Paralyzed by overwhelm? How to overcome…
Summary
- I know from experience that you can succeed in business even while feeling overwhelmed and stressed.
- Overwhelm is often a result of high demand on yourself paired with low clarity in what to do next.
- My definition of overwhelm is when you have a lot of tasks and thoughts but lack a clear direction or vision.
- Feelings of stress, anxiety, and being overwhelmed are normal human emotions, not indications that something is wrong with you.
- Overwhelm doesn't stem from your external circumstances; it comes from your thoughts about those situations.
- The workload didn't change between my various business ventures, but my reaction to it did, due to better clarity and mindset.
- To manage overwhelm, it's essential to address both the high internal demands we place on ourselves and the need for clarity, which can be gained through experience or guidance like mentorship or educational resources.
- Recognize cognitive distortions like black-and-white thinking, 'should' thinking, and overgeneralizing, as they contribute to feelings of overwhelm.
- You can't eliminate overwhelming thoughts, but you can acknowledge them and operate despite them.
- Learning to manage overwhelm is about building awareness and not running from uncomfortable feelings.
- Embrace both the amazing emotions and the terrible ones because they are part of the journey to achieving your dreams.
- Increase your capacity for life and reaching your dreams by being willing to experience both the good and the bad.
- Understand that thoughts are not facts and educating yourself on cognitive distortions can help manage your reactions.
- Over time, as you gain awareness and continue to challenge yourself, what once felt overwhelming won't have the same effect on you.
Video
How To Take Action
I would suggest breaking down the feeling of being overwhelmed into smaller, more manageable thoughts. When you feel like there's too much on your plate, remember that these feelings come from your thoughts about your situation, not the situation itself. Here’s what you can do to combat feeling overwhelmed, stressed, or anxious:
- Gain clarity. Write down what's causing you stress. Is it a certain task? Uncertainty in your next steps? This can help you find a way forward.
- Set realistic expectations. Avoid black-and-white thinking, like "I must succeed or I'm a failure." This adds unnecessary pressure and increases overwhelm.
- Challenge 'should' thinking. Replace thoughts like "I should do this perfectly" with "I am doing my best and that's enough." Remember, nothing has to be perfect.
- Avoid overgeneralizing. If something goes wrong once, it doesn't mean it always will. Remind yourself of past successes to counter these thoughts.
- Learn from mistakes. Understand that mistakes are part of growth. When things don’t go as planned, think about what you can learn from the experience.
- Educate yourself. Read about cognitive distortions and recognize them in your thinking. Knowing about these can help you manage your reactions better.
- Practice awareness. Acknowledge overwhelming thoughts when they come but don’t let them dictate your actions.
Remember, it's okay to feel uncomfortable and still push forward towards your goals. Each time you face these tough feelings and move through them, you're building your capacity to handle more and reach your dreams. It all starts with how you think about your feelings and situations, so work on shifting your mindset and you'll gradually find that what once overwhelmed you doesn't have the same power over you anymore.
