When Your Business Feels Overwhelming: Reflect & Reset

Have you ever found yourself feeling overwhelmed in your business? Perhaps, feeling like you are running from one thing to the next without a deep connection or attunement to the activity you are engaging in or the person you are with? 

I have spent this past year in that state trying to get ahead. I revamped my schedule. I delegated more to my administrative assistant. I stopped accepting new clients. No matter what I did, it wasn't changing the feeling of overwhelm. 

My practice experienced significant growth in the past year. And with growth comes lots of change.

Systems and workflows that were once automated break down creating frustration and inefficiency. When that happens, those things become urgent and important to resolve usurping other tasks on the to-do list that can be put off until they become the urgent and important tasks.

This pattern is exhausting! 

It reminds me of the Poem "The Hole: An Autobiography in 5 Short Chapters" by Portia Nelson. 

Sometimes what is needed when things get overwhelming is to step away, reflect, and reset. 

I have heard many private practice owners say that they can't take time off for a vacation. And, yet, the truth is that we can't afford not to. 

Stepping away gives us time to pause and reflect on what is happening. It wasn't until I took an intentional 10 day solo road trithis past June, that I slowed down enough to identify the root rot contributing to the overwhelm. 

I needed that distance to create a new perspective about the challenges I was experiencing. I couldn't see them previously because I was too close to the source of the problems. It also helped me to identify the emotional reasoning and mindset patterns contributing to feelings of overwhelm. 

Taking that time helped me to map out a plan and start to course correct.

After spending over a decade in private practice, I have learned there are seasons in our business. Winter is a time of preparation. Spring is a time for planting. Summer a time for tending. And Fall, a time to reap the harvest. I realized that I have been stuck in a summer season in my business for over a year. 

That extended season was necessary though. Our office doubled in size when we relocated. We added more therapists to the team. We added therapy groups, special events, and even summer camps to our services. All of these took more energy and attention than I had been dedicating to my practice previously. 

Now, I am taking the time to reduce what I am producing in order to invest in my back-end systems and allow myself the opportunity to re-envision where I want to go from here. 

I only got here by taking that time to slow down and reflect. When the time comes that you are feeling overwhelmed by all that is happening within your business, I hope you remember that you, too, deserve the time to press pause, reflect and reset.