Hello! Hello! Hello! Welcome to a very special edition of Q & A Tuesday!
Q: So as always, I'm Marie Forleo and we're dealing with a very special question today
and this is from a gal in Amsterdam. Her name is Sabine and Sabine writes:
"Help, I'm feeling totally overwhelmed! Where do I begin with all the things I have to do?"
A: So, throwing my notes away! You know why? Because we're going to get down in to it!
Overwhelm is one of those things that all of us deal with. If you're creative; if you're
a business owner; if you've lots of things going on, chances are there's many, many times
in your life where you feel like your head is about to explode. Right? So all of us deal
with this. We need to get things done and I have a very special workshop that I'm going
to take you through right now that is going to change your freakin life! It's going to
take about 10-15 minutes. I want you to go grab a notebook, go grab a pen and come back.
I'll wait!
You got it? Okay, good! So we're going to get started!
So here's what I want you to remember, "inner chaos creates outer chaos." Okay, so if you
have much stuff renting space in your head and in your heart. It's going to be impossible
to slow down, prioritize, and actually start getting things done. So what we're going to
do now is an exercise called Creating Mental Whitespace. This is one of the most incredible
that I've ever done to really get things moving fast.
So what you're going to do for the next 10 minutes, when I say 'Go' you're going to press
pause on this video and you're going to write your little fingers off. And, what I want
you to do is take everything out of here and get it onto paper. So anything that keeps
you up at night, things that you wake up worrying about. All the projects that you need to get
done; all the things you tell yourself that you should be doing. I want you to just do
a total brain numb on to this piece of paper. No editing. No stopping. At least 10 minutes,
press pause, Go!
Ooohh... Ah, Lord, that was intense. You need a cigarette? I don't even smoke. You get the
point. That was intense. I'm so happy you did it! Great freaking job! Now, we're going
to move on and we have a second part to the exercise. What you're going to do now is you're
going to put a big fat stinking line through everything on that list that is outside of
your control. So what does that mean?
Many of us spend way, way, way too much time worried about things that are just completely
not within our control and if we don't have control over it, we shouldn't be spending
time on it. We shouldn't be thinking about it. We shouldn't be feeling overwhelmed about
it. So what's an example? I don't know, perhaps you feel like you want your mom to love you
more, right? You really want your mom to just send you more love and all this stuff and
you spend lots of waken time working on it, thinking about it. "How can I make this happen?"
Guess what? You can't control how another person feels. Mom's probably a lovely person
but let her do her thing! Now what you could control is feeling more connected to your
mom. Maybe you want to write her a letter, even if she's passed away. It's within your
control to control how you feel about her, can't control another person. Let's take an
example in the business realm, right? Let's say you want to sell, I don't know, $250,000
dollars worth of your new program. Well guess what? Unfortunately, you can't control people's
buying decisions.
Of course, unless you're going to steal their credit cards which is completely illegal.
We don't do that, right? What you can control is putting together a really clear marketing
plan. You can control sending out your newsletter every week. Things that you can take action
on that are within your control that will help you reach your goal but it's better use
of your time and energy. Makes sense? So for the next five minutes, take that beautiful
big list, go through everything that is outside of your control and put a big line through
it. Ready? Go!
Hooray!!! You did it! So you're almost there, but we have one more step. Remember, we're
clearing out overwhelm. So stick with me here! So the next step to this process, I want you
to take that beautiful list that you already have lines through it and we're going to put
one more set. It's stripping away everything and what we're going to look for right now
is anything that I call "meh." Right? Meh. Meh stands for anything that just basically
kind of sucks. Things that you think you should do, you're not passionate about, you feel
guilty about, obligated to do.
Things that are just like dragging on your to-do list that just follow you from year-to-year
that you say you should get around to. Well, let's face it, it ain't happening. So maybe
you keep talking to yourself about wanting to learn a new language but you never do it.
Right? You never take classes. You never go to the country. Meh. You're not going to do
it. Let's just take it off your list.
Maybe there's some people, I don't know, in your business or your life that you say, "Oh,
I should really meet them," but you're doing it because you just want to be nice. You don't
really want to meet them. You don't really want to do a project with them. Meh. Comes
off your list. So take the next five minutes alright, take a big line through everything
that is meh on your list. Do it now!
Happy dance!! Happy dance!! You're done!! So right now what you have is a big beautiful
list. Hopefully with lots of lines through it. If you don't have a lot of lines through
that stuff, honey press pause and go back and do it again! What's in front of you are
the things that you really should devote your time and energy to and now, it's really up
to you about how you want to prioritize, schedule, and get them done. Everyone's got their own
productivity style.
For me, I like to put things in my schedule, I like to get them in the calendar. That's
what helps me just push them on out but this exercise Creating Mental Whitespace, you can
use it any time. It'll get you out of overwhelm and into action!
Alright, so that's all we've got for you today for this special Q & A Tuesday. If you like
it, like it. Please comment. If you want more great training like this, come on over and
see me at marieforleo.com and get on that newsletter list. Most of all, thank you so
much for watching and I'll see you next time!