Quotes by Leila Hormozi
"Just because you feel overwhelmed doesn't mean anything's bad or wrong"
– Leila Hormozi
"Overwhelm is usually high demand with low clarity"
– Leila Hormozi
"Our thoughts about these circumstances that lead to that overwhelm"
– Leila Hormozi
"Thoughts are not facts"
– Leila Hormozi
"In order to win big, you must be willing to lose big"
– Leila Hormozi
Full Transcript
what is up welcome to my channel my name is leila hormozy i'm co-ceo of acquisition.com which is a portfolio of companies there's about 85 million per year in revenue and my goal with this channel is to get you from wherever you're at in your business to between 3 and 10 million in revenue annually for free that being said today's video is a little bit different than normal because it's a little less tactical and a little more philosophical mindset and the reason for that is this is a question i got i think it counted like eight times at this event that i was at about a week ago how do i avoid overwhelm while starting my new business i was like [ __ ] you know like i can't answer this in like one sentence this is like a lot of stuff to unpack and i really want to unpack it because i feel like you know so often what prevents people from progressing in business from starting a business etc it's not the how and the tactics like it's the mindset it's the feelings it's that you feel terrible you feel like you're gonna die you feel like you're in danger and that's the stuff that really stops people when they're really trying to get started right and so i wanted to unpack this because you know i can tell you guys back in 2016 when we were starting gym launch i consistently felt overwhelmed all the time i the state of being stressed was my norm like not having cortisol constantly flowing through me was not normal like we went on vacation i still woke up at 4 a.m like i there was no turning it off i was consistently overwhelmed i always felt like there was cortisol just like like perpetuating through my veins i didn't feel like i could catch a break and honestly i didn't drink and i didn't smoke i didn't do drugs i didn't do anything and so just like never went away and so the first thing i'll tell you is like you can absolutely still succeed while feeling overwhelmed and stressed but you know obviously like as we continue to amount more and more success it got to a point where i was like [ __ ] i just like don't want to feel this way anymore and i know that i also don't want to change my circumstances okay and so this video is for someone if you're trying to start a business if you're trying to move forward in business and you feel overwhelmed but you're like i don't want to stop going like i'm not going to change my circumstances i'm not going to stop doing business i'm not going to stop trying to achieve my dreams this video is for you because this is how i deal with this stuff and so am i like a licensed you know behavior life coach therapist no i'm not um and honestly that doesn't mean anything to me um because you know just as there are bad doctors and there are bad uh you know gas station attendants and bad waiters and waitresses they're also bad therapists life coaches etc i've met many that are good many that are bad and i just this stuff that i'm sharing with you is what works for me and so i am telling you from my own experience from my own findings from my own research my own studies my understanding of how emotions work and how they affect business what i've kind of come to right and so like i said when we started gym launch like i felt terrible all the time and like i don't think people understood they would be like congratulations you're like your business is killing it and i was like thanks you know like i feel great i was like i don't feel great feel like [ __ ] all the time it's so funny because people always continue to congratulate you and you're like why do i feel so terrible if i'm succeeding right like i'm going in the right direction but that doesn't necessarily mean it feels good right which is like the first point which is like oftentimes the things that we should be doing or the things that are in line with our goals in life the things that will drive us forward the things that will fulfill us often don't feel good in the moment and the things that actually are going to deter us they're going to bring us backwards they're going to detract us from our goals those things actually feel better and so that's the first thing is like just because you feel overwhelmed doesn't mean anything's bad or wrong right like it's a feeling it's a natural human emotion there's nothing wrong with it and so i think the first thing is like to take off that label of being like this is bad and wrong like there are many days of the week that i feel stressed i'm like cortisol my old friend there you are again right and it's a little joke i have to myself like every time i feel that i say that i'm like my old friend there you are like i imagine this little like monster hiding in the corner right it comes out to play again but but i'm not like oh this is bad this is wrong i need to change my business because i have all this stress right like i don't i don't think that i'm like oh i'm a human with emotions you know i think that the society we live in tends to catastrophize and almost like medicalize normal human emotions like sadness frustration overwhelm anxiety those are all normal and yet society nowadays you know they're making so much money off of our normal human emotions that we don't know are normal because it's not like we can jump in someone else's body and see that they're normal that like people think there's something wrong with them for feeling that way right and like i just i hate the whole industry i hate it there's lots of studies done on the skies and i'm not going to get into it um but most people have nothing wrong with them right um if anything the only thing wrong with you is that you your label