“It all feels like too much.”
When you find yourself thinking this, or bravely speaking it aloud, it can be hard to remember what levers you have available to pull to make things feel more manageable. There are multiple pathways to ease the pressure.
I often have clients that get close to completing their strategic plan and then get worried that they’ve bitten off more than they can chew. So allow me to get a bit technical on you as I demonstrate this idea of easing the pressure using a strategic plan. I am confident the same principles can apply to many other areas of our organizational or personal lives that are feeling too heavy.
- Decrease the number of goals or tasks.
- Reduce the magnitude of a goal. Do you need to do 100 reps or would 50 be similarly effective and give you some breathing space?
- Slow the pace at which you’ll reach your target. Extend your deadlines.
- Make the verb of the goal easier, as that’s what you’re accountable for. For instance, “piloting” or “experimenting” with something is less daunting than “implementing” or “completing” it.
- Spread the work around. Identifying which leaders or departments are responsible for which pieces of a plan can help you track if the load is evenly distributed, and help you remember that you are not responsible for all of it alone.
I was grateful to have this grace extended to me recently during a coaching conversation. We were discussing new directions for my business, and my coach said, “Could you do this in three years?” I’d been putting pressure on myself to launch my ideas in full and begin making money from them by January 2024, not January 2027! I audibly exhaled.
You may have people encouraging you to be kind to yourself (I hope you do!) — these are five practical ways to help you move from blankly nodding at them to actually making it happen.