When you are experiencing entrepreneurial overwhelm, the FIRST thing you need to do is a small business overwhelm assessment. Assessing your levels of overwhelm helps you to determine the degree to which you are overwhelmed, which is also going to enable you to best manage that business overwhelm.
Your solo entrepreneur overwhelm assessment helps you identify what needs to be changed in your business. This matters a lot because you don't want to necessarily burn everything to the ground if you're in a much earlier state of overwhelm. And on the other hand, you don't want to make surface level tweaks to your business. If there's a lot more deep rooted overwhelm that's going on, that then indicates that you need to completely restructure everything.
Think of this as your five question quiz to assess your overwhelm…. Grab a pen and paper so you can keep track of your responses!
All videos in the Solo Entrepreneur Overwhelm series:
- Top 3 Things You NEED to Know About Freelancer Overwhelm
- Small Business Overwhelm Assessment (that's this one!)
- How to Overcome Small Business Overwhelm in 30 Seconds
- Step by Step Guide to Beat Freelancer Overwhelm for Good
Small Business Overwhelm Quiz & Assessment...
1) How long ago did you start to feel this state of overwhelm?
Give yourself one point if it was within the last few days, two points if it was in the last few weeks, and three points if it was within the last few months or even longer.
You can think of this as the sort of consistent levels to which you are feeling overwhelmed. Your overwhelm might fluctuate, but how long have you been in this particular state of overwhelm? Has it been fairly consistent with maybe just a few little dips along the way over the past few months, for example, or did this particular state of overwhelm that you are in, did it really come up within maybe the past week?
2) What are you able to do at present about this overwhelm?
Give yourself one point if you are able to still power through and do your work, two points if you are dragging your feet and doing a minimal amount of work, and three points if you are unable to do any work at all; it's really, really hard to even try to force yourself to do work.
If you're able to still do the minimum to keep your business running, then in that case, two points will be really good. If on the other hand, you've had to start to put some projects on hold, and maybe your task list just keeps on getting longer and longer — you just keep pushing things off until tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, and you're really stuck at being able to make any progress — then you'll know that you need the three points for this particular question.
3) What are you feeling toward yourself about this state of overwhelm?
Give yourself one point if you are compassionate towards yourself about what's going on, two points if you are frustrated, but understanding of yourself, and three points if you are beating yourself up or if you have a lot of negative self talk and maybe a mean voice in your head that you can't really seem to turn off.
4) How have you been trying to handle the overwhelm so far?
Give yourself one point if you have attempted to work through the overwhelm a few times already. So you've recognized that it's there, and you've tried a few different ways to manage it. Two points if you've been trying to work around it — you might recognize that it's there, but you haven't actually actively dealt with it.
And give yourself three points if you've been unable to think of or attempt to try to work through it or work around it. So in this case, you recognize that it’s there, and you just feel kind of helpless as to what you can even do about it.
5) Do you know what is causing your overwhelm?
Give yourself one point, if you can clearly pinpoint the external and internal reasons for the overwhelm. Two points if you think you have one or two ideas about what might be contributing to the overwhelm. And three points if you're not really sure; it just feels like there's a lot going on and you just have too much stuff on your plate in general.
Tally it up: How many points do you have?
5 POINTS:
If you got five points, then the overwhelm is in a fairly manageable state for you to be able to process it. You will benefit the most by analyzing the overwhelm and using logic and reasoning alongside personality based productivity methods to shift your approach in how you handle everything in your business.
6 - 10 POINTS
If you got six to 10 points, you're starting to be overloaded by the overwhelm but you have more power than you think you do to turn it on its head. You will want to tap into self kindness, self leadership, self trust, and self honesty to begin experiencing the inner shifts that will enable you to take action on the external shifts, building your interpersonal skills is a top priority.
11 - 15 POINTS
If you got 11 to 15 points, you might currently be experiencing a lot of hopelessness and severely low energy that's going to make it that much harder for you to critique your own overwhelm and to be able to move through it. Your best bet is to prioritize anti hustle methodologies and energy management that's going to help you get some more rest and recharge, you need more fuel if you want to keep moving forward.
Your next step…
This is something that I teach more about in my Anti Hustle Productivity Training for Solo Entrepreneurs: You get my complete framework for improving productivity as a business owner, free and clear of overwhelm, and it costs you $0!
That's right: It's my gift to you:
Now that you understand the degree to which you're overwhelmed and what to do in each instance — thanks to our small business overwhelm assessment — stay tuned for our next video!
We are going to go over a few 30-second techniques that you can try to manage your overwhelm.