“I’m noticing that as I heal and grow my nervous system’s capacity, I have to be VERY flexible to accommodate those days when something pops up that requires attention that is triggering, or those days when I just don’t have a lot of capacity and need to rest.”
This episode is a response to the listener question above.
This episode is a response to the listener question above.
We cover:
-Practical steps to balance rest and business demands even when your capacity is low.
-How to assess whether you’re doing enough in your business without falling into the trap of constant self-doubt.
-Ways to structure your business around your current capacity, ensuring both personal well-being and professional success.
TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] Sheridan: This is how you know if you are doing enough, especially if you have to schedule a couple more mental health days than you’re really comfortable with. In today’s episode, you’re going to learn how to navigate those moments when, you know, your emotions pop up and triggers pop up and they do require your attention and they take your action away from the business.
[00:00:37] You’re going to learn what to do when you don’t have a lot of capacity, need to rest and the business still needs things done. And you’re also going to learn how to know when you are doing enough in your business as a solopreneur, especially if you experience any levels of anxiety. This recommendation comes from Jess and I’m just going to read out the [00:01:00] message that, uh, like the question that was asked and I’m just going to give my own assenses on it.
[00:01:05] It was. I’m noticing that as I heal and grow my nervous system’s capacity, I have to be very flexible to accommodate those days when something pops up that requires attention that is triggering or those days when I just don’t have a lot of capacity and I need to rest. There are kind of a couple of things here and we’re gonna note them out and go through them one by one. One, there’s the pot that wants to know if it’s enough and how that’s actually just you trying to control the future. because of your anxieties and your fears and it’s absolutely impossible and it’s an endless fight that you will never win.
[00:01:44] There’s the wisdom behind the part of you that wants to do things, you know, things have to get done in a business in order for that business to have some level of purpose and impact in the world. And then there’s the way
[00:02:00]to structure your current business around your capacity because you don’t need to To wait until you are fully healed or have this full capacity in order to start making money today.
[00:02:18] So let’s look at them in the order that I set them. The part of you that wants to know if it’s enough. There is an inherent uncertainty around any type of entrepreneurship. It’s beautiful because uncertainty means possibility, right? Because it is uncertain, it means anything can happen. Now you can hear that in my voice and be like, Oh my God, anything can happen.
[00:02:41] Or you can hear that in my voice and be like, anything can happen. You can make a million dollars tomorrow in a way that you cannot do in another more structured type of employment, such as working for a salary in a company. We love that. We want that. But because it comes with a level of [00:03:00]uncertainty, your body struggles with uncertainty.
[00:03:05] The more tender parts of you struggle with uncertainty, particularly if you’re somebody who has experienced really intense. Downs in your life before maybe there was some time where something was uncertain your body perceived it to be uncertain it could be just like you went on a trip or it’s like dad went away for a little bit too long and Then when he came back he packed his bags and and fully left or I went on a trip and it was uncertain But then I broke my elbow and I had a really traumatic experience in a hospital.
[00:03:34] That was really awful and Your body is holding all of these experiences and it’s also responding to the fact that it doesn’t like uncertainty because uncertainty means unsafe. So it’s natural that a part of you wants to pop up and, and eliminate most of that uncertainty doesn’t want you to be there.
[00:03:58] However, [00:04:00] if you want to stay in your body, you want to stay regulated. You want to avoid burnout. You want to be able to be a creative, um, Intellectual decision maker who is decisive, who can see different problems, who can solve different problems, who can be present in their business and also present with their loved ones.
[00:04:16] You want to do all of those things that we all want. You need to learn how to deal with uncertainty without letting it shut down and make you doubt your decisions, make you doubt Yourself. Make you doubt whether or not you’ve chosen the right product market fit. Make you procrastinate on having conversations about your product to see if it’s the correct market fit.
[00:04:36] Make you spiral into days and weeks and hours and years and months and like literally years for some of you of trying to figure out the next step. Because the honest truth is you actually don’t know if it’s enough. You don’t know. You don’t know if everything that you’re doing today is enough to get you to your goals.
