Ep 43: How To Regain Control When Things Feel Out Of Balance

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How To Regain Control When Things Feel Out Of Balance

Dawn McGruer:

Welcome to episode 43 of Dawn of a New Era with myself, Dawn McGruer, speaker, author, and strategist. And today we’re going to talk about mindset, a very important core structure that really will help in every aspect of your life and performance, especially in business and in times that we feel a little bit unbalanced. Now, this episode is entitled How To Regain Control When Things Feel Out Of Balance. And this is something that we have probably all experienced at some point of our lives and maybe more so over the past year and during things like the pandemic. It also occurs when we are starting a new project, when we are doing anything that involves change. So what we’re going to focus on is the real benefits to your health and the real benefits to getting this balance in play so that you can keep managing it.

So when things get a little bit sticky, a little bit out of balance, and you don’t know where you’re heading, and you start to feel either overwhelmed, a little bit down. These are all natural occurrences and no one goes through life without having this slight unbalance, this slight feeling that they may be not doing the right thing, you’ve decided on a project or an aspect of your business or your career, and you’re just not sure. And what’s happening is because it’s the fear of the unknown, it’s triggering this whole response to change. So what we want to do is really focus on putting our energy directly towards what you can do, which is very, very empowering. In the long run, what will happen is if we keep putting these controls into place so that we can direct our energy into the things that we can change, you will end up with a lift of sort of self-esteem and confidence, not just in your abilities, but it builds resilience to the next time that you have change.

How to deal with feeling out of sync

So these are things that I do. If I focus on what’s happening for me at the moment, obviously I got my academy, Business Consort, I have lots of different businesses and I am someone who likes certainty, and I like to know exactly what is happening. So when things come up that mean that there’s going to be some element of change, I definitely start to feel completely out of sync. So how do I manage this? Well, let’s take an example. So I’m about to launch, very exciting, some new programs. So on the academy side, I have always kind of been the sort of figurehead of the academy. We’re creating courses, we’re delivering qualifications. It’s all about developing digital skills. On the agency side, similar theme. We’ve always had clients looking at how to maximize the digital marketing profits to scale and grow the business. So very comfortable with the whole getting people to master online marketing and social media with the Business Consort brand.

Now, obviously I launched my podcast and this was the first step of me, really kind of stepping out to Dawn McGruer and dawnmcgruer.com was born. And what I was really uncertain with that was how I was going to move forward in that space. And the whole feeling of stepping out as me doing a podcast, launching new programs, and really centering myself in the space as what I do for the agency, I’m an international business strategist or a success mentor. And I’ve dealt with big businesses and this is probably the same big businesses for many, many years. Now, stepping out and taking what I do in the agency and then working with people on a more direct level, that was where I just, I knew I needed to be. But stepping out to be this kind of authentic person with a new brand, I kind of felt like unbalanced slightly, a bit kind of like excited, overwhelmed, but also because I need, and I crave certainty, it made me feel just kind of like, am I doing the right thing?

The four responses we can have when we enter a period of change

And you fall into a slight self sabotage and you may have heard about all the different responses that we have when we’re entering a period of change. Now, the four kind of elements are that we either fall into the fight or flight. Now you’ve probably heard all about this. Flight would be just kind of running away and thinking, do you know what? I’m going to box it, I’m going to do it later. Fighting about it would be me kind of just really kind of struggling with the whole entity and just kind of feeling unbalanced, a little bit about what we’re talking now. Now freezing again, it’s like stopping. It’s like thinking while I’m really comfy here right now, I’ll just stay with the current businesses I’ve got, I’m not going to develop anything new. I’m not going to launch my podcast. And then fawning. This is another element in the mix, which I’ll come onto a little bit later.

Taking responsibility for the changes you’re making in your life or business

So how do we think about when we wake up and we know that we want to do something and we’re not quite sure what that means in terms of our future? Well, the first thing I want you to do is if you’ve got a new project, a new anything, anything that means change, and this can be in your business life or your relationship life or anything. You want to take responsibility. Now, I said to you that the fourth response was fawn in the fight, flight and freeze. And this means that you’re kind of like immediately sort of moving to try and please somebody else. Sometimes we see this in the online space whereby people have coaches or mentors. And because these people are giving advice, then you feel like, because they’re saying it, it’s right.

