7 Mental Hacks for the Overwhelmed Entrepreneur

Omer (00:11.840)
Welcome to another episode of the SaaS Podcast.
I'm your host, Omer Khan, and this

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is the show where I interview proven

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founders and industry experts who share their stories, strategies and insights to help you

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build, launch and grow your SaaS business.

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This Week's episode is a little different.
I don't have a guest.
It's just you and me.
And I want to start by asking you a question.
Do you ever feel like there's not enough time in the day to get everything done?
Do you start feeling overwhelmed as soon

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as you think about everything on your plate?
If you're an entrepreneur, you probably know this feeling.

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Well, I. I do.
You are running on all cylinders trying

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to build your business.
You have a long to do list that seems to grow longer every day.

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You just don't have enough hours in

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the day, which makes you start to feel seriously overwhelmed.

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Now, feeling overwhelmed can result in negative emotions such as anxiety, worry or irritability.
And, and it can increase your stress

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levels, which could lead to even more serious issues with your mental or physical health.

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While you can't add more hours to your day, there are a number of

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strategies you can use to help you stop feeling overwhelmed and get yourself in

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the right physical and mental state.
And I'm going to share seven of those mental hacks with you today, which are relatively easy to implement and, and could potentially make a huge difference to

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your health as well as your ability to get things done.

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Hack number one is to take a deep breath.
Now, I know that might sound a bit obvious, but bear with me.
When you're feeling overwhelmed or stressed, it

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can be hard to think clearly.

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And when you're not focused and thinking

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clearly, you are more likely to make bad decisions or struggle to get things done.

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The first and most important step when

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you're feeling stressed is to relax.

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In the 1970s, Herbert Benson, a Harvard

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Medical School physician, developed a technique called the relaxation response and actually wrote a book about it.

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Now, this is a state of deep

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rest that helps you to change your response to stress by things like reducing your heart rate, reducing your blood pressure, the rate of your breathing, your muscle tension, and so on.

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And you can use a number of

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techniques to induce what's called the relaxation response, including mindfulness, Tai chi, yoga, deep breathing, and deep breathing specifically, which is

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also known as diaphragmatic breathing, is a

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simple but powerful technique for dealing with stress.

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And in the show notes for this

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episode, I've included a three minute video which will teach you diaphragmatic breathing and

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you can get to the show Notes by going to ConversionAid.com129, you can practice

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diaphragmatic breathing, lying down, sitting, or even standing up.

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And once you're comfortable with this technique,

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you can do it anywhere.

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So watch the video, practice the technique for a few minutes, and the next

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time you are feeling overwhelmed, give diaphragmatic or deep breathing a try.

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Hack number two is to start writing.
One reason you might be overwhelmed is

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that your brain feels overloaded with information.

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You might be mentally juggling a long list of tasks, or you may have negative thoughts spinning in your head.
One of the best ways to clear your mind is to write things down.
If you're feeling overwhelmed because your head

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is filled with all the things you need to get done, then try this simple exercise.

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Grab a sheet of paper and spend

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10 minutes making a list of everything that you need to get done.

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Don't try to evaluate or organize every task.

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You can do that later.

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For now, just get those tasks out

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of your head and onto paper.
This simple technique can help you to reduce the feeling of overwhelm.

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Your brain doesn't have to keep juggling

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all these tasks and deadlines anymore.

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You've effectively cleared your mental RAM and

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captured all those thoughts in a safe place.

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And secondly, if you're struggling with negative thoughts that are just bringing you down

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or just putting you into a cycle

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of just constantly thinking about negative things,

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you can use a similar technique to help you get rid of that head trash Again.

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Grab another sheet of paper, write down all your negative thoughts again, spend about 10 minutes, and just keep writing down every negative thought that comes to mind.
And when you're done, grab that piece of paper, rip it up, shred it, whatever, and throw it away.
It might sound like a silly exercise, but in 2012, a study published in Psychological Science, a journal, showed that writing

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negative thoughts and then throwing them away

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can actually help to clear your mind.

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Now, you could try doing either of

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these exercises on your computer, smartphone, or

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tablet, but for some reason, at least,

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at least I kind of feel this is that for some reason, there's something magical about writing things down with pen and paper.
So give one or both of these techniques a try and let me know

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how you get along.

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All right?
Hack number three is to reset your mental compass.
Making a list of all the tasks that are bouncing around in your head

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is a great way to clear your mind.

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It's a simple bottoms up approach to planning your work, but it can still

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leave you with a nagging feeling.

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You might be able to check off

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things off your to do list and feel like you're doing busy work.

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But are you also working on the

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things that will help you to make meaningful progress towards your goals?

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I once worked with a software development team that used Scrum and Agile planning

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to regularly ship product updates.

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And every month they'd select items from

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their backlog, work on them, and then

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celebrate when they were done.
But when I asked them what they

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were trying to achieve with their product

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in the next six to 12 months,

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they didn't really have a clear idea.

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They were stuck in Buy Bottoms up planning.
It's kind of like getting into your car every day and celebrating that you've driven five miles, but you have no idea what your final destination is.
And that's why you also need top down planning.
You need to think about your most important goals and identify the activities that

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will move you closer to achieving those goals.

