Perhaps we unconsciously create overwhelm and challenges so that we can learn grace under pressure.

One thing is becoming more clear to me…overwhelm is a state of mind and a way of being. It is NOT a set of circumstances. It is resistance to what is. It is NOT loving what is.

When things get tough. When you have an extra helping of challenges or fear inducing opportunities on your plate, whether you chose them or not, how do you respond? By shutting down? By freezing up? By complaining? By being a victim? By rushing? By letting go of the things that support you the most, such as eating well, doing yoga, meditating, or walking in the forest?

Or, do you respond by taking a deep breath and tapping into your inner strength? Do you respond by choosing to trust yourself and trust life? Are you willing to let some things go, accept reality, and even LOVE reality? Can you love your full plate? Can you love your full schedule? Can you find a peaceful center when dealing with things that normally seduce you into worrying?

Can you love pressure and respond appropriately?

Can you find the right question to ask yourself? Tony Robbins recommends these questions when faced with a big problem:

1. What is great about this problem?

2. What is not perfect yet?

3. What am I willing to do to make it the way I want it?

4. What am I willing to no longer do to make it the way I want it?

5. How can I enjoy the process while I do what is necessary to make it the way I want it?

The idea is to focus on solution rather than the problem itself.

Byron Katie would say there are no problems. Calling something a problem is simply putting a label on it that makes it wrong.

It is what it is.

Big hug to all of us that are experiencing overwhelm, fear, stress, and pressure.

You’re up to the challenge… whatever it is.

Most people spend the majority of their time being reactive.  They react to emails, phone calls, the needs of clients, co-workers, friends, children, significant others,  family members, deadlines, relationship breakdowns, technical challenges, and whatever life puts in front of their nose.  Most reactive activities are “Urgent and Important” or “Urgent and Not Important”.  Filling your days with reactive activities leaves little room for proactive activities that are typically “Important but Not Urgent”.

This reactive way of being is habitual for many people.  You might even take pride in how quickly and effectively you can react to the many things coming at you, putting out fires left and right.

Being reactive can be an unconscious addiction.  In fact, it is very common and a high percentage of people are addicted to being reactive.  It’s exciting and challenging to respond to the unpredictable demands that come your way.  It gives you a subtle adrenaline rush.  You can actually become physically habituated to this bio-chemical rush that energizes you temporarily.  This can be a difficult habit to break, but it is well worth the effort.  In addition to making you less effective in general, this addiction can burn out your adrenal glands over time and lead to stress-related health problems.

If you don’t make time to be proactive, eventually you will have to make time to be reactive, and your life will eventually be dominated by reactive activities.  For example, if you don’t make time for health, eventually you will have to make time to react to being sick, and if you don’t make time to market your business, eventually you will have to scramble to get some clients before you go bankrupt.

While having the ability to react quickly and capably is a useful skill set to have, if you are not also cultivating a proactive skill set, you are not manifesting your full potential.

So what is a proactive skill set?  Proactive activities include things like goal setting, strategizing, and planning.  Being proactive also means sticking to your plan and not getting easily distracted, executing the actions you have intended.

Being proactive requires resisting the temptation to react to the many demands that life throws at you every day.  For example, you could be in the middle of updating your marketing plan (a proactive activity) when a little alert pops up in the corner of your screen telling you, “you’ve got mail!” You tell yourself that you’ll just go and look to see who it’s from.  You look and find out it’s from your friend.  They’ve sent you a link to a short funny video.  You know this isn’t important right now, but you figure you’ll just take a quick moment and watch the video.  The video ends with a link to a web page for more information so you click on the link.  Fifteen minutes later you are still browsing the Internet.  You can’t even remember what it was you were working on before.

Perhaps your discipline is better than that and you wouldn’t allow yourself to be distracted by an amusing video from your friend.  However, imagine that the email is from your boss, reminding you of the report that is due tomorrow.  Would you drop everything you were doing and start working on the report, or would you continue working on the marketing plan, knowing that you have time scheduled to work on the report later?

The most proactive approach would be to not even check your email at all while you are working on your marketing plan.  In fact, in the name of being more proactive, I suggest turning off any pop-up alerts you receive from your email or other software.  Work on your email in blocks of time instead of interspersed throughout the entire day.  When the phone rings, check the caller ID and decide if you are willing to allow the activity you are currently involved in to be interrupted by that particular person.  If not, let it go to voice mail.  If the call is from an unknown caller, don’t answer it.  Keep the door shut to your office at least part of the day if not the entire day.  Train the people who frequently interrupt you to make a list of things to talk to you about, and schedule a meeting with you to go over all of the topics at once.

