Ep 197 – The Room in Your Mind

Podcast Introduction:

Mentoring with Geraldine is a bite-sized practitioner podcast for naturopaths, nutritionists, herbalists, and practitioners. Responding directly to the needs of the practising natural therapist.  With interviews, herbal discussions, something business, something clinical … you’ll get the variety you need to enjoy and stay motivated in practice.

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Episode Introduction: Overwhelm

Hello, everyone. Welcome to “Mentoring with Geraldine and the Bite-Sized podcast”. 

How the devil are you? 

So today I thought I would talk about overwhelm and …. we totally all have it, don’t we?

It affects us all, at different times, and in different ways. 

Overwhelm – Making it Real:

I always equate it, back to years and years ago, my father was visiting from New Zealand ( 15 years ago, something like that), and my son’s room (or my daughter’s room – I can’t remember which child) – the room was really messy. 

And I said: 

“Come on, we have to tidy up your room, tidy up your room”. 

And my father turned around and said:

“You know what? I think it’s got to the point in there, that he doesn’t know where to start, and he needs help”.  

And that stopped me in my tracks. It’s ridiculous. Isn’t it? 

I mean, clearly, things get to a point where you can’t do it by yourself, and you need support.  But it just stopped me. 

And then at the time, I was running my own business, but not really. It was small. The kids were little. I think it must have been my son, because I think my daughter was very little. 

And so my business was very small. My business was just ticking over, with a few clients. 

I paid for our holidays every year – that’s the money that I put aside to pay for our travelling. 

And here I was blasted by this: “It’s too big to figure out where to start” comment.  

And I think that that is something that is totally relatable in our own business – in small business. 

Does this Sound Familiar?

• We don’t know where to start
• And so sometimes we avoid starting, by doing other things
  • and we call that procrastination 
• Whereas it’s not …
  • Because you are doing other things  
    • those other things still need to be done!  
• But we often have this huge elephant in the room 
  • that we can’t decide how to start on that object. 

So for me, at the moment, The Paediatric Online Mastery Course, I’ve had to put it off, because I had Covid, and I was down for a couple of months. I really couldn’t work. 

I mean, I did work, but I wasn’t at full capacity, so I couldn’t do all of the other things I normally do.  

And it keeps going on the back burner – it keeps being pushed out a month. 

It’s normally delivered in August. Well, it’s clearly not now, is it? 

And so it’s been pushed out to October,and it needs to change as well. 

So that’s another motivator. 

So I’ve got a motivator, on one hand … 

• that it does need changing, and that things need tidying up  
• It needs a new landing page

So I know all the things it needs, but on the other hand …

• I actually want to do some private study – I want to do some pathology study 
• I want to do some study into regulations

(These are) things that you guys need to know – so that I can have these things on my website – and deliver them to you for free so that you’ve got them.

Because everybody has been saying:

“Oh, I need CBD points. I need CBD points”. 

But to have those for next year (because you’ve all just done your CPD for this year, if you are a mid-year one, or it’s coming up for December). So I’ve got a lead in for these things. 

So that means I need: to create – to develop – so that it’s there for you.

And these things will take time.  

Are you Stuck in the Overwhelm Zone?

And it’s the same with our clients, and with our business. 

What is it that we put off with our clients? 

For me, it was always the financials – that paperwork, specifically. 

So once I got myself a bookkeeper, it just changed my universe. 

I just had so much more space in my brain to do things … 

Because I wasn’t worrying about dates, and whether I’d done things!

(I mean, I pay every bill as soon as it comes in – that’s something I do – as soon as the bill comes in, I pay it immediately, because I don’t want to forget anything. I don’t want people to have to remind me. And we’re all small businesses and it’s really rude if we don’t pay a small business.  Fine – I don’t mind leaving Telstra until the ‘pay me by’ date, but everything else gets paid immediately).  

We’ve got this overwhelm around certain things in our lives, and certain parts that we are doing. And other things just seem to flow. 

We get up and we cook the dinner every night, don’t we, for example – it doesn’t matter who we are. We participate in the creation of food for ourselves. 

We participate in the creation of stuff for our daily activities – of daily living – as they’re called in medicine.  

But what is it that is stopping your flow, right now? 

And how big is that thing?

And how can you chunk it down? 

