How to Reduce Overwhelm & Start Seeing Results (Pt. 2 of 6)
Make 2023 A Year of Explosive Growth
This Winter, I’m dishing out a 6-week Instagram Live Training + Blog Post series around the topic of ‘Your ‘23 Plan of Attack—A Year of Explosive Growth.’
This theme will scale each week setting you up to thrive going into the upcoming ‘23 Q1 3-Week Boot Camp. (Saturday, Jan. 14th through Friday, Feb. 3rd) 🗓
In this 21-day group coaching workshop, you’ll get crystal clear on WHAT you want, WHY you want it, and HOW you'll make it happen.
Note: Click the image to watch the replay. Continue below to read the blog.
Click to watch the Instagram Live Training Replay
Too Ambitious & Unrealistic Goals?
When I wrote the outline for this, I was in Week 11 with my 12-week fall students who are crushing (shout-out to WD, MacKenzie, Mista Casey Duke, Jason, and Alex.)
For context, this was during the week of December 5th - 11th—AKA the Holiday season (and distractions) were ramping up.
Not only did I have them all answer last week’s IG Live + Blog Post question on “What’s one thing you can do in December that would be a big accomplishment?”
But we went over their end-of-program/year hit list of projects and tasks based on the question “What would measurable wins look like based on current bandwidth?”
Some of their responses were a little too ambitious and dare I say extremely unreasonable.
For example, let’s pick on Mista Casey Duke…
Within the final 3 weeks of the year, this dude was supposedly going to:
Finish the final 3 pieces in his 6 part Solana NFT Series “Illusion And Control” (his art process is tedious AF like mine).
Orchestrate two private sales with collectors for 2 of the 3 pieces and auction the third.
Finish a collaboration project with a big NFT project called Particles.
Finish his website (Home, About, Art, Process, and Debt Pay-Off pages).
Finish/polish up promotional assets and pitch decks to share with potential collectors.
My head was spinning with his significantly unrealistic “To-Do List.”
I basically responded with, “Chill homie—you’re going to overwhelm yourself.”
We radically had to pump the brakes and put some things into perspective such as:
He’s still a family man and needs to be present.
He has a day job that he still has to crush.
The Holidays are going to be hectic and full of distractions.
He’ll need to bake in margin for random shit like getting sick or needing a mental health day.
He still had a bunch of lingering action items to complete before the coaching program ended.
He’ll need time to rest and recharge a bit post-program as he’s gone hard in the paint for 12 straight weeks.
I’m all for being ambitious, but there’s a certain point where we tend to bite off more than we can chew.
In my personal and coaching experience, falling short of our over-ambitious and unrealistic expectations can f*ck with our heads.
It’s too easy to compare our output to others as we beat ourselves up for not accomplishing “enough.”
When in reality…
We didn’t give ourselves a fair chance from the start.
We put too much pressure on ourselves by not taking our circumstances into consideration.
We don’t appreciate the significant progress we’ve already made in the first place.
Balancing Ambition & Expectations
As creatives, we have a tendency to over-promise and under-deliver ourselves (expect too much and fall short).
This is a dream killer in any business model, especially if you pull this stunt habitually at your day job.
Instead, we should focus on how can we underpromise and over-deliver ourselves (set targets to realistically crush and build from).
That way, knocking shit out early or finishing anything extra is an over-achieving bonus.
With Casey, we really narrowed down the hit list and focused on:
Pushing some things out into January.
Baking more margin into his timeline.
Dialing in a hit list of ONE priority/action item at a time (vs. balancing 5 things at once each day).
This not only helped him to reduce overwhelm…
But positioned him to be a productivity beast as each dragon he slayed moved his biz forward.
This measured approach also sets him up with momentum going into the New Year.
With a crazy month like December, you gotta balance the tenacious drive with realistic expectations.
Learning how to nurture this type of approach within a smaller season like the Holidays…
Will have a radical rippling effect when planning bigger seasons.
When I say bigger season, I’m referring to how what you’re learning today will set you up…
To be ambitious and realistic with your game plan going into 2023.
Workshopping through this with Casey made me also get more realistic with my end-of-year projects and tasks.
I had to revisit my massive list of “Nice to Get Done To-Dos” and revise it to list of “Top Priority + Realistic To-Dos.”
While the list is condensed, it’s full of short-term action items that move my business forward and align with my bigger-picture targets.
To me, December is a major success if I:
Wrap up a killer 12-Week Coaching Program by December 18th.
Prepare a runway for my upcoming January 3-Week Boot Camp so I can take time off over Christmas.
Draw and release my 5th piece in my Universal Thoughts Series the last week of the year.
Anything else I’m able to accomplish is just extra sprinkles on an already delicious donut—but there’s zero pressure to do more.
TAKEAWAY 💡
The key for me during these hectic stretches in a season are to:
Simplify the game for a few weeks and scale back my workload.
Plot out my TOP tasks that move my business forward (I could even break down the TOP task into multiple important tasks).
Give myself permission to not be my hyper-productive self as normal—I operate at ~80% during December.
Failing to plan = planning to fail for me.
Honestly, I'd be lost on how to handle the chaos this season if I didn’t overwhelm myself in the past.
Learning how to navigate these choppy waters with your side hustle puts you in a position to crush it full-time one day.
That’s the difference between a hobbyist and a professional—it’s all a mindset.
Shake Off the Rust
What about you—do you find yourself stumbling through the Holidays and into 2022?
I'd love to help you shake off the rust and take control of what moves you're making throughout the New Year and beyond.
Want to work together? 🤝
If you'd like to work with me and a bunch of hungry creatives who share the same struggles as you...
Consider learning more below about how to join an upcoming 3-Week Boot Camp. 👇🏻
LET’S WORK TOGETHER 🤝
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Expect challenging exercises, a private community, 3 weekly live calls, and more.
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