.

Once you’ve eliminated or parked some of those ideas what are you left with? Does that feel less overwhelming? Can you craft what’s left into some kind of plan?

Create a plan

Having some kind of plan to work from can make a massive difference to how overwhelmed you feel. A lot of coaches I work with simply don’t know what they should be working on, so feel completely overwhelmed into inaction because they just aren’t sure what they should be doing.

Creating a plan – perhaps with some support to do so – can help alleviate some of the overwhelm and help you know what you should be working on at any given time.

How you approach planning will be dependent on what works best for you. I prefer to plan in 6-8 week chunks of time, but monthly or quarterly planning is also popular. It might take some trial and error to find out what works best for you and how best to engage with any plan you do create.

Something that has helped me a great deal is understanding which business tasks are projects and which are ongoing. A ‘project’ is something which has a start and an end date like a launch. An ongoing task is something that needs to happen daily, weekly or monthly – such as emailing your list or posting on social media if you use it.

When you’re at the start of your business most tasks are probably projects such as creating your website (has a start date and hopefully an end date when you’re ‘finished’) and defining your offers. As you move through those type of projects you’ll start and have more ongoing tasks relating to marketing and client attraction.

Understand how you work best

This is a big one when it comes to overwhelm – we all manage work, taking action and implementing tasks differently. We all have a different relationship to the feeling of overwhelm – and other aspects of our lives that will contribute to feeling overwhelmed.

What do you know about yourself so far that can help you manage overwhelm? Are you (or do you suspect) that you’re neurodivergent? What has helped you in the past? Can you handle multitasking or does that backfire?

Sometimes feeling overwhelmed is part of a pattern of procrastination that stops us from moving forward in our business because there’s a bigger block that’s underneath it all around fear of failure, fear of visibility etc.

Extra tip – get support

If you’re feeling overwhelmed that could be a good indicator that you need some support in your business. In my experience as a business mentor, most coaches who are feeling overwhelmed simply don’t know what they should be working on and in what order they should be doing it to get the result they want – usually more clients and more income.

Getting some help to figure this out so you can then create that plan and feel confident it’s going to help you get to where you want to go can be so amazingly helpful in your business.

I offer one off clarity calls at a special rate for clients who haven’t worked with me before, and my now 12 month long program Wholehearted Business is designed to help you know what you need to be working on and when so you can build your coaching business, get more clients and grow your income.

Feeling overwhelmed is a normal and common way to feel in business but you can move through it, do get in touch to see how I can help you, or start by downloading my free Aligned Client Attraction System below:

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