Ask Steph: How do you get your groove back when you’re feeling down about business?

Today I'm answering a question from a listener who is struggling with a lack of inspiration in her business. She is feeling weighed down by the long to-do list and the ever-present ebbs and flows of running a business. Today I share my own experiences and the tips and strategies that I have used to break out of this slump.

– How reconnecting to your ‘Why' can provide a great source of renewed motivation
– When re-evaluating your mental load to an ‘essential' to-do list can help you seek clarity through the overwhelm
– How identifying your business ‘season' can be so powerful in plotting the way forward right now
– Why focusing on self-care to replenish your empty cup is instrumental to getting back on track!
– The positive benefit of finding your ‘white space' and giving yourself permission to disconnect

Have a question you’d like me to answer on the show? Write in with your question at https://stephtaylor.co/asksteph

 

 

Hey, Steph, I'm curious about how you go about finding your groove when you feel a little bit mad about your business. I'm just feeling so uninspired. I feel I haven't found my thing. I do what I do as a day job, and I'm at the point where I could walk away, except my wife keeps my head above water. I think what I offer, how I offer it and the long to-do list is overwhelming. 

I love this question because it's something that is very normal to deal with in business. We don't talk about it very much, but it is so completely normal to have these ebbs and flows of creativity, energy, and inspiration. I know that when I'm feeling inspired and motivated, I go 150%. And then when I'm feeling uninspired, I go about 20%. And I know that going at 150% for too long is not sustainable and actually leads to those ebbs quite a bit. 

 

Connect back to your why

It's really an awesome thing to have that clear why, so you know why you are doing this and you can use that almost as a source of motivation to keep going. But I think in your case, I don't think you need that source of motivation to keep going. It sounds like you are keeping going. But it actually almost sounds like you need to be slowing down a bit. 

And my first tip to you would be to honestly ask yourself, how much stuff am I doing that doesn't need to be done? How many things are on my to-do list that is making me feel busy, that is overwhelming me but that is not really essential to keeping my business alive right now. I get that you feel like you have to do everything. I get that you feel like you have to be growing your business right now. And you know, there were loads of people online telling you that you're not doing enough and telling you all of the different things you need to be doing instead. 

And that's all great when you're feeling inspired and excited and motivated. But right now you are feeling burnt out. You have used all of your energy. So we need to look at how you can strip back your business, how you can trim the fat. And just focus on the essentials for a while. We're not focusing so much on growing your business right now. I don't think you're going through a season of growth. I think you're in a season of rest and recovery. Until you have that energy again, and then you can sprint and grow your business. It comes in seasons. Those ebbs and flows are in seasons. And there will be times when you have loads of energy and you are doing all of the things and your business grows quickly. And there will be times when you just need to do the bare minimum so that you can keep your business afloat and start to restore your own energy again. 

Now you are feeling overwhelmed because you're doing way too many things. You're feeling burnt out because you're doing way too many things. So for the next three months,  you could create a rule that you're only allowed to do the tasks that are on your list of must-do tasks and everything else gets put on a list of tasks for later. 

The list of things that you will do after the three months is up. Maybe you could look at bringing in a virtual assistant for three hours a week. I know many people say, oh, I don't have the budget to hire a virtual assistant yet, but you can really bring them in for three hours. And that is not only going to save you three hours of your time, but it's also going to save you the mental load that is associated with those tasks. I think that you cannot put a price on it. 

 

Focusing on self-care

You are burnt out and you've probably heard the saying you can't pour from an empty cup. Your cup right now is empty. Of course, you don't feel inspired. How are you supposed to feel inspired when you're feeling just absolutely exhausted? So your main focus right now needs to be on healing from all of this. And your inspiration and your creativity will come back in time when you have that. You're when you have that rest when you have that energy back. 

So really focusing right now, what have you wanted to do for ages outside of your business you haven't been able to because you've been too busy? Or what do you need to do but you've been too busy to do? You know, things like exercise, health, all sorts of self-care. They fall to the wayside when we're so focused on our businesses. 

So, how can you start to build those foundations outside of just work? How can you start to build those foundations that will support your own energy, your inspiration, and your creativity? So that the next time you're feeling motivated, you still got those foundations in place. That you're not on a fast track to burning out again. 

Another thing that I found really helpful, and if your budget allows for this. Talking to a therapist can be really great self-care. I see a psychologist once every two weeks and sometimes I literally just sit there and talk to her because she's listening to me for an hour. I can vent. I can whinge. I can do all of the things that I wouldn't do with my friends. 

And another one that might help is changing your physical environment. Now, this doesn't have to mean travel. Travel can be great for this, but it could also mean just working from a different cafe one morning a week. It could mean going and taking half a day, once a week to go to the beach and just sit at the beach and do some journaling or sit there and just enjoy. Sitting on the sand. Having a different environment around, you can really start to shake up some of that stagnant energy. 

 

Have some white space

Focus on creating as much white space in your mind as possible. Now, it's one thing to take time away from your business, but it's another thing to completely disconnect your mind as well. It's very easy to be like, yes, I'm not at my computer. But then you're still thinking, oh, what's landing in my inbox? Oh, I need to do all of these things tomorrow. What's on my to-do list for next week? And we're not actually resting. We think we're resting because we're away from our business physically, but we're not mentally disconnected. 

So when I talk about creating white space, I really mean allowing yourself to feel bored. Giving yourself a day when you've got nothing on your to-do list. Allowing yourself to read a novel instead of a business book. Creating that empty space means that ideas now have space to come to the surface. 

And if you haven't, if you're struggling to find your thing in your business, chances are that your brain has just been too cluttered for it to come up to the surface. And when you allow that space, that's when you might have those little bursts of inspiration. The little nudges that say, huh, maybe this is the right direction for me. 

It can be so uncomfortable allowing this white space in because you know if we've been avoiding uncomfortable emotions, uncomfortable things that we didn't want to think about if we've been avoiding them, that space usually means these things come to the surface, but that's all still part of the process. 

 

Bottomline

If you're feeling uninspired in your business, pushing and trying to do more and forcing yourself to do more things is not the solution. I've tried this.  It's very hard when you have goals and you want to achieve things and you want to achieve it all now.  But you really do need to do less you need to rest so that you can do more when that inspiration, that energy, that creativity all starts to come back. Do things outside of your business. Fill your cup up. Allow that white space in and give it time. That inspiration will come back. The ideas will come back and you will find that alignment again but it takes time. 

 

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