Are you the Queen of self-sabotage? Do you find yourself stuck in a whirlwind of overwhelm not knowing where or how to start and crack the feck on?
Sarah Knight
As women spin all of the plates and display our ability to juggle seventy billion things at once like it’s a badge of honour – and, dare I say it; we’re also pretty good at being martyrs to the cause of ‘too much to do, not enough time.’
We are also the warriors of worry and it so often becomes the stumbling block in our own success; yet a third of UK entrepreneurs are female.
Women are brilliant at running and maintaining a business, but many of us still struggle to find the impetus to crack on and navigate the choppy seas of overwhelm.
There’s a bazillion inspirational quotes online addressing this, which we save and share on Instagram. So why do we rarely act on these carefully curated words of advice?
It’s easy to read what we should do, could do and would do if only we had more time. But when we hit that self-built brick wall in our minds, we usually just don’t know how to restart – and it’s starting that is the hardest step.
Sarah Knight, owner of Mind The Gap Business Academy and specialist in coaching women to master their business mindset, provides these four tips to stopping self-sabotage and pressing play on success.
There’s no getting up at 5am to master your mindset and give thanks to the world; Sarah believes that there’s a need for us to take small, practical, realistic steps to enable us to achieve.
1. Switch on to something
In order for us to switch off from a habit, a negative mindset, an intrusive thought that can often render us paralysed we have to switch on to something else.
Our brains (our supercomputers) need action-based positive instructions. They’re wired for survival and for protection, so that when we have intrusive thoughts, we tend to spiral with them, trying to work out what we would do in that situation. When we tell ourselves not to think that intrusive thought all we can do is just that! So we need to switch our brains onto a different thought, by taking action.
By positively taking action and switching on to another activity our pathways change direction, and our brain happily wanders down another route. Next time you are struggling with an intrusive thought, do something, do anything and move. Walk into the kitchen and make a brew, and talk yourself through the process, through the actions you need to take to make the brew. Go outside and list five things you can see, four things you can hear, three things you can feel, two things you can smell. And even though you may feel a bit stupid, say it out loud. By saying it out loud, the brain takes it from the creative right brain into the logical left brain, where the supercomputer in your head sees it as an action plan – and if you write it down, it’s 42% more likely to happen.
Well-being is not a state of being – it is a state of action.
2. Pay attention to ONE thing - multitasking is a massive myth
Multitasking should not be a badge of honour. There’s something called the switch cost effect – if you are switching from one task to another, there is a cost in your attention and focus as you have to switch your brain off from something on to another.
By focusing on one task at a time, whether it is doing the washing, remembering to pick the smalls up from school or being present in a meeting, by focusing on that thing, and only that thing, you will be more efficient and more productive. Which means you will get more done, which means you are reducing your load, which means you are achieving and setting yourself up for success, which means you are less likely to struggle with overwhelm.
Do one thing. Finish it. Do another thing. Finish it.
3. Time chunk
To successfully do one thing you need to master your time-management. It’s also a bloomin’ brilliant source of therapy. You put your worries into a workable system and you tick them off; there’s a plan, there’s a process and you set yourself up for success.
By time chunking your day (and that includes time for scrolling, texting and making a brew), then you are taking your brain out of panic, out of flight and freeze and into command and conquer. Make an action list, plan and prepare your month, your week, your day and you will manage your overwhelm, you will have a plan and you will be less likely to self-sabotage.
4. The good work starts with you
This is possibly the hardest lesson to stomach. There is no other bugger that can do this for us. Our families and friends, our support networks can help, but unless you are prepared to work on yourself, you will stay stuck in the treacle. There is no-one that can help you like you can help yourself. This really is the secret sauce.
We have to take personal responsibility for our own care, our own wellbeing and our own ability to get stuff done. Once we make that mindshift and we know we can do it, and, crucially, we have the choice to do it, then everything gets easier.
If you say to yourself ‘I get to sort this out, it is my choice’, rather than, ‘I have to sort this out, what a blinkin’ chore’, then your brain shifts its perspective. Once it is a choice, it is more enjoyable, more bearable and you are in control.
We need to train our mindset and harness our supercomputers so the tasks we have ahead of us become an actionable and achievable plan, and we can crack on, having some fun along the way.
For further information about Sarah and to join her Press Play Mind The Gap Academy course, head to bit.ly/mtgpressplay
Tagged in Manchester