Take charge.  Set new and stronger boundaries with yourself and with others that will allow you to be more proactive.  It feels good.  The breakthrough in productivity you will experience is even more satisfying than the adrenaline rush of being reactive.

There is an ideal balance between proactivity and reactivity, however this is not an exact science.  It is more of an art form and an ongoing balancing act.  However, if I had to guess, I would say that you are probably way out of balance on the side of being reactive.  In order to correct this, you may need to allow the pendulum to swing dramatically to the other side.  It may be helpful to be extremely proactive for a while in order for you to develop that skill set, break old habits, retrain your friends, family and co-workers, and experience the benefits.  There may be some negative consequences from this.  However, eventually you will adjust and find the ideal middle ground.

I used to use Constant Contact.  I liked them too, however, I switched to iContact because they offered Autoresponders, multiple list segments, and surveys without charging any extra.

I researched this a lot.  Aweber.com and 1shoppingcart.com are two additional services that have good reputations.  MailChimp.com is also popular with some people.

To build a business to it’s true potential, I think it’s essential to build a list of people who are interested in the type of information (and service) you offer.  Signing up with one of the above services makes it easier to manage and grow your list.

I chose iContact after checking the pricing and functionality of all the options mentioned above.  I don’t think they are the best, however, they have some of the lowest pricing, and they have an intuitive and simple user interface.  I have been happy with them.  1shoppingcart has the best affiliate marketing capabilities and seems to be the most popular service among serious internet marketers.  Constant Contact has the best templates and the easiest user interface. It’s good for beginners but so is iContact. Aweber and 1shoppingcart are a little more advanced.  I don’t know much about MailChimp but I’ve been told that it is popular.  There are many more options that I haven’t researched.

If you already have a substantial list you would like to import into one of these systems, an important factor to consider is whether or not they will require everyone to reconfirm their subscription. iContact and Constant Contact don’t make you do this but 1shoppingcart and Aweber do. You’ll lose a substantial number of subscribers if you force them to opt-in to remain on your list.

If you’re interested in iContact, you can use my affiliate link and iContact will give me a little something for signing up through me. I use the service myself and am satisfied with it, so I am happy to pass along the option.

Here are a few tricks to support focus…

First, plan each day, and make a very short list of 1-3 high priorities.

Second, use a post-it right in the middle of your desk to remind you of the task you’re focusing on until completion. When that task is done, and you move to the next task, make a new post-it. When you catch yourself straying, come back to the intended focus.

I’m not saying to write your to do list on post-its. You should have an organized list either on your computer, PDA, or paper. However, as you choose which item to do next from your list, or your calendar/schedule, if that item is going to take more than a couple minutes, write it on a post-it and put it right in front of your nose to remind you to stay focused until you complete that task. Then, throw it out and choose the next task. This is great for people who get distracted easily. This will consciously build your “focus-muscles”. It helps you think about tasks in defined, measurable, bite-sized chunks with a beginning and an ending, and to resist interruptions (even your own mind interrupting you) until the task is complete. If a post-it is too small and inconspicuous to reign in your monkey-mind, write the current task in big letters on a big sheet of paper and put it right in front of you. Use the back-side of used paper from the recycle bin in order to save trees.

This trick only works well if you have a desk that is clear of papers except for the ones related to your current task, otherwise your post-it will get lost in the chaos of your desk. I could write a whole article on keeping your desk clear, but the main strategy is to put all the papers into files and put any tasks related to those papers into your reminder system (list, appointment book).

Third, go on a “low-information diet”.

Create a set of clear guidelines to filter out information that does not serve specific intentions.

For example, if your main over-arching business objective right now is to get more clients quickly, here is what your list might look like this:

• Info that directly empowers you to get more clients quickly (not “someday” but within a month or two)
• Info that empowers you to be more focused (most info doesn’t), organized, and clear
• Info that empowers you to be more efficient with meeting your specific high-priority business and personal objectives (hint: first you must define clear objectives)
• Info that makes me laugh or is truly uplifting and entertaining in a healthy way (only after business hours)

What else should be on your list? What else is truly important to you at this time in your life/business. It can change later, but what is important now?

Once you have the list of what’s important, start filtering out all information that does not meet at least one of the high priority needs. Be disciplined about saying NO to new books, articles, teleclasses, videos, etc. that might sound really compelling, but don’t fit inside one of your pre-defined priories for information input at this time.

This will take practice and patience with yourself. You won’t be perfect, but you will get better with time and clear intentions.

I hope this helps.

Let’s all say together now, “I can do anything!”

Enjoy…

At this link you will find a mind map with the central purpose of “Efficiently Attracting and Retaining Plenty of Clients”. You might want to create something similar. If you like this idea, and you would like my support, let me know.

