Do you feel like there are SO many ways to do things, SO many things coming at you, SO many expectations internal and external, SO many ways to manage your life, SO many strategies about parenting that you just get lost in the swarm of info.
Do you spend (waste) time learning all of those things and never ever execute on any of them. Or do you just flounder around because of the anxiety of it all? How can I possibly get all that done.
Sound familiar? You likely have INFORMATION OVERLOAD! And you need to stop.
Things you might say if you are suffering from Info Overload:
“Oh, I learned this new way of doing our home chore schedule!” …but you never actually tried it
“Have you seen this article on discipline techniques, we totally agree with it.” ...but you never actually discussed it with you spouse
“Found this new diet plan, looks amazing!” …but you never actually gave it a real go
These teachings, trainings, courses, webinars, programs, books, plans, outlines, methods are endless and very popular right now. And for good reason, people sharing what they know in order to help people. I get it, seriously I do.
But I am a human, with a little human to take care of, and a few businesses to juggle. I deeply love it all, but it gets overwhelming. I do not have a tendency towards anxiety, in fact, I’m pretty great at managing it. However, we all have a breaking point. So before you go over the edge ‘dealing’ with the expectations – ask yourself one big question (ok 2, I lied):
-
What really matters about this?
-
What’s going to move the needle?
Call me snobby about this fact – fine – but unless you practice what you preach and you can really demonstrate how ‘life-changing’ or ‘amazing’ or ‘effective’ your strategy is…I’m not particularly interested in learning from you.
I’m an entrepreneur and business owner and maybe it’s just because I’m wired this way to protect my time. However, I think moms are wired to protect their time too!!
- I do not want to learn marketing from the guy with a hot dog stand that does 2 events per year and still is in debt. ——–> I want to learn from someone who is a ridiculously big thinker and I can feel and see their work around me, who has actually made an impact.
- I do not want to learn business finance from someone who started an online business a year ago. ——–> I want to learn from someone who has built, from scratch, and possibly sold, and successfully profited from a multi million dollar business for decades.
- I do not want to learn to hone my leadership from someone who’s never had to make the hard decisions and have difficult conversations. ——-> I want to learn from the person who has experienced failure countless times in leadership, over years, and who is a humble leader.
- I do not want to learn how to raise my children from those that have some education around it but no experience. ——–> I want to learn from the grandma of 9 children, and 30 some grandchildren, or the mother who is a full time entreprenuer who has 4 kids in college now.
And while I am an information junkie (a scary amount of information goes into my brain from the moment I wake up until the moment I drift to sleep). I take it ALLLLLLL in, tuck away about 10% of the good stuff and discard the rest of the info. I’m happy to have learned it, taken a snippet from it here and there. But mainly it reaffirms the need to listen to myself. Analysis paralysis is real, and we fake ourselves out by pretending that we are busy. When we are ‘busy,’ we are not doing the work that matters.
So: Get quiet. Get still. Get listening.
That means get meditating or at least quiet calm contemplation time (yes, that’s what I’m suggesting. 10 minutes of sitting still won’t kill you – never has taken anyone’s life to date!)
This is where the hard work begins, when you face yourself and your reality. No one can do that work for you.
YOU already know what works for you and what does not. It applies to your kids/time management/finances/chores/schedules/habits/etc, etc, etc. YOU have to decide to face yourself full frontal and completely exposed – yikes hu? YOU have to take full responsibility for your actions and reactions.