Deciding whether the advice you receive is helpful to you

Now, coaches and mentors will always tell you this, that they are there to support and to give you guidance in different ways. They’re not there to make the decision for you. So I have been guilty of this before by kind of, I’ve had lots of mentors in my life, taking their advice and feeling that that’s what I need to do. But what you need to do is take someone’s advice and go and step back and mull it over. So if you have an immediate response to something. So let’s say you’re launching a new program and you suddenly get some conflict or a challenge around it. So you immediately want to go into fight. Take a step back and think about it. Now, again, if you’re launching something or doing something new and someone gives you their advice. So you fall into the fawn, take a step back and think about, is their advice helpful? Weigh it up against your own thoughts, get more advice, get a balanced view.

And again, if you feel that you want to launch something, but you’ve kind of got so far and then you just think, oh, I can’t do this. Again, take a step back and go and talk to other people and just sense check it. Now, flight can often happen when people go online and we’ve all been there haven’t we, when we are really excited about project, we’re going to do something and we start scrolling through social media and guess what happens? We just start feeling panic mode like, oh my goodness, this person is so far ahead of me. And you start comparing and you start thinking, oh my goodness, I’ve got so far to go. You just need to stop the FOMO and keep your blinkers on and take a step back. And this is your journey and your goal, but also reflect on what you have achieved so far.

Now, again, if you feel like you’ve got this whole freeze scenario going on and you just want to stop and go back into the comfy mode, then step out and do one thing. Now, freezing can never happen if you take one action. So break the task down and then think, right, okay. What I’m going to do is I’m going to break this overall goal. So let’s say you’re like starting a new course, or you’re starting a new job or something like that. Break it down so that you are taking it an action that takes you one step forward, and then start thinking about how you feel. This will really help you kind of take these incremental steps that in turn will have momentum.

Finding what you can control to create stability

Now, when you feel resistance to change and I definitely do. I mean, I am a massive risk taker and I love elements of variety in my life, but I like the stability. So I always have to think, what is it that I can control? So the things I can all are my choices. I can control my daily routine. I can control all of my priorities, what I say, what I do, what I read, who I forgive, how I eat, how I drink, how I exercise, all of those things are in my control.

So for me to regain control, to regain balance, I have to stop focusing on those things. And I start building those into my day. All the things I know that I like, things that invigorates me, things that make me feel positive. So doing a walk, bit of exercise, really nice, healthy nourishing meals. And then I start taking them some time out to read, consume, and I think about like my daily routine and what I want to be doing, what I don’t like doing. And I get rid of all the things I don’t like doing. I go into a bit of a delegation.

How implementing helps you gain control

Now that then starts to give me a clearer head. And I’m someone who also likes to have like a tidy house, tidy mind. I start clearing. So for me, throwing things out is really cathartic and just cleaning. I’m feeling that everything else is there but I’ve still got this one sticking point. It feels more manageable. So I’m a great believer in having truly aspirational goals. And I mean out there, dream bag, like massive. And you’ll probably know my saying, which is dream big, work hard, make it happen. So when I consume content and I read and I watch things online, I’m focused on my own goal. But another thing that helps me regain that control is implementing. Implement, implement, implement huge, huge, huge, because as soon as you start doing something, you’ve moved forward.

And if I’ve procrastinated over something, I either delegate the bits that I don’t like. And I start just taking this one step. One step. And I do this with every task that … I mean, there’s some tasks that I procrastinate. There was a guide I was supposed to be writing the other day. It’s been on my to-do list. Like, let’s be honest for about three weeks. I want to write it. But because it feels so big, I’m like I haven’t got time to do it. So I start time-blocking. So I give the task three hours. But I give it on a day that I’ve got lots of time before just to kind of go and plot it out. So I have one hour in the morning that I just plot out all the contents for the guide, walk away, do something else. And then I have these like three hours later, but I can go and write it. And that works so much better for me.