Like my son’s bedroom:

We went in and we started with the lego. I (said): “Let’s just do the Lego first”. 

What is the one thing that you can do right now that will help you in your business?  

What is the one thing, that if you got that done, everything else would just be a little bit easier? 

Get Sorted September Challenge 

(link below to join -it’s free)

So we’ve got the: “Get Sorted September” challenge coming up.

We’re going to do some of these things. 

We’re going to do some big picture work.

But we’re going to do some small activities as well, so that we can really think about: 

“What is it – that thing?” 

“… that one thing that’s blocking me – that’s stopping me?”

“… that if I just get on and do that, and get it done, get it sorted 

“… I can move on to the next thing”. 

What is it about that bedroom of my mind that is stopping me from completing everything? 

• Is it that the Lego needs tidying up – all those little wee bits, just need picking up, and putting in a basket – and that can actually be sorted out later.  
• It might be that all of your financial papers (all of the bills and invoices and everything else) – they all just need putting in one place
  • Nothing else needs doing. 
  • It might be something really simple like that. 
• It might be researching something
• It might be putting stuff on social media  

???

What is it, that is your block, in the bedroom of your mind 

that is stopping you from getting out and doing these things 

and reducing your overwhelm 

by finding that thing

??? 

If it’s Quick – Deal with it Now:

There’s another little rule. 

(and I don’t know who’s it is – somebody, a coach …). 

They said that:

“If you can do it in under 5 minutes, do it! (so that it’s off your plate)“ 

That’s like paying a bill, isn’t it? 

That takes you about 2 minutes to pay a bill. 

So that’s the sort of thing we want. 

What is it, and if we can do it really, really quickly – do it!,

Don’t put it on the back burner, because the things that take longer, we have to delegate them time.  

And that might be another thing. 

Planning your Time:

Maybe you need to plan your time. 

For the things you hate! 

That’s what I was originally doing with all my invoices and paperwork. 

I would do them on a Tuesday morning. It was in my calendar. 

It would say do accounts in my calendar at 9:00am on a Tuesday morning … 

• and often I would try and do something else
• often I would put it off 
• and then it would become a bigger problem, and a bigger problem, and a bigger problem 
• until I sat down and said: 

“No, I’m going to do this now. I’m going to spend this time”

But we can avoid doing that (avoiding the yuk jobs)…

If we can see what the sticking point is

where the problem is 

so that we can overcome that problem

I work with a lot of people, and for everyone in The Academy. 

I go over this all the time! 

I talk about this all the time! 

Because I think it’s something that’s a problem for us all!  

You’re not alone – it is totally a problem for us all. 

I’ve woken up this morning, and it’s not even 8.30 yet, and I’m on here because it came to me (I was in the kitchen, and it came to be about my father saying that about my son), and I thought that’s a really good analogy. 

Remember the House Analogy – Chunk it Down

We have rooms in our brains – we have rooms in our house – we have rooms in our lives, and things within those rooms. 

A whole house is a big picture. 

How do I clean my house? It’s massive! 

Let’s chunk it down. 

How do I clean my room? 

Let’s chunk it down. 

How do I clean the cupboard? 

And it’s the same in our business?  

How can I study for that exam? 

I need to chunk it down. 

How can I learn more about this thing – how can I learn more about Essential Polycythemia and yet still have time to see the client later? 

How can I learn more about this problem, and still do the other thing? 

We have to give ourselves time.

Chunk it down.  

If it’s a quick thing, do it immediately. 

If it’s something that’s a slower thing, think about it. 

How am I going to do this? 

How can I chunk it down? 

How can I reduce the pressure on me to complete it? 

Signing Off:

So that’s what I’m leaving you with this morning. 

And if you’ve got all the way to the end, don’t forget to like, and subscribe, and leave a review.  That would be lovely, if you wouldn’t mind. 

So have a beautiful rest of day, whatever time of day it is for you. 

And I look forward to seeing you on the next cast. 

Bye.

Thanks so much for joining me today. Don’t forget to rate, review and subscribe to the podcast, for the weekly episodes. If you’d like even more support and learning, then The Academy is for you. Here, you’ll find part 2 of the herbal discussions, more clinical learning, and case studies, to support your clients in practice. Bye for now.