How you can plan your success without stress | Ask Dr. Annika

Is it ever possible in this entire lifetime of ours to plan or just think of our success without getting stressed?

Of course, it is. We just have to learn how and practice.

How do you stay calm when you have too much on your agenda and you feel like you don’t have enough time and energy to even structure the things you need to do, so you just do what first comes to mind without enough reflection? Simple answer, YOU CANNOT.

Because without structure, you just do and do — but at the end of the day you realize that the lack of organization made you end up missing on the priorities.

This probably has happened not just to me, but to every one of us at some point in our lives. I can even say that weeks can pass without getting priorities done just because you didn’t stop to reflect first.

Ties like that can make us feel useless and it can really be stressful. I even remember a time when a client came to me saying how she was so stressed out and just doesn’t know what to do, and that the business is going down — all because she’d been struggling with the overwhelm of continuous working without planning.

That is why — planning is VERY important.

Luckily, we were able to help her through our mentoring services which made her relax eventually.

THE STORY BEHIND HER STRESS

Why was she working continuously without reflection?
A lot has come out in the open during one of our sessions, and we were able to pinpoint one possible cause at that time that makes her dig deep into work without enough planning time — to me what seemed like her coping mechanism.

She had an ongoing mismatch with her mother-in-law who had a very good relationship with her prior to their misunderstanding. She couldn’t pinpoint the exact cause, just that she feels the elephant in the room.

These all led her to work without reflecting — to lessen her thinking time.

Thankfully, I was able to convince her to get clear of it because I see it as the root cause of the problem, and tackling the root cause is what I call the long-term solution to stress instead of the band-aid one which works for “at the moment” of stress only.

WHAT HAPPENED AFTER

The misunderstanding was cleared after the confrontation, which made my client get back to her normal working style.

So what I’m saying here is that…

We can have problems, at work or at home, or somewhere else which can sometimes be unavoidable. So when there is, just stop and figure it out.

Get it out in the open, take time to reflect, and when you do, make sure to act on it so you can instead use your energy to more important things in your business that require your attention…

THIS LEADS ME TO MY FIRST TIP — THE FIRST STEP IN PLANNING FOR SUCCESS WITHOUT STRESS.

GIVE TIME TO PONDER

Take the time to ponder about your whole situation at first, we already saw above what happens when we don’t: A lot of minor mistakes can lead to bigger problems eventually.

MANAGE TASKS TO BE EFFICIENT

Making a list of things to do or tasks at hand plays a crucial role in this journey, as well as prioritizing them in order.

When you don’t have anything that requires urgency, then that’s your excuse to just go pick random tasks because it’s obvious that the one that you pick is also the one that you like the most to do.

Although we have the tendency to pick the easy ones first, I suggest doing it the other way around because ticking off the hard ones from the list can put your mind at ease.

Nobody for sure would like the hard ones getting piled up… or it becomes unmanageable.

CATEGORIZING YOUR TASKS

If you get confused about which task goes first while making your list, I advise you to break them down into these 4 categories:

1. URGENT AND IMPORTANT

Examples of tasks that fall under this category are those that you cannot always predict and require immediate action or attention to stop further harm if any. These tasks give you the feeling to drop other tasks and do only these tasks NOW.

Both things that include preventing conflicts or making you lose an important opportunity go here.

2. NOT URGENT BUT IMPORTANT

These tasks, since they are not urgent… sometimes mean that you need to have the time to really ponder about them.

Sample tasks that fall here are the tasks that could be really something big for your business and need plenty of time planning and doing.

“Why does it come second if it is not urgent”

Because if you don’t start doing them now, sooner or later THEY BECOME URGENT. And they may be crucial to your business moving forward — but your mind puts them off — because they are time-consuming and often also energy draining.

Most often selling comes here and all the development of new products. It doesn’t have to be done today — but if never done your business will die.

3. URGENT BUT NOT IMPORTANT

These are the tasks that require urgency looking like they could be preventing you from achieving some of your goals, or proceeding to the next step/s.

But since they are not really important, ask yourself if they can be rescheduled or outsourced.

Often we also find all the things from OTHER people’s list here — we are asked for things that we don’t really have to do — but since someone is asking for it we think we need to answer. But if we reflect we can see they are not important to us at all.

