9 Things to stop 🛑 doing NOW if you want to build your business with less stress, overwhelm and sleepless nights

Think about it, when was the answer to overwhelm ever to seek more things to do?

NEVER. Yet when ever the to do list is mounting up along with the inbox and staff issues, the message preached to us is hustle, just do it, (wo)man up.

Yet given the opportunity to pause and take a 30,000 ft view there is no intelligent person who would look at you and the work ahead and point to inadequate effort as the cause or more effort as the answer.

STOP telling people what to do. Sure, it seems quicker in the moment but here’s the thing. Tell someone what to do and bunch of really undesirable things happen. That person becomes a boomerang who keeps coming back to you for answers. That person feels incompetent and will soon become resentful. This is the single biggest issue in MOST businesses today.

Instead master the skill of supporting others to their own clarity of the best next step and create an employee who feels valued and competent and trusted.

STOP booking or accepting back to back meetings. It might seem productive and efficient. Maybe even when you don’t back to back them they always seem to have a way of running on but you aren’t paid for productivity you are paid to make high quality decisions.

Instead make sure meetings have at least 15 minute between them and make sure they follow a simple system that supports clarity and decision making.

STOP checking your email and slack between meetings. Your constantly availability and responses are creating a self fulfilling prophecy. You’re loving the dopamine of urgency is creating a world of urgency around you.

Instead take the time create a clear email strategy that doesn’t buy into other peoples urgency and aligns with the mission of the business and your priorities and stick to that.

STOP keeping the problems, challenges and obstacles that arose today in your head until tomorrow causing you to ruminate, map out scenarios and assumptions in your head making sleep difficult.

Instead get that stuff down on paper and allow your subconscious to explore it while you sleep soundly.

STOP working in the last hour before bed revving up your nervous system before bed making sleep shallow and disturbed.

Instead prioritise high quality sleep in order to prioritise high quality thinking and work every day.

STOP keeping your phone with you 24/7 if your phone is with you you’re on call. If you’re on call then your nervous system is on alert and you aren’t recovering.

Instead create a strict phone time table of when you will and won’t use it and stick to it.  Your nervous system we cry tears of happiness and relief.

STOP rushing into your day feeling however you feel and dealing with what ever comes up first on the to do list. Being intent to put in as many hours as possible. Your job is not to put in hours or get anyone else to either. Your job is to get the business in high performance mode and that starts by getting yourself in high performance mode.

Instead fill your morning with energy and clarity building practises before you let the day come rushing in.

STOP owning other peoples problems. That might not be an easy thing to do. You might be thinking that if they don’t fix their problem it will become my problem and there is likely truth in that. But as soon as you own someone else’s problem a whole cascade of bigger issues appear. You have now taken back in the responsibility for that area with all the thought it requires and not just that, the addition job of teaching, micro managing and overseeing. They now know themselves as less competent and less autonomous than they would like to be, they begin to resent their position.

INSTEAD be a support, ask what resources, support, knowledge, or skill they need, ask how you can support them to acquire it. But make sure that the lesson learn is always, my leadership team will support me if I’m confused and never, my leaders will do it for me if I find it hard enough.

STOP buying into or owning your employees feelings. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying deny them and I’m not saying don’t empathise. But owning other peoples stress, or misery or happiness places you at the mercy of other peoples feelings and this makes you act emotionally and reactively and makes you a people pleaser.

INSTEAD recognise their emotion. Then help them to unpick the ingredients, the cause of the effect. This is where you are of most service to them. When you can be compassionately detached you will help them to clarity.

These 9 things aren’t easy. They usually come as a set. If you can’t imagine doing one it’s probably because another one is not already in place that is making it seem impossible.

But if you want to be the calm, consistent and stable leader to your team you must operate yourself in a way that creates than calmness, consistency and clarity inside of you. You cannot fake it. The body, your words and your actions give off too many clues. You are the indicator that your team responds to. They will only change when you do.

Are you ready to start spreading calmness and clarity?

Or perhaps a better question, how much longer are you willing to continue spreading chaos and confusion?