1:01
Hello, there you lovely lady, and welcome back to another episode of the powerhouse Revolution podcast. How are you doing today? I hope you’re well, I hope everything is going good. And I hope that no matter what’s happening in work right now while you are getting ready for the end of the year that you know, Christmas is coming. And I’m hoping that you have a break lined up. I know I certainly do. And I really really love Christmas time. It’s actually probably my favorite time of the year because family to me is so so important. So, so important. So I just love the whole Christmas buzz and just creating memories for me and my kids. So yeah, I just thought I’d add that little anecdote there today. I hope you’re doing well.
And today on the podcast, I wanted to talk a little bit about what to do when you’re overwhelmed with workload. So I know this is something that a lot of women just like you struggle with, especially in the corporate world, there are so many demands on you, there are so many plates spinning through so many problems and more crises that just pop up every single day. And I feels like you will never ever get to the end of that to do list, right? So today, I’m going to be sharing five things that I always do when I’m struggling with my workload. But before I do that, I want to tell you a quick story. So I like to keep it real. I don’t like to, you know, come on and pretend that everything’s okay. Sometimes when it’s not, and things weren’t okay for me a few weeks ago, because, okay, I’m just gonna backtrack. Obviously, I work in my own business. And I have a small team, and I have people to support me. But I am now the CEO of my business. So I don’t have anybody to look to for guidance or direction, I have to decide what my business is going to look like, what my strategy is, where I’m going to focus, what products I want to develop what I want to mark, everything! okay, so having worked in the corporate world, you know, you always have a company mission, you always have a company vision, there’s somebody above you, I suppose, setting your priorities, and then obviously, you set priorities for yourself. So being my own boss is amazing. But there’s a lot of decisions I need to make. And I suppose I had decided that I was going to be launching which I am a brand new digital course that is going to have a group coaching element to it. And I’m so so excited about it. Because at the moment, I primarily do one to one work, I do corporate work and group trainings in in corporate settings. But I don’t have my own kind of digital product, which is I am just beyond excited to bring it to you. So I had kind of decided to myself, Okay, this course I’m going to get it done. I’m going to create all the content and all the assets, all the resources, all the tools, and get it all done before Christmas, so that I can launch it towards the end of January. Because I know that you know, January is a great time people are looking at learning and all that kind of stuff. So I set myself this plan to get it done. And I’ve been working tirelessly on creating the course I’m not going to give too much away. But let’s just say if you’re a woman and leadership role, who wants to have it all who wants to be seen as a great leader who wants to learn new skills and tools to help you with all of that. So you go from surviving to thriving in the corporate world, my course is going to be for you. But I want to make sure it’s the best. It’s my perfectionist, and I think I will be doing you a disservice if it wasn’t the best. So I started to do the course I’ve created a good bit of content, but at the same time you have to remember I suppose I have my own clients. I have my own workout. I have children, I have other things that are going on my business as well. So I guess I was trying to create a new product and juggle too many balls and I felt very very out of alignment with my flow and this is something I want you to pay attention to. So if you’re multitasking come back to me
4:59
when you’re in your Flow, you are feeling strong, you’re feeling powerful, you’re feeling, I suppose assertive, you’re feeling energized, you know what I’m talking about, you’re feeling really good in yourself. And in your body, you’re feeling confident, and all those things, which is how I like to be, that’s the best of who I am. But I noticed that I was feeling not like that at all. I was waking up in the morning, on the days where I didn’t have clients, and I was dreading going into computer and, and that isn’t not like me at all, because I absolutely adore creating content and training videos and resources, I actually really, really loved that. But I wasn’t feeling that way. And I was kind of going What is wrong with me, like you love this stuff? What’s going on? So I was working away, and I was feeling really anxious, and just like, I was never gonna get everything done. And I spoke to my sister, and I said to her, what am I going to do, this is like in October, and I supposed to be launching the course in January, the end of January. And I said, Look, I don’t know what I’m going to do, I’ve mapped it all out. And I really don’t think I’m going to be able to get all this done to the standards that I want it to be. And she just said to me, she was like, just push out the launch. And I was like I can’t, I’ve already said I’m gonna do it. And then I just took a step back, and I just find, okay, you cannot deliver the kind of product or service that you want to if you put yourself under pressure, you need time to be creative, you need time to actually get do it right. So I had to just swallow my pride, I had to just make a decision to push out the launch. And at this very moment in time, I don’t have a launch date, because I’m going to make sure that this course is the best on the market. So I suppose I had limiting beliefs about what I needed to do. And by taking a step back, I reprioritized. And looking at what was important, which was serving my existing clients, which was getting ready for my next one to one clients, I’ll be taking on very, very soon, I just relieved the pressure on myself. And I suppose they always say to you, there’s always a gift or learning in everything. And the gift for me is that my know now my course will be that will be better.
