What To Do When Your Ideas Overwhelm You
8 Things You Can Do When Your Business Or Creative Ideas Overwhelm You
From new one-to-many courses to a Membership to upgrading your 1:1 services, ideas can flow easily as an entrepreneur. Here's what to do when your ideas are overwhelming you…
More often than not, if you’re an entrepreneur, freelancer, small business owner or side-hustler, finding ideas isn’t a problem for you.
If you’re anything like me & many of my clients & students, ideas can flow to you readily & easily. In fact, it’s the plethora of ideas that can even hold you back, rather than lack of them.
How can too many ideas hold you back? Very simply. Overwhelm.
Overwhelm is the antitheses of progress. It keeps us stationary, because we can’t see clearly, don’t know which path to take, don’t know how to prioritise.
I’m no business coach, but I’ve walked this walk so many times. I’m an ideas person for sure. I LOVE being in idea mode.
The untarnished promised of what could be. That fizzing, exciting feeling of unchartered possibility. I come alive in the ideas.
But….
You and I both know, we can’t stay camped out at Idea Station. The idea trains are backing up and none of them are leaving to the next stop, let alone reaching their destination.
Ok, naff analogies aside, here’s what I do whenever I’m feeling overwhelmed by my own ideas.
8 things you can do when your ideas are overwhelming you
The obvious thing, write them down. Initially just get them down in anyway that feels good to you. Forget about being neat.
Then get organised! I use Trello to help me. It’s a constant discipline not to have notes all over the place, start new lists, have scraps of paper...If you’re naturally chaotic with how you think, Trello really does help because it’s visual and easy to use. I now go straight to Trello 90% of the time.
Out of your ideas, which feel like the priority? Can you borrow a friend, partner or biz buddy to soundboard with you? Talking it out helps reduce that overwhelm feeling and get some clarity
At some point you need to get out of idea mode and into action taking. Can you sketch or note down what the next steps would be for your priority idea?
If in doubt, do research, hone your leading idea. In my programme Expand Your Brand we use a mix of research methods to first choose then validate the idea, AND gather insights for the marketing while we’re at it. It’s a crucial stage in the process
Is there a simpler, lighter way you could do something to make it happen? Here’s where you might start over complicating it! So see if you can strip it back, keep as single minded as you possibly can, again borrow that sounding board (if you have an accountability buddy or mastermind/group of others who are in the same boat as you that’s even better)
Give yourself a deadline or decide not to do it...sometimes you have to give yourself a bit of tough love
And finally, commit to it. Believe in it. Keep moving forwards. And rinse and repeat the above because this whole time more ideas are likely to ping & distract you. If this idea is your priority one, then you can stop with new ideas at the writing down stage & come back to them. Sometimes ‘self care’ is about knowing your strengths & weaknesses then managing them.
What’s my experience of this?
I’m not a coach or business consultant, but speak from the perspective of a creative person who has struggled with idea overload my whole life, but never more so than in the last 5 years as a freelancer.
For me personally, my greatest lesson is point 3 above.
I can spend forever making huge trello boards & loads of notes, but it’s the prioritisation that leads to the plan & the action.
I can’t recommend enough having someone to thrash it out with - not so much the idea itself (although it does help with that), but the more masculine, harder bit of ‘what specific task am I doing next?’. ‘which idea is worth progressing'?.
From writing a blog, to an email to an IG post or website page…even the small every day things can take the form of a new idea.
This is why the group aspect of my new programme (& any other course or programme) is soooooo important, because talking things out & having that support is absolutely invaluable.
In Summary
As a creative soul I know you will have lots of amazing ideas.
I expect you’ll often think of ways to help more people in more ways.
But being stuck in idea mode prevents you from actually doing any of them. It’s a constant discipline to train yourself to
Express the ideas
Organise them
Prioritise
Then act
Often it’s good to start with research but don’t be afraid to just wing it & go for it too! Sometimes this is the best way as you get out of your own head.
And I really do recommend having a group of peers or one person who can help you talk it out, even if it’s your partner or your Mum!
Do feel free to get in touch with me anytime if this has sparked some ideas for you!
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