Over the past couple of months, I have been feeling overwhelmed.
I have several new projects I genuinely want to bring to life. The ideas are there. The strategy is there. I know what needs to be done. Yet when it comes time to begin, I have found myself procrastinating. I could easily blame my workload, competing priorities or a lack of time. All of those things have played a part, but they are not the whole story.
Finally, I turned my behaviour analyst eyes on myself and became curious about what was really happening. I identified something uncomfortable sitting underneath the procrastination, I was struggling with the idea of calling myself an ‘expert’ and putting my face forward as the face of my brand. I needed to lean into a different kind of visibility, when in reality I am much more comfortable behind the scenes that out in front.
My newest project needs me to step forward and show people who I am, and it is quite a leap for me (and I suspect many others) to publicly say, “This is what I know. This is what I believe. This is how I can help you.”
Our brain always strives to keep us safe and my brain has been vigorously diverting me to other ‘important’ jobs in an effort to relieve the feelings of anxiety associated with pressing approve on a social media post. Suddenly, reorganising documents, refining plans, online shopping and playing golf felt very important. (Sometimes) It looked like productivity. It was actually avoidance wearing a ‘I’m soooooo busy label’.
This is why “Self” is one of my three business pillars
I talk about sustainable businesses through three connected pillars of Strategy, Systems and Self.
Strategy gives us direction and focus.
Systems create consistency and reduce the amount of information we have to carry around in our heads.
Self considers the person who must lead, implement and sustain everything. Self includes our energy, capacity, boundaries, values and wellbeing. It also includes our beliefs and mindsets about ourselves.
You can have a clever strategy and excellent systems, but if fear, exhaustion, perfectionism or self-doubt prevents you from using them, the business will still become stuck.
This has been an important reminder for me. Sometimes a lack of progress does not mean we need a new strategy. Sometimes we need to understand why we are resisting the strategy we already have.
My procrastination was not evidence that I did not care enough. In fact, the opposite is true, so a way forward needed to be mapped out. Here are four strategies I am using to move forward.
1. Name what is happening
The first step is to stop describing every delay as a time-management problem.
Ask yourself “what feels uncomfortable about completing this task?”, “what am I trying to delay?” Be specific, keep drilling down until you can name the specific task that you are putting off.
Perhaps publishing your website means people can judge your offer. Launching a course may raise the possibility that nobody buys it. Recording a video requires you to see and hear yourself. Quoting a higher price may trigger concerns about whether you are “worth it.”
When we name the real concern, it becomes something we can work with.
“I need to manage my time better” or “I’m just disorganised” is vague and usually leads to another delay tactic, online shopping for another planner!!!
“I am worried that people will question whether I am qualified to teach this” is specific. It gives us somewhere useful to begin. For me, naming the discomfort has helped separate the practical work from the emotional risk I had attached to it. Creating content is a task. Being visible is the discomfort. They are related, but they are not the same problem. I can work on my anxiety with being visible, while completing the task.
2. Reframe the issue
Part of my hesitation comes from what the word expert seems to imply. It can sound like someone who knows everything, never gets anything wrong and has reached the final destination. Unsurprisingly, that is not a title many thoughtful people feel entirely comfortable claiming.
But expertise does not mean omniscience.
It does mean having substantial knowledge and experience in an area, recognising its complexity, understanding the limits of your knowledge and continuing to learn.
I have built and operated 7 figure businesses, worked in executive and board roles across health and disability, navigated compliance and audits, supervised and trained practitioners, mentored business owners, developed systems and rebuilt business models when they stopped working. I have a Phd in lived experience of how to build and scale a business.
So, a reframe of what is causing you a challenge might be helpful.
Instead of asking yourself a question that is very subjective and can’t be measured like “am I expert enough to speak?”. Change it to be more objective, for example “Do I have knowledge or experience that could help someone take their next step?”
That feels more honest and more useful. I am not standing on a stage declaring that I possess all the answers. I am sharing tested experience, asking good questions and helping people avoid some of the holes I have already fallen into.
3. Practise visibility in smaller doses
We often treat visibility as an all-or-nothing exercise. Either we remain comfortably behind the business, or we must suddenly publish daily v-blogs, including live streaming as we are walking around a busy shopping centre with a selfie stick, share every personal thought and act as though our lives are perfect.
There is a middle ground.
Visibility can be built gradually. One blog post. One photograph. One short video. One opinion shared clearly. One conversation in which you explain what you do without minimising it. If this is too difficult, I recommend getting a social media person who can post approved content on your behalf. Removing the need to perfect everything before hitting post!! You won’t even know when a post is going out.
The aim is not to eliminate discomfort before acting. It is to show ourselves that we can experience discomfort and still take the next step. Putting your face and thinking alongside the brand but doing it in a way that feels authentic. I do not need to become a polished internet personality today, I just need to be recognisable, credible human.
4. Make the next action almost ridiculously small
When we feel overwhelmed, we often keep thinking at the scale of the entire project.
“Launch the program” is not one task. Neither is “build my personal brand” or “create a new business.” Each contains dozens and sometimes hundreds of decisions and actions.
A better approach is to break down the project, identify what the smallest forward action is. Get AI to assist with this, chatGPT is fantastic at breaking down a complex task into a 8 week plan)
It might be drafting the opening paragraph of a blog or even just working out a series of 3-4 topics. Record a 30-second video without publishing it. Choosing the topic of the first workshop. Sending one email or setting a deadline with someone who will hold you accountable.
The action should produce movement, not merely the feeling of preparation. Research can be valuable. Refining can be great. Planning can feel good. But they can also become very respectable hiding places. Remember perfection is the enemy of progress. Confidence rarely arrives before we act. More often, confidence is the evidence we accumulate after taking a series of small, uncomfortable actions and discovering that we survived them. It is a muscle that needs to be built up.
final thoughts
I am not sharing these ideas because I have completely conquered my personal anxieties and feel wildly comfortable calling myself an expert (I haven’t, it is a work in progress). I am sharing it because I know many capable business owners experience the same tension. We can be confident in our work and different areas of running our business but still feel uncomfortable managing one particular aspect of our business. We can help other people see their strengths while struggling to publicly name our own. We can know exactly what to do and still resist doing it.
The Self pillar is not about perfect routines, relentless positivity or adding more self-care activities to an already overcrowded calendar. It is about developing enough self-awareness to notice what is driving our behaviour and enough self-leadership to choose what happens next.