7:04
And the learning is before launching into something, it’s really, really important that you take the time to map it out. And make sure you give yourself adequate time. So while I was struggling with that, I did kind of five things. So I want to share those five things with you now. And I want you to come back to this episode. And just take a note of the time point where I’m at right now. So that you can even skip to this piece if you need it. So again, if you’re multitasking, come back to me.
7:33
So right now I’m going to share the five things that you need to do when you’re feeling overwhelmed with your workload. So number one is you need to stop working. Now I know this might sound counterproductive, but the best thing you can do is take a big step back, take a day off, give yourself some time to think and talk through. When you’re stuck in the weeds, you just cannot see the beauty of the garden. And by giving yourself time and space to just reflect and think it always brings a whole lot of clarity. Now a day might not be enough fun. And this is something I hear over and over and over again. When I work with women who are feeding, I can tell they’re about to literally burn out. And I hear oh no, I can’t stop working. That’s not an option. That’s a massive limiting belief. You have massive, massive, massive, massive.
8:26
Because if you were to fall off the face of the earth in the morning, there is somebody there to pick up your workload. Did you hear what I just said, if you were to fall off the face of the earth in the morning, there is somebody there to pick up your workload. Now I know what you might be thinking you’re thinking, but nobody can pick up my workload, I have to do this. And if such and such does it, it won’t be done as good as me. And yeah, that’s probably true. However, you have to take care of yourself first. Because as I always remind you, if you were to something was to happen in the morning, or you decide to leave your job would be gone in the morning, we see what’s happened in Twitter and all those big companies where people are being laid off left, right and center. People who put their lives on hold further job, are now gone. So it’s okay to take a step back, take some time off, stop working and allow the clarity to come clarity will not come sitting at a laptop, I can promise you that with certainty.
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The second thing to do is ruthlessly prioritize. So it is so easy to think everything is a priority. But when you really look at it, it’s not. So look at where you’re spending your time and make sure you’re focusing on tasks that add value. Not soak your time with nothing to show for it. Now, if you struggle with prioritization, which a lot of women do, or people do, it’s very, very difficult. You can get sucked in I have a free resource that will absolutely help you. So I’ve created a free guide. And it, I will link it in the show notes. It’s called Five strategy to stop negative self talk and improve work life balance, so you skyrocket your leadership impact. And there’s five strategies in there. And one of those strategies is all about prioritization. But I’ve given you a really, really handy tool in the guide called the powerhouse prioritization matrix. And my clients absolutely love this, and I’m giving it to you for free. So I want you to go and download the guide. So wherever you’re listening to this, you will find the link in the show notes, you’ll find the link if you’re listening on Apple, Spotify, Spotify, Stitcher, whatever, you’ll find the link where you’re listening to this and go and download that guide and look at the prioritization matrix. And it will really, really help you you’ve got to prioritize,
10:48
okay, the third thing that you need to do, and again, if you’re multitasking, come back to me, you need to set yourself up for success. So often, the reason you feel overwhelmed with work is because you’ve set yourself up for failure, you’ve given yourself too many things to do in the day, you haven’t allowed any time for work emergencies and more crises, which happen every single day, right, you have to plan for those. So most people underestimate the time taken to complete a task and then feel like a complete failure when they get nothing done. That’s literally what happened to me, I’m human, I’m not perfect, but I was able to catch myself and do something about it. So it’s important that you focus on the tasks that are will add real value, and give yourself enough time, and D prioritize apparent emergencies. Now I understand that in the corporate world, sometimes there are so many projects going on, on top of your routine work. And I get resources are tight, I get you’re probably hiring and all of those things. But unless you put your big girl pants on and set your boundaries and get clear on your own capacity and get clear on exactly what you’re able to actually manage without driving yourself into an early grave. Like you’re not, you’re not going to be happy, you’re going to feel overwhelmed, of course you are you’re going to feel frustrated, you’re going to feel like a failure, you’re going to feel all those things. And what that does then is it drives you to work even harder. It’s the inner critic saying, Well, if I just work harder, and I just work longer hours if I just if I just if I just it’s all bull. Okay, so I want you today to just set yourself up for success. Make sure you have whitespace in your calendar. And yes, I know you’re quadruple booked everybody is, but you got to decide where you use your time. Okay, nobody else you do.