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And again, here's a simple exercise that

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will help you with top down planning.

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Grab a sheet of paper and write

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down your three to five most important goals in the next 90 days.
These can be business goals, personal goals,

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just the three to five goals that

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you feel are the most important for you in the next 90 days.

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And then for each goal, write down

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the top three activities that you can do to make progress towards each goal.

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And by the end of this exercise, you'll end up with anywhere between nine

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to 15 activities, which is basically the list of your most important tasks.
These are the things that you should be spending 80% of your time on.

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So now you basically have two lists.

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One is your Bottoms up list, which is going to be everything that's been on your mind.

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There may be some things in there

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that help you move towards your goals, but there are also going to be a lot of things in there which

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are really just, you know, stuff that you've got to do, like thumb some grocery shopping that you've got to get done, or solving an issue for a customer.
And those things are important, but are

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they really moving you towards your goals?

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Maybe, maybe not.
If you also combine that with your top down planning approach and your 9 to 15 most important activities for the

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next 30 to 90 days, you also

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end up with a very powerful list of things which if you work on those every day, even if you're making

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small steps towards each one of those,

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you know that you are making good

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progress towards your goals.
And over 30 days, 90 days a

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year, you're going to build more and more momentum.
And before you know it, you're going

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to be able to check off these Big goals that you had, and maybe you weren't sure how you were going to achieve.

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Hack number four is to focus on process, not outcome.
It's great to have a vision or a big goal that drives and motivates us.
It gives you a direction for your business and personal life.
But when it comes to sitting down and doing work, continuing to focus on a vision or goal can actually become a problem.
Let's say you want to write a blog post.
You know that you're doing this so

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you can get more customers.

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You want to use content marketing to

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generate a steady stream of new leads.
You want to hit a million dollars in annual revenue.

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But suddenly you realize how much work you have ahead of you, and you start thinking about how many more blog

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posts you'll have to write before you

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see any kind of meaningful result, how many words you're going to be writing, how much research you're going to have to do, how much time you're going to have to spend publishing and promoting each piece of content.
And then you're going to have these

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thoughts about, is anybody going to read this?

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Am I writing the most important stuff that that's going to actually help me

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to hit a home run?

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And suddenly the task of writing one blog post now seems so overwhelming because you've filled your mind with the outcome instead of the process.
Now, several years ago, I read a wonderful book called the Practicing Mind, and

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I'll include a link in the show

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notes by a guy called Thomas M. Sterner.
And it really helped me to clearly understand the difference between process and outcome.
And instead of thinking about how your

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blog post is going to help you generate a million dollars in revenue, you

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should focus on the process of writing

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that one blog post.
You should approach it with what Stirner

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calls a practicing mindset and a skill

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that you can improve.

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And really what you.
You start to do is you put.
You get into flow or try to get into flow and really focus on.
On the one task that you have

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in front of you.

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And as Stirner says, the secret is

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in learning that the process of achieving your goals is not something you must endure, but instead is where the real joy waits to be discovered.

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And I'm going to say that again because I think it's so important.

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The secret is in learning that the

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process of achieving your goals is not

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something you must endure, but instead is where the real joy waits to be discovered.

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You should absolutely have an inspiring vision and big goals.
But when it comes to doing the work, focus on the process, not the outcome.
Hack Number five is to build a single tasking habit.
The truth is that our brain isn't

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very good at multitasking.

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Our mind is programmed to deal with one thing at a time.

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So when we try to multitask, we're

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effectively rapidly switching from one task to another and back.
We try to multitask because we think we'll be more productive, but there's plenty of scientific evidence that shows the opposite is true.
Also, when we multitask, we're not being

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mindful and fully engaged with the task we're doing, which goes back to the previous point about focusing on the process, not the outcome.

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In 2009, a research study by Stanford

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University showed that multitasking is less productive than single tasking.

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In other words, doing one thing at a time.
The study also found that people who

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are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information don't pay attention, control their memory, or switch from one job to another, as well as those who prefer to complete one task at a time.

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I came across a great quote, and I don't know who said this, so

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I can't attribute it to anyone, but

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it basically said, multitasking is the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time.
And I think that's a great way

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to think about multitasking.

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So it might seem counterintuitive, but when you're feeling overwhelmed, focus on doing one task at a time.
You'll be more productive and less stressed.
Hack number six is learn to do less.
As entrepreneurs, we have no shortage of ideas.
You probably have a long list of

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things you want to do today and enough ideas to keep you busy for years.
It can be frustrating when you realize that there just isn't enough time for you to do everything in the day

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or maybe even in this lifetime, and that creates overwhelm.

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The first step to dealing with this

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is to accept that you'll never get it all done.
I know that's hard to accept and to say, but it's a reality.
And once we acknowledge that, we feel

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less stressed because we have less resistance

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to this feeling of trying to get it all done.
The second step is to realize that it's not about doing lots of things.
It's about doing a small number of things that really matter and help you to make a positive impact in people's lives.
Think about five years from now.