maker in your brain is broken right like you label emotions that are uncomfortable as bad and like it's taken me years to reverse this because you grow up your whole life and people tell you if it's bad you should avoid it it's bad walk away if it's bad go the other way right but it's like if it feels bad it might be good for you so that's the first thing i want to kind of start and preface with is just like it doesn't mean it's bad you know like we were building this huge successful business i was growing as a person i was growing in my marriage i was you know gaining a level of fitness and health like all these things i had never before but i didn't feel good and so where does that come from right and so what i want to tell you is like my definition of overwhelm is overwhelm is usually high demand with low clarity now i'll explain that in more detail in a moment but i want to just put that high demand on oneself with low clarity right you have lots of things coming at you you have lots of thoughts but like no clarity about what is the next step where should i go what's the vision and so that's usually what causes overwhelm and what that feels like it usually feels like i'm stuck i'm paralyzed i don't know what to do to move forward i feel like i'm stuck in the mud and i'm afraid right so you just stay in this place of fear and you feel powerless you start to lose confidence you don't feel good about yourself and so what i want to explain to you is that what i've realized and the conclusion that i have come to about overwhelm is that overwhelm has nothing to do with circumstances it doesn't have to do with your kids it doesn't have truth to job it doesn't have to do with this new business or fitness or the fact that you have to do all of it at once it doesn't have to do with that it has to do with your thoughts about those situations and the reason i can tell you this from personal experience is that starting gym launch was the same amount of work as starting prestige labs which was the same amount of work as starting alan which was the same amount of work as during acquisition.com and guess what day one of gym launch i was stressed out of my freaking mind i was so overwhelmed i felt terrible all the time starting acquisition.com excited energized ready to go same amount of work if not more with acquisition.com because i know what to do now i know exactly what the next three years look like and i know how much work is yet to come and how much work i should be doing that i'm not doing yet right and so the high demand that i am talking about when i say we have a high demand and low clarity the high demand is that demands that we are putting on ourselves it's the demands from our thoughts right since our thoughts about these circumstances that lead to that overwhelm it has not been that so there's two things right it's the high demand which is the thoughts that we're having about the circumstances that we're facing in the moment and then it's the lack of clarity and so why am i less overwhelmed now one i have worked a ton on my mindset around emotions and feeling negative and i have learned to operate despite feeling like [ __ ] despite feeling overwhelmed despite being incredibly anxious despite being exhausted i operate despite all those things right the second one is i have clarity now i have done this before therefore i understand what the next steps look like and the reason our brain likes clarity is because it wants to set expectations because it likes predictability it likes to know where am i going next i want to know that i'm safe and so the only way to really manage overwhelm is to learn how to deal with those thoughts that are coming through and then the clarity that comes with experience and time clarity is something that can be solved with external right you can get a mentor you can read a book you can watch these youtube videos right there's a lot of things that you can do to gain clarity but typically the part that is hard for people is lessening the demand and the reason it's hard for us to lessen the demand is that most of the times these thoughts that come up around the circumstances that we're dealing with come from cognitive distortions which if you've read i think there's i don't know 21 20 something cognitive distortions i don't know i read a book a long time ago it's a really good book and basically cognitive distortions are just ways of thinking that are not real right many people tend to believe that the thoughts that come into our heads are true thoughts are not facts right thoughts are actually just little blips that your brain is putting into your mind of things to keep it safe right and your brain will do anything to keep you safe it's set up for survival not success and so what you have to learn and the reason it's good to understand these cognitive distortions is because then you can say ah there's my brain doing that stupid thing again stupid old brain you know like your old brain like trying to keep me all scared and [ __ ] that's literally like the stuff that i think and that's what helps me what i realize is that when i'm feeling overwhelmed right there's usually three ways of thinking that i'm subscribing to i'm believing what my brain is trying to give me the message of right the first one is usually black and white thinking right and so you know you're starting a new business and it goes into either you're perfect or you are a total failure and so i can tell you that my brain did this and it went on complete wacko when i had to we'd start a gym launch and you know as i talked about my video my biggest mistake i had to lay off a bunch of employees and i went from thinking that i was perfect to thinking i was a total failure and that nobody would ever take me seriously and i was like i'm terrible boss i'm a failure i'm not a leader like i all of a sudden was nothing i was none of these things that i had said i was for years and it was my brain saying oh