[00:04:56] What you can begin to cultivate, and I hope that you do through this podcast [00:05:00] and through working with me, those of you who are, is to cultivate enough trust in your body that your body’s going to guide you there, and that you’re always going to be secure and protected, and that your body and the way that it speaks to you through its sensations and its emotions and its desires and its impulses, when you are fully regulated and you can use your amazing intellect of a brain to be creative, to be innovative, to connect with others, You get everything that you want, your only job is to remain regulated and listening and listening with nuance to other things that you want because some down, somewhere down deep inside of your bones, there is this intelligence that is connected to the rest of the world that it knows exactly what you need to bring you the most effortless, these most easeful, the particular type of life that is only going to satisfy you at your core and to get there, you’re going to need to learn to be with uncertainty because uncertainty is possibility.
[00:05:58] So we have different practices that we can use to [00:06:00] do that. We have different kind of approaches with mindset that we can use to do that. That would go outside of the scope of this podcast. But number one kind of homework for you is how can I increase my capacity to be with the uncertainty of not knowing if it’s enough.
[00:06:15] I will note that this kind of does mirror, I think, sometimes our desire to want to make sure somebody else responds to us in a certain way. We want to know that we are enough for them. We want to know, um, if we like navigated that specific conversation correctly, we might go back and replay things or think about how to do our relationships better.
[00:06:37] If you have that same tendency here, you’re also going to learn or I’m inviting you to learn how to navigate uncertainty in relationships. This goes for all of you who are really trying to control all the things that your loved ones do, and it’s probably hurting you. So just notice if there’s a mirror there.
[00:06:56] Maybe that’s a different episode. Anyway. We have to couple [00:07:00]that, um, esoteric way of looking at things and that philosophical way of looking at things and that embodied way of looking at things with the wisdom that this part is coming to you with. It’s a really good question, actually. How do I know when it’s enough?
[00:07:14] On one hand, we don’t, on the other. We can kind of figure it out. A lot of my clients, the first thing that we’ll do when we start working together is we’ll do a really big audit of all of the things that are working inside of their business. I’m actually doing it right now, um, with a really beautiful client who is a therapist.
[00:07:33] And so we’re looking at all of the things that she’s doing that feel really good in her business and lead to having her having more of the types of clients that she wants in this next phase. Then we’re looking at everything else that she’s doing in her week. Okay. And unless she finds it really, really fun or it directly leads to more sales or positioning her as a thought leader, which are her biggest goals, we are getting rid of it.
[00:07:56] We’re not doing it. So we do need to know what is enough. And the way [00:08:00]that we know that is by knowing what are our goals. We have to be more specific about our goals. If you’ve experienced trauma, that’s something that we need to navigate with. Um, sometimes a little bit of tact and, We kind of have to find a goal that your body can work with.
[00:08:14] You know, for some of you, it’s, it’s a monetary goal for others. It’s something else. And we need to find a goal that your body can get on board with and we can move towards. And then we do need to identify like, what are the KPIs? What are the targets? What are the weekly, monthly and daily actions that need to occur inside of the business in order to move you towards your goals?
[00:08:38] One of the things that I teach a lot about is having conversations about what it is that you do with lots of different people. That’s a thing that has to happen. Whether or not you create those conversations through network marketing, through marketing through reels on Instagrams, through your podcast, through YouTube, through, um, going around and talking to people different at cafes.
[00:08:56] We know that we need to have conversations and we know that we need to invite people to work
[00:09:00] with us. That has to happen on some level. You can lose Google ads for it. I don’t mind how you do it, but you have to do it if you’re going to want people to work with you. And so one of the things that we might try and measure is like, okay, well, how many people have we spoken with and pick a goal, pick a goal that feels good.
[00:09:19] Pick a goal that feels doable for you. And. Either you do that goal or you employ somebody else to do that goal. The goal, the thing has to happen inside of the business. Marketing has to happen in the business. Operations have to happen in the business. You have to serve your clients. You have to do sales.
[00:09:37] Otherwise, you don’t have a business. So what has to happen and either you need to do it, you need to find a way to make it fun and pleasurable and joyful and, and realistic, or you need to get somebody else to do it. And both are really wonderful options. Number three is You actually need to, you can [00:10:00]actually structure your current business around your capacity.