Now, the other thing I do is I have to think about, remove the blocks. The blocks for me are things I can’t control. So as soon as I start experiencing change and you may feel this, is I focus on past experiences. Have I been here before? How did I feel what happened? And this often happens like when people have like a fear of say public speaking or something, they have something in their mind, a past experience. And it’s maybe not necessarily all true because we focus on what we think we felt, like the thought of it and maybe the past experience is not relatable. And the thing is, is it’s in the past, everything going forward is new, and everything going forward, we can do differently.

How failing as an entrepreneur can be epic

So if you have had a bad experience like you launched a project or you did a challenge and you just didn’t get the results you wanted, take stock, look at what happened and it’ll be different. Because you’ve learned something. This is why failing as an entrepreneur is blooming epic because I have failed so many times. I have some epic, awful scenarios that I’ve had in work, employing the wrong people, having disastrous launches and things like that in the early stages of product and services because you have to learn and learning is about doing and taking action. So the more I do, the more I learn, the better I get. So I can’t control things in the news. I can’t control world problems. I can have a voice and I can support these things. I can’t control the weather. And I can’t control what others say, do, think or feel. And this is a big one.

I am always majorly focused on how I feel. And marketing, motivation and mindset are the three core pillars for me. So when I start feeling a little bit triggered by something that I’ve read or a relationship around me, I start thinking about, is it me? Or is it them? So generally it’s me. So if you feel a little bit out of sync with relationships or people in your life, you have to think about why. There’s generally a reason. If I felt out of sync, say like with a friend or something like that, it could be that they’ve maybe said something or I’ve thought they’ve said something and didn’t like it.

So what’s the easiest way to handle it? Well, you can either step back and you can flight, you could address it. Or you could just kind of like think it through, and move on and think about how you can make it better. Instead of maybe addressing the negatives, just focus on, is there something positive I could do just to kind of move this relationship onto a different level? If it’s a toxic relationship that you don’t want, a positive thing, moving forward is move that person out of your life. But if it’s something that you’ve just hit a bit of a, I’m not quite sure where this is … It’s just not sitting right for me, just do something positive, refresh it and take it into a different place. So these are the things that I do. And I really hope that you find them helpful because when you feel not balanced, you just don’t feel right. Everything just feels like difficult.

What you can and can’t control

And when you wake up in the morning and you have this kind of like feeling, that’s hanging over your head because of change and uncertainty, you need to shift out of it because you can’t stay there because if you do nothing, it will stay the same. But if you do something, I promise you, you will feel differently. So just to recap. Things that I can’t control, what others say, do, think, and feel, past experiences, weather, news, world problems. But things that you can do. Your choices, your daily routine, your priorities, what you say, what you do, what you read, who you forgive and how you eat, drink, exercise and shop. So try and make a list of how you’re feeling and try and think about the good and the bad. When you’ve got that bad, can you delegate anything off of that? And then can you free yourself up a little bit by taking can control of the things you can do so that you feel in a clear, decision-making process?

Because when you’re stressed or you’re under pressure, you don’t perform well in the decision-making. So we want to free up. And if talking it through with somebody and getting lots of different experience is something that you think it would help, do it. So remember the fight, flight, freeze or fawn. Think about when a situation happens, which one are you in? Are you, someone triggers you, you want to go back at them, walk away, think about how to handle it. If you want to just run away, think about, well, let’s just stop and let’s think about why I’m doing that. Think about when you freeze, staying in the comfort zone, you’re never going to move to the next level of your success if you freeze. So if you stay where you are, will you hit your goal? And that will start rebalancing your brain and where you want to be. And then fawning. When you start feeling that other people’s opinions are more valid than yours, you are the decision maker, your choices are to be had. People can have opinions. People can say what they want to say, but ultimately it lies with you.

So I hope you enjoyed this week’s podcast and I shall see you on next week. Let me know how you get on. Don’t forget to come and join me in the community. Dawn McGruer, marketing, motivation, and mindset on Facebook. The group is amazing. Some fantastic people. And I would love to have you there because this is where we share. And on a podcast, I can talk to you, I can be with you and I can be in your pocket wherever you go. But when you come and join the community, that’s about when I meet you and can start to form a relationship where I know more about you. So I would love for you to come and join us and take care and have an amazing week.

Thank you for listening to the Dawn of a New Era Podcast, and for your free checklist to find out how to boost your business for growth, profit, and success, and join our community. Go to dawnmcgruer.com.