because you made this one mistake you are x and so a lot of the times especially when you're starting a business like the reason that so many people feel overwhelmed because they're making mistakes all the time because they're learning right because obviously you suck at it you're brand new you've never done it before but because you suck at it because you're brand new you're not accepting that you're saying no i have to get everything right i have to be perfect like i'm this must meet my expectations and the reality is that never [ __ ] happens and so half of the drama that's going on that's causing this overwhelm it's just like the fact that you are either all or nothing right there's no in between there's no gray space but the reality is like you probably suck and you're probably good at some of it and like maybe you made a mistake and then tomorrow you won't make a mistake and it's a lot more gray than people let off or they want to even admit because typically people that are starting business they're being very hard on themselves but the thing is is that there is a point where being hard on yourself is no longer productive it's unproductive because it's keeping you stuck it's keeping paralyzed so that's the first thing is identifying like am i doing that all or nothing thinking am i saying either i'm perfect or i'm a complete failure and piece of [ __ ] right and then it's not about eliminating these thoughts you can't eliminate thoughts guys like you can't it's being okay with these thoughts and saying ah there goes my brain again being a little piece of [ __ ] you know today my brain's going [ __ ] wacko right like i am not my brain like my brain is part of me but it's not all of me and so it's understanding that if you can identify when your brain is doing that you will feel much better and you'll be able to understand hey even though this this thought is kind of scary to me and it makes me feel like [ __ ] it doesn't mean that's true it doesn't mean i need to do anything about it it doesn't mean i need to change my situation the second thing is should thinking right basically what this is is our brains like to set expectations right expectations lead to predictability predictability can keep us safe right if we know what's going to happen next we can protect against danger the thing is it's not helpful like nowadays because there's no really real danger going on especially when you're building a business it's just like you know feeling embarrassed like maybe making a mistake like at most like you lose some money there's nothing dangerous about it but our brain instead likes to say we start off and we're like i'm going to build a business and i'm going to do this i'm going to do all these things and we say i should do this i must do this and i have to do this if you look at albert ellis he was one of the first psychologists he talks about masturbation i must do this or i will be of complete failure i must do this or i won't succeed i must get it right on this test or i'm never going to get it right and that's the second piece that goes into the overwhelm is thinking if we if we don't do something or else right like i have to i must i should or else it implies that there's some kind of punishment or some sort of negative if you don't do something perfectly and a lot of us have those thoughts just ruminating in our heads all the time and i've done that for a long time and i always and constantly have to just like observe my thoughts and say like where am i masturbating right where am i thinking that i need to be doing something should be doing something have to be doing something where do i have this unrealistic expectation right and so i'll find it and i'm like oh my brain it's trying to create predictability by setting expectations that are unrealistic doesn't mean there's nothing wrong with me doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the situation it just means like my brain's going a little haywire today like maybe i need to just sit and kind of journal write it down something it doesn't mean i need to stop doing what i'm doing though so that's the second thing now how i this used to show up for me it was basically i have to be perfect i must be perfect and this basically paralyzed me and i think that's why i get really into it making these videos is because i used to be somebody who had so many musts and [ __ ] and have to's and what it did was it kept me really small it kept me small but it's really hard to be perfect at everything because nobody has the same ideal of perfection so if i'm perfect to myself i'm imperfect to others and if i'm perfect to someone else i'm not perfect to myself so you realize it's just this illusion and it's keeping you small and i used to think i have to be the perfect wife i have to be the perfect ceo i have to be perfect at running a company have to be the perfect leader i have to be the perfect coach have to be the perfect body everything that's like have to be perfect i must be you know like if i didn't cook dinner one night for alex i feel like [ __ ] about myself if i didn't have a hard conversation the moment i knew i needed to like if i had to wait till the next day because of meetings and [ __ ] i felt terrible about myself and that was the first time around running the company and that is what caused so much of the overwhelm was having these these crazy expectations that were unrealistic and so it's like if you can identify where you have your shoulds your half twos your musts the things that if you don't do them make you feel very anxious they're typically not real and so that's the second thing that i would say is being able to identify where are those shoulds musts etc where are you masturbating in your mind such a funny term that you can identify and then just remind yourself every time like hey i'm just masturbating again i'm telling myself i have to be a certain way there are no [ __ ] rules in life you don't have to be