4. NOT URGENT AND NOT IMPORTANT

Yes, they do exist. Some examples that fall here are those that other people told you that you need to do or tasks you see other people have so you also thought you need to do the same but don’t probably have to do at all.

Avoid these tasks as much as possible as they only serve as a distraction. Reflect and ask if these tasks are really necessary or just a waste of time.

If they turn out to be somewhat necessary after you ponder about it, then figure out if they fall under any of the first three, or again, just delegate.

RAISE YOUR POTENTIAL CAPACITY

Raising your potential capacity means doing what you can to increase your energy. With more energy, you will be able to do more. And you increase your energy by taking good care of your basic health with regular sleep, regular and healthy food intake, and regular physical activity.

DELEGATE SOME TASKS

If there’s too much ongoing — literally too much than what you can take even after doing the above steps, then you might want to consider delegating or outsourcing.

Outsourcing is a good way to take some tasks off your plate. Just choose the tasks that don’t really need to be done by you personally, and focus on the bigger things.

These are the 4 steps I advise you to take: Taking the time to ponder, making a list, raising your potential capacity, and delegating some tasks.

Combine these all together and you’ll have less stress from too many tasks!

THE PANDEMIC

These days you may still feel YOU ARE TIRED, FEEL WORN OUT and you are also so fed up with all the talk about what is going on in the world. It is ruling your life and everybody else’s life too.

Can’t somebody just get rid of it, I had my hands full before and did not need another burden? You still have more hours to do at work but all you want is to go to sleep and be able to forget everything.

Stress is taking a strict grip on your brain. How will you survive?

RECOGNIZE!

Most of us feel like this from time to time even if we have a good structure in the background. Maybe it is more now when we also have this somewhat undefined threat from a little virus and another war. That makes everything a little more uncertain, and uncertainty is seen as a real threat in our brains. So stress creeps up on you often and initially, you don’t notice and then everything just seems so heavy and hopeless.

WILL THIS HURT ME YOU ASK YOURSELF?

I´d say — Not really if you do take the time to rest and rejuvenate from time to time.

And there are also a lot of things you can do to prevent yourself from constantly ending up in this stressful situation. Or at least make the events come less often.

Here are 5 easy tips that will help you stay calm, get more energy, get better structure in work with more effectiveness, and in the end better revenue:

1. BREATHE.

This is THE best Here-and Now tool there is. Take a few deep breaths, all the way down in your stomach and let your shoulders down when you breathe out. Take a few breaths like that every time life gets overly busy. Just try, and see.

2. MOVE.

Stand up, jump up and down, stretch, and walk around your desk. Movement generates energy in your body and mind by improving the cell connections in your brain. That is why a walk around the block works so well when you get angry, upset, or stressed out. It resets your brain to calm mode again. Cool, right?

3. TAKE A BREAK!

I can’t believe I have to stress this out… Because not everyone chooses to take breaks! But our brains don’t like to be active too long. It needs to rest and reorganize every now and then. Science says: “5–15 minute break for every 20–50 minutes of work.”

4. DELEGATE.

Oh, that lovely word we talked about before, have someone else do the work!

Maybe you have someone in the team who is better at a specific task? Or you can delegate tasks you find boring? I realize that not everyone has somebody else to delegate to but then you maybe can buy the service from someone who in no time can do what takes you ages. Then you would get a lot more time to do what you are good at, getting clients, and doing business.

5. STRUCTURE. STRUCTURE. STRUCTURE.

The whole purpose of this post is for you to get used to structuring. Get your working routines in order. Automate if you can. It may take a day or two to do these organizing changes to get a system that works, but it’s all worth it — anything that lessens whatever is routinary, right?

SUMMARY

In summary — get a system that makes your work easier, more fun, and effective. Delegate as much as you can so you can do what you are best at. Take care of your body, with breaks and physical activity and you will last longer. Practice the Breathing Anchor like I showed above and make it your strongest weapon when stress comes knocking at your door.

GET HELP IF YOU NEED

If it feels hard to decide what you want to do on your own — go get a mentor. Reach out if you need help. It is always important and there will always be things that you can support.

Check HERE to see if you’ll feel like we’re a good fit.

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If you want to start your process for less stress in your life get my free e-book and start working.

To your success and keep smiling,

Originally published at https://askdrannika.com on May 19, 2022.