5 Steps to Getting Beyond Procrastination and Overwhelm

In working with overwhelmed entrepreneurs over the years, I’ve seen that the main reason people procrastinate and experience overwhelm is because of their inner mind chatter.

If you’ve ever experienced mind chatter – and really, who hasn’t? – you feel like your thoughts are spinning out of control.  It makes you crazy!  What occurs in your mind is that you have a lot of competing thoughts pulling you in different directions.  You might say you want to do something and yet you have another thought that tells you why you can’t do that, or why you aren’t good enough to do it or it has to be done a certain way.  Basically what happens is you play this inner game of tug-of-war and get pulled in so many different directions that you end up feeling totally stuck.  The outcome is that you don’t have a clear path of which way to go or what the next step to take is.

When you are experiencing this chatter and feel stuck, you generally don’t understand why you are feeling stuck.  When you don’t understand and the energy around it feels heavy, then there is no clear path and you will procrastinate or push it off.  This creates even more feelings of overwhelm because you know in the back of your mind you need to take care of it.  The paradox is that you continue to push it off because it feels too overwhelming to do right now, so you are caught in a vicious cycle.

What can you do about this mind chatter?

What I like to do when my mind is racing is use the process that I created called “The Chatter Stopper.” The basic idea of the Chatter Stopper is for you to stop and become clear on your competing thoughts that:

• Prevent you from understanding why you feel stuck, and
• What you can do to resolve it.

There are five basic steps to completing the Chatter Stopper that will help you detangle and focus your thoughts and energy.

The first step is to acknowledge and write down how you are feeling.  Give yourself a break and make it okay to have all the thoughts that are flying through your head. Most people try to ignore or push away what they’re feeling, telling themselves that they don’t have time to deal with it.  By doing this, it only adds to the mind chatter.  When you can stop and truly acknowledge how you feel, then in essence, you are acknowledging yourself, expressing to yourself that you really are important.

After you can get out on paper and acknowledge how you are feeling, you can then explore, ”What is it that I don’t want?” This uncovers or pulls out all the competing thoughts, the yeah-buts, and the thoughts that tell you why you can’t do this or why it will be hard.  These thoughts are the thing that make it hard for you and prevent you from moving forward.  This could be based on past experience or beliefs that you have about yourself, behaviors that perhaps were passed on from teachers, parents or society.  By taking the time to identify what you don’t want, you can become clear on what you do want.

It is like when someone is giving you something that you want.  They have a present for you, but your hands are full with stuff.  You are holding a bunch of junk in your hands.  In order to allow yourself to receive the present, you have to let go of all that junk.  By writing down what you don’t want first you are letting go of the junk and open up the space to bring in greater clarity on what you do want.

The next step is to identify what you do want. Most people don’t know what they want; therefore, they continue to attract what they don’t want.  By identifying what you want, you are given a different focal point, rather than staying in the energy of what you don’t want.  Whatever you focus on is what you get, so it is better to be clear on what you want so you attract more of that!

The next step is to ask yourself is “How will I feel once I have what I want?” The reason you want to become clear on how you will think you will feel is because ultimately this is what you wanted to feel in the first place.  By tapping into these feelings, you are tapping into the energy that will carry you through the process.

Then you will want to tune-in so you can recognize if you are feeling any energy shifts. If you are feeling shifts in your energy, you will notice that your inner chatter has begun to quiet down.

Lastly, ask yourself, “What am I inspired to do now?” This allows your inner guidance to unfold.  By tapping into the energy of your feelings, you can access a higher vibration that allows guidance to come through easily.  It is important to take action when you receive guidance.  When you move from a place of guided inspired action, then it will feel natural and comfortable for you to take the next steps.

The inspired action gives you the next best step.  When you take a next step, the possibilities change.  You are that much closer to what you want and at the same time you can become high on the energy.  You are aligned with and supported by Spirit for whatever you desire to manifest.  The inspired action moves the energy.  It changes the blueprint and opens up your energy.

By doing this process, you are literally shifting your vibration so you can take action more easily.   By managing your energies there is no need then for you to try to push yourself through it.

I encourage you to try this process and see how easily it can help you manage your chatter.  It seems simple, however, my clients tell me all the time that this is one of the easiest ways that they are able to get more things done.

And as always, we appreciate your comments

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If you are feeling inspired to learn more about how you can stop your chatter and to receive examples and a template to help you reign in your inner chatter, I invite you to connect check out our upcoming teleclass, “Beyond the Overwhelm“

Tagged as: mind chatter, overwhelm, procrastination