anything you just don't and then the third piece is the last thing that i notice that i do when i'm feeling overwhelmed is i over generalize okay over generalizing usually is when you take one instance which is typically negative and then you label it as a pattern and again this is a way of our brain protecting us it's saying oh this happened one time now this situation is labeled as unsafe and that means that i all the rest of times this happens you know like i want to avoid this situation uh it's a pattern it says like what do you need to do to fix it and you start like looking around trying to figure out solutions so i run lots of company meetings like big company you know everyone's on a call etc most the time i do really well with them right one time i remember that i had had like something was going off work the night before with like an employee i knew i needed to fire that person i didn't sleep well i woke up i felt like [ __ ] i'm super anxious um and i got on the call and there was like 100 people on and i felt like i was going to cry the whole time and i ran that meeting and when i got done i was like i [ __ ] bombed that it was terrible i was like i wasted the company's time you know i didn't show up i wanted to it was the worst meeting i've run in all five years like i just felt terrible about myself i took that experience and then thought like oh [ __ ] what if like all the meetings from here on out i'm just like gonna suck now like because i missed this one like now i'm gonna suck at all the rest of the meetings my brain is ignoring the fact that i've run 300 other meetings like that very very well and it's taking that one instance it's extrapolating it out because again it's trying to predict what's going to happen next it's trying to keep me safe and like i appreciate that i don't need it though because like running a meeting is not dangerous and so for me using these understanding these three cognitive distortions is how i manage my overall like the biggest thing that i will tell you is like you don't [ __ ] eliminate and you don't [ __ ] avoid overwhelm you can manage it you can understand it you can educate yourself on it but don't run from it and the reason that i say that is because every time that you run from stress and you run from overwhelm and you run from anxiety and you try to change circumstances to lessen it you lessen your capacity for life and you lessen your capacity to reach your dreams because in order to win big you must be willing to lose big in order to feel amazing emotions you must feel terrible emotions and so it's like if you want the big upside you have to be willing to feel and experience the big downside and i wish this was something i had i feel like i've just finally gotten this in the last 18 months it's like every time you try to buffer the bad feelings you also limit yourself from feeling the good feelings so like if you feel really anxious about starting a business and because of that you don't start the business or you don't move forward or you don't hire that person you don't take that sales call you will never have a big amazing business because you're trying to lessen the downside and because of that you will cap yourself on the upside the same could be said for something like public speaking right people are terrified of public speaking and so they think i can't public speak i don't want to i'm just nervous et cetera but they're like i would love to be an amazing public speaker but it just feels so uncomfortable so they cancel every speaking engagement that they have they are never going to be a world-class public speaker they are never going to have their dreams of being this amazing influential person because they're not willing to experience the [ __ ] they're not willing to experience the overwhelm they're not willing to experience the stress and because of that they'll never feel the amazing the joy the fulfillment that you have on the other side if you're feeling overwhelmed right now watch this video on repeat take notes on it continue to observe your brain your brain is not always it's not always telling the truth like thoughts are not facts the things that pop up in your head sometimes i'm like the [ __ ] it's coming up with today is [ __ ] insane right does that mean i'm insane does that mean there's a problem with me no it just means that my brain is built to make me survive and so the more i can educate myself on how it does that the more i can learn how to manage it and act despite of it and so it's almost like using a muscle what i've noticed is the reason that things have become so much easier for me over time in terms of like building a company managing a company like taking more risks uh doing more things that i could be completely embarrassed and fall on my face right which i continue to do more and more of those things that make me really uncomfortable the reason i'm able to do that is because i'm able to use this muscle which is awareness right i've learned to become more and more and more aware of how my brain is trying to hold me back and then my muscle that says hey uh i hear you but i'm gonna go the other way instead despite what you're saying has become stronger and stronger and stronger and so it's like a muscle is it gonna be easy at first no but the first step is always the steepest and after that it gets much easier and so if you can continue to try and flex that muscle over and over and over again eventually what you'll see is the same situation that overwhelmed you not overwhelming you again so that being said i hope this video was of use to you i hope that if you're feeling overwhelmed this can be a help to you again like i said this is just what helps me it's just like my findings it's how i get through life it's how i'm able to do things that are uncomfortable on a consistent basis because yes i am uncomfortable plenty of the time but i can do things despite that and i will see you guys on the next one