While I did this one using MS Word, and there are many software programs for mind-mapping out there, I recommend keeping it simple, and using paper and pen or pencil. If you want my input, you can fax your map to me at: (831) 536-1778.

When you look at the attached map, you will see that it is by no means complete. A mind map is only limited by your creativity. Once an overview map like this one is created, it would make sense to take the best ideas, and make another map to break those ideas down into smaller chunks.

I hope this helps.

Click on image to download mind map

This mind map covers the following:

• Attracting New Prospects – Social Networking, Web Page Conversions, Tracking Conversations, Organic SEO, Pay Per Click, Yelp, Blog, Linkedin, Facebook, Networking Events and Networking Groups, Open House or Tour, Free Event, Joint Ventures, Presentations, Speaking, Teleclass Interviews, Generating Referrals, Rewarding Referral Sources, Gift Certificate, Asking for Referrals
• Building Relationships with Prospects & Sources – Ask What They Need, Customer Survey, Contact Management System, Email Newsletter, Birthday Cards, Success Stories or Testimonials, Free Resources
• Scheduling Initial Meetings or Sales Presentations – Email & Phone Invitations, Compelling Value, Calendar of Available Slots, Online Scheduler, Numbers Game
• Conversion to Paid Clients (Sales) – Track Conversions, Compelling Offer, Emphasize Value – Not Process, Powerful Initial Consultation, Connect and Relate, Pre-Meeting Client Preparation, Ask for the Business, Handle Common Objections, Follow-up
• Retention & Repeat Business – Provide Unexpected Value, Appreciation & Acknowledgment, Programs and Packages, Feedback and Evaluation, Advanced Level Programs and Continuity Programs, Celebration

This seems to be a common problem these days. There are thousands of self-proclaimed gurus touting that they have the new miracle cure for all of your business woes… write a book in 90 days, outsource to the Philippines, create a better niche, fix your sales copy, SOCIAL MEDIA – yikes!, learn how to use Twitter and Facebook and Linkedin and blogging to grow your business, make your first information product, make viral marketing videos, make your web page show up on the first page of Google… this list is long and overwhelming. If you don’t have enough clients, it can be very tempting to get distracted by every bright shiny object that comes along.

The truth is you don’t need 150 marketing strategies.

You need 1 that works. Maybe 1 or 2 or 3. One good one that you really perfect and optimize is really all that you need to have a thriving business.

Once you have chosen the marketing strategy that seems most promising, focus on it thoroughly until you either make it successful or you decide definitively that it wasn’t the best strategy after all.

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Some additional outcomes you can expect:

• Find out what questions you need to be asking to get focused in the right places.
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• Greater inspiration.  Get pulled by your vision.
• Clarity on what specific type of support you need.
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• A way to think about all this so it doesn’t feel overwhelming, but instead feels like a fun game to be playing.
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See you on the inside.

Ryan Eliason
Business and Life Success Coach

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• This program is for self-employed individuals, small business owners, entrepreneurs and independent professionals who want to make more money by working smarter, not harder. Is that you?

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• Do you want to enhance your lifestyle, enjoy more time with your friends and family, and essentially experience more fulfillment and satisfaction?

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If you answered “yes” to more than one of those questions, then my coaching program might be a good fit or you. However, you don’t have to be struggling for coaching to be helpful. Even the most successful people can benefit from coaching. For example, many CEOs of Fortune 500 companies have coaches.

I can only take 9 people in this program because it involves a lot of one on one with me.  If you’d like more information, check out the online brochure, and then send me an email.

Cheers,

Ryan

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In this recording I interview Scott Kalechstein, a former street peddler who became an internally recognized speaker, singer, songwriter, recording artist, workshop leader and writer. I’ve admired Scott for a long time for his guts to follow a road less traveled, follow his heart, and make a living as an independent professional. Scott now has nine CDs being distributed, and travels internationally, giving inspiring presentations and concerts. He has performed at the talks and workshops of popular authors and seminar leaders such as Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, Alan Cohen, Jack Canfield, Dr. John Gray, Dr. Bernie Siegel, and Barbara DeAngelis. His web page is:

www.scottsongs.com

I highly recommend signing up for his email newsletter. It comes out about every two months and it is the most entertaining and inspirational email newsletter I’ve read. His music is profound and uplifting in a unique way that I have not found in any other artist – and collecting music is one of my passions.

In this interview we looked at the internal obstacles Scott had to overcome to reach his current level of success. We identified the specific strategies, support structures, and attitudes which led him to have a thriving business, a life he loves, and plenty of time to enjoy his wonderful family and new baby. I think you will be entertained, moved, and inspired by Scott’s story.