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What would you have liked to have accomplished?

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How many of the things that you're working on right now will you even

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care about in five years?
It's easy to get consumed with our day to day priorities and fire drills.

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But when you do this five year exercise, you quickly realize that most of these things just won't matter in the future.
I mean, do you look back at maybe something that you did five years

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ago which you thought was really important

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and now you say to yourself, well, that wasn't and that was a waste of time?
Maybe, but the chances are you've probably even forgotten about it because it was

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that insignificant to the big picture.

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And I think that's kind of part of the challenge of stepping away from thinking about the day to day stuff to thinking about the long term and saying, is what I'm doing today something

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that's really going to matter to me next year, three years, five years and so on.

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And by doing that, you'll also start

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to build, get more clarity about the

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one or two things that you should

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be spending the majority of your time on.

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So remind yourself every day that it's not about getting more done, it's about getting results that matter.
Hack number seven is start with micro actions.
Some years ago, I started taking golf

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lessons at a local driving range in England.

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And I'd arrive early and practice hitting the ball.
I'd missed the ball completely eight times out of 10.
And the times I did make contact, the ball either didn't go very far or it didn't go straight.
The instructor gave me a simple tip.

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Instead of taking a big swing and

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trying to hit the ball 100 yards, he told me to take a very small swing and hit the ball five yards.
It seemed like such a pointless exercise, but I agreed to do what he said.
Now.
Now that I had such a small

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goal, I didn't try very hard.

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I took a very small swing and slowly hit the ball five yards and it was almost a perfect shot.
The instructor then asked me to hit the ball 10 yards, then 20 yards and so on.
And eventually I was hitting the ball a hundred yards eight times out of ten and pretty well.
And why was I able to do this?
Because I started with a micro goal, a micro action, something really small and easy.
It didn't take much effort and I didn't need to try very hard.
But that micro goal also gave me confidence.
It helped me to build momentum and pretty soon I was achieving a bigger goal.
So when you're feeling overwhelmed, it can be hard to get started and it's

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really easy to procrastinate.

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And that's something I do all the time.
And I have to remind myself of how to break out of that procrastination.
So start by setting yourself a micro goal, a micro action, and give yourself something so easy that you have no

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resistance to doing it.

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If you're struggling to write a blog post on a regular basis, set a goal to write 100 words a day.

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And you can do that in probably five or ten minutes.
If you've got a big project that

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you need to start, pick one action

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that you can do in a few minutes.
I mean, we can work on anything for a few minutes.
Kind of reminds me of Tony Horton

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in P90X if you guys have ever

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done those home workout programs and he kind of gets you to do this kind of crazy work and it's like

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you can do anything for 30 seconds.
And it's the same thing here.
You can do anything for a few minutes.
And most of the times those few

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minutes will build the momentum and, and

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it'll give you what you need to

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keep working and take the next step and the next step.

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So if you're feeling overwhelmed, if you're

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struggling to get started, if you're feeling

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like you're procrastinating, start with a micro action.
So those are the seven mental hacks to help you stop feeling overwhelmed.
Just as a quick recap.
Number one, take a deep breath and

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learn diaphragmatic breathing, which you can do anywhere.

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Hack number two is to start writing

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and either use that as a way

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to do bottoms up planning and get

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all the tasks and deadlines in your

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head down on paper, or use it

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as a way to get the negative

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thoughts out of your head and in the trash, basically.

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Hack number three is to reset your

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mental compass, which is to make sure

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that not you're not just doing bottoms up planning, but you're also doing top

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down planning by thinking about your 3

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to 5 most important goals in the next 90 days and what are the things you need to do to make progress towards those.

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Hack number four was to focus on process, not outcome.
And applying the lessons that I learned

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from reading the book the Practicing Mind, which is a great read and it's a very short book, so highly recommended.

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Hack number five was to build a single tasking habit.
No matter what we think about multitasking,

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we are not as productive when we multitask than we are when we single task.

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And we're going to be more present,

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we're going to focus more on the process.
So there are a lot of benefits to single tasking and there are studies

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that back up that that's true.
Hack number six was learn to do less.
You don't need to get it all done, you need to constantly figure out

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how to strip down your list to

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boil it down to the essential things

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that really make a difference that will

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help you to make the biggest impact,

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to help you to identify the things that you'll really care about in five years time.

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And number seven.
The number seven hack was to start with micro actions.

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If you're feeling overwhelmed, if you've got

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too much to do, if you're procrastinating, set yourself a ridiculously small goal, a small action, and use that as a

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way to build momentum and gradually start doing the bigger things.

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These are simple strategies, but they have the potential to deliver big outcomes.
It can be easy to get overwhelmed as an entrepreneur, and the overwhelm can

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lead to anxiety and stress, which, as we've discussed, can make things worse.

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There's no silver bullet that's going to cure your overwhelm or stress, but the

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simple strategies in this episode can be a useful reference when you need a little help.

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So the next time you feel overwhelmed,

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hit the pause button on what you're doing.

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Think about one or more of the mental hacks that we've discussed today and use them to help you clear your mind and get refocused.