12:47
The fourth thing you can do is okay, I love this, right. So when you are feeling like a complete failure, and you’re looking at your workload, and all the things that are on that to do list, and you’re gone, I’m just failure, I got nothing done today, nothing ticked off my list, you feel like crap, I want you to remember this. Again, if you’re multitasking come back to me, I want you to take a pen and paper and write out your to do list. So it is so easy to look at everything you’ve not done, and beat yourself up for not being better. But if you title it: Tada, it’s everything you have completed. So take a pen and paper set, good old timer for five minutes, put on it a song you like and write a list of everything you have completed big or small. And give yourself credit that might be actually going to work today when you had your period and you didn’t feel like it or when you were having hot flushes going through the menopause. It might be that you had a conversation with a colleague who really really needed you. And that took a lot of your time today. It might be that you helped a team member out who needed you. And as a result, you go home and there’s nothing done in your to do list. No, no, no, no. You’ve done way more important work. So I want you to trust that whatever you got done today is all you’re supposed to get done today. And please give yourself credit because you are doing amazing.
14:16
And then the fifth thing you can do when you’re feeling overwhelmed your work and I do all these things guys at different times, not necessarily all of them at the same time. I might, but just pick and choose what works for you. I want you to practice gratitude. Now you might be thinking Lucy, I don’t have time to practice gratitude. Are you joking me? I have so many things to do. I’m so busy. I know you’re busy. Everyone is busy. Everyone is busy. And just to be clear. I work with women who are C level executives. I also work with women who were at the front line. I work with people everywhere in between, largely my audience are in the STEM industry. So I work with a lot of people in Financial Services, in science in pharmaceuticals in technology that they’re the my main kind of areas. And across all of those industries, all of them, I see the same things, everyone is really, really busy. Everyone has, you know, loads of meetings in your calendar. And sometimes you wear that as a bad badge of honor. And that’s on you. So I want you to take some time to be grateful when you’re feeling overwhelmed, because when you’re in a state of overwhelm, your vibrational energy is low, and you’re blocking the flow, you’re blocking all the good things that are trying to come to you because your energy is not in the right place. So the quickest way to raise your energy and shift your mindset is to practice gratitude and throw a little gratitude party at your desk. So here’s how you do it. Set a timer for five minutes, you can play some music, if you feel like it. I do sometimes I don’t other times, the music might help and write out as many things as possible that you can be grateful for. Now, I know if you’re like feeling totally overwhelmed, you might not even be able to think so just look around you. So as I’m looking here in front of me, I have a candle on, so grateful for my candle, because that makes me feel calm, it makes me feel relaxed. I like the scent, I have hand cream, so my hands feel good, so that they’re moisturize. And again, I love the scent, I love smelly things. Like that’s just what I’m kind of seeing right in front of me. And I mean, I could think of at least 1000 things. I’m grateful for it any second of the day, because I’ve trained my mind to do this. And you can totally do it too.
16:33
So there’s my five tips, I’m just going to do a quick recap. So if you are feeling overwhelmed with your workload, I want you to do these five things. Number one, stop working, take a massive step back and give yourself time and space just to reflect and think because that always brings clarity to laptop and going to do it. The second thing is ruthlessly prioritize. And again, if you go to my website, actually on the homepage, Lucygernon.com, you will see that free guide on the homepage of my website. Or if you just go to the shownotes or clip where you’re watching, you can grab that now. And you will see the powerhouse prioritization matrix that I give to my clients, I’m given to you completely free as as well as for other strategies to help you with negative self talk work life balance and leadership. Okay, so this guide, if you don’t have it, I’m telling you, you are missing out. Okay, put a lot of work into it just for you. The third thing is to set yourself up for success. So again, give yourself time in your calendar to actually deal with things. Mark work emergencies and crisis. If you have tripled quadruple book meetings, I mean, that is going to make you feel overwhelmed. Just looking at your calendar, you’ve got to clear out your calendar, okay? And give yourself the time and space and understand how much time things actually take you and deprioritize other people’s stuff. The fourth thing to do then is to do your Ta – dah! everything is done, everything you’ve done. And just give yourself credit for all the amazing stuff you’ve done, like I said, might be a conversation you’ve had, it might be something really, really small to you, but I might have been massive to that other person. Okay. And then the fifth thing you can do is practice gratitude. So like I said, set a timer for five minutes and write out as many things as possible that you can be grateful for, because I promise you that will raise your vibe will raise your energy, you’ll be able to breathe, and you’ll just gonna feel a whole lot better.
18:29
So I really hope that was useful for you today. I promise you, I got you. I know how you’re feeling. I know what it’s like to feel overwhelmed, but I promise you if you do those things, and just give yourself a little bit more credit for all the amazing stuff you’re doing, you’re gonna start to see changes.
18:48
So that is it. My friend for this week’s of the powerhouse this week’s this week’s episode of the powerhouse Revolution podcast. I have been trying to record this while my husband went out to collect my kids and I actually can’t believe I got it done without any interruptions. I just hope my mic was on. Yeah, it’s on. So yeah, that is it for this week. Until next time you take care of you and I will talk to you then.