[00:10:02] You don’t need to wait. I remember I went through a really painful, um, emotional experience probably about a year and a bit ago. And prior to that experience, I was doing a lot of one on one work. So I would spend a lot of my time. And I loved it. And it’s, it’s just lit me up so much and it’s felt so wonderful and so good.
[00:10:28] As that specific event was occurring, I had a couple of one on one clients kind of ending. And so I had some space in my calendar and I was sat with this decision of, okay, um, do I go when I invite more people to work with me? Um, and do I reach out to some of the people who are interested in one on one and do I fill my calendar or do I not?
[00:10:49] I was having a lot of emotional ups and downs. And so I knew that. Actually wasn’t really going to help me to have a lot of structure in my calendar. [00:11:00]So I restructured my office and I restructured my business plan and I created something that I was still making money Actually ended up making more money, which is really cool because I had to just restructure a couple of things and I had less time that was so structured and put on my calendar.
[00:11:18] That was better for my capacity at that moment, because I was able to really be in the grieving stage, fully transmute that and then move on with my life. Very I want to say like I feel like I’ve moved on in a way where I’ve gone at my own pace It hasn’t felt rushed. It’s felt like it’s happened quicker and I’ve really integrated the wisdom from it Very it was very integrated rather than like something that I’m still kind of healing from and so restructuring my business allowed that to happen and I was able to Still make money while I was going through this very sensitive time.
[00:11:55] If we compare that to when I was a yoga teacher and I was going through [00:12:00]deep grief, I was in the throes of complex PTSD. It was not supportive to my calendar. It was not supportive to my body to have so much free time. What was actually more supportive for me, and I sat down and I looked at it and I was like, okay, because I know what I know about the psyche, I’m going to structure my day really well.
[00:12:20] And I’m. Also going to structure in times to be grieving, to be angry, to cry, to move. And so I went out and I said yes to lots of things. And I taught a lot of yoga classes and I did a lot of coaching and I structured sleep in and I structured meal times in because that was more supportive for my capacity.
[00:12:39] So it’s about looking and structuring your business around your capacity and knowing that you get to have a business that supports you in your current capacity. That’s the reason that you’re doing this to have that control. But when I say this, I’m not trying to say like, go out and just like be easeful and we all just need to work less.
[00:12:57] And in all of that, I think that there’s like this big [00:13:00]romanticization around having time in your calendar and that’s really helpful sometimes, but it’s also not helpful all of the time. So when I sit down with my clients and something like this happens, we just say, what does my calendar need to look like and what are the things That in my business that I can sell that will fit in with my calendar.
[00:13:17] What price do they need to be at in order to sell them? And then what are the action items that need to happen in order for me to sell that thing at that price point? And am I going to be doing that or not? Are you gonna be doing? Or like, is an employee gonna be doing that? And then we check all of that.
[00:13:34] Does that feel good? We usually kind of divide it by at least we really decrease it by at least 25% because you and I are probably quite overachievers and we are very ambitious with what we can do. Um, and I, we are aware of that. So we kind of like then just take a little bit off and then we say, that’s realistic.
[00:13:52] That’s gonna work. Let’s go. That came from my body, that came from my desires, that came from what is true for me. It’s going to make me money. I’m going to feel
[00:14:00] satisfied in the process. So yummy, do it, love it. So if that sounds like your thing, and you’re more interested in, in this type of work and understanding how to work as an entrepreneur and still make money without it going beyond your current capacity, definitely make sure that you’ve listened to episode number 121.
[00:14:19] It’s called how to stop overworking and still make money as a female and anxious entrepreneur. It’s really for. Those of you who tend to overwork, tend to work quite a bit, you’re feeling under resourced, you’re feeling, um, underpaid, um, maybe you are not sleeping very well, and you also know that this path of entrepreneurship is the way to get to the freedom and the satisfaction that you can literally feel inside of your bones, like it’s right there.
[00:14:50] So that episode is going to help you understand how to double your sales, reduce your workweek and boost your productivity using three different things, three different keys. You’re also going to [00:15:00] learn how to regulate your nervous system to allow more ease and satisfaction in your business and your personal life.
[00:15:05] And you’re going to gain insights into trauma healing and business strategies that are as always tailored to support your unique needs for your sustainable success. You’ll find a link down below to episode 121 in the show notes