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Optimal Finance Daily - Financial Independence and Money Advice
3299: How to Handle Feeling Overworked and Overwhelmed by Paula Pant on Intentional Living and Happiness
00:09:56
Paula Pant explores practical ways to manage the crushing weight of overwork and overwhelm, offering strategies to regain focus
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This is optimal Finance Daily how to handle Feeling Overworked and Overwhelmed By Paula Pan of affordanything.com One Afford Anything reader asked quote how do you stay motivated? I feel all I ever do is work. I don't know how many hours exactly, but between my job and my real estate investments, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm pushing over 60 hours a week. It sucks to see all of my friends out having fun while I'm working away. How do you stay sane while you're managing a million things at once? End quote I've grappled with this a lot as I've grown my business over the past four years. I've worked intense 60 hour weeks or more. When I see my friends go out on Friday or Saturday nights while I'm fixing up houses. Well, it sucks. I'm being honest. It's a sucky feeling. Here's how I handled Think of yourself as a runner who is interval training. Alternate sprinting with walking. In other words, alternate periods of ultra hard work with periods of rest. For example, renovating an investment property while also running an online business. Being a landlord, cooking, cleaning and running errands is exhausting. During the three to four month period of insanity, I'm in full sprint towards the finish line. After I cross the finish line when that project is over, I rest. I return to the gym, practice yoga and hit happy hour with my friends. I catch up on old episodes of Sherlock and Downton Abbey. What a luxury. I chill out for a few months. The adrenaline wears off. Life settles into a normal hum. Naturally, I start getting bored. That's when I know I'm ready for another big project. Avoid superhero syndrome Interval training Sprint Walk Sprint Walk is a solid start, but eventually your projects grow so large that you can't even slow to a jog. Instead of one or two freelance clients, you have 20. Instead of one or two rental units, you have six or eight. And instead of just caring for yourself, you're looking after family. It's time to outsource. You'll reach a point at which you're busting your butt working super hard, and you realize there are only two ways to slow down. Either scale back or hire out. I'm naturally frugal, so it's hard for me to justify hiring assistants who can help me run my online business, hiring property managers who can deal with my tenants, and hiring house cleaners so that I don't need to work a third shift. On the domestic front, it's psychologically and emotionally difficult to pay someone to perform a task that you can do for yourself. But as Pat Flynn says, it's easier for entrepreneurs to suffer from superhero syndrome. Ambitious people are often guilty of thinking they can operate a one person show, but this only leads to burnout and missed opportunities. The solo superhero is an illusion. Behind every great investor or entrepreneur, you'll find an excellent team. Nobody can create spectacular growth in isolation. If you're naturally frugal, you'll discover that spending money on hiring and outsourcing is painful. Leadership demands that we accept this pain. We can't run and hide from it. Here are two mental constructs that have helped soothe the pain of outsourcing. 1. Quit by hiring Imagine that you're quitting your job. I'm assuming the term job to broadly refer to any responsibility ranging from running errands to renovating properties. When people quit a job in the traditional sense, they walk away from their responsibilities entirely. They stop getting any compensation or having any iota of involvement. Here's how rebels quit. Quit your job by handing the task to someone else. Have someone else compile the spreadsheet, design the website, or install the flooring. Yes, you're still responsible for overseeing the task, but someone else executes the details. You still need to manage the people that you hire, so you also pay yourself. This is fair compensation for creating and overseeing these roles. The ability to outsource spells the difference between being self employed versus being a business owner. This is one of the most crucial and most difficult lessons I've learned in the past four years. To be clear, I don't mean that hiring and quitting are equivalent. They're not. You still have to manage the people you hire. The buck still stops with you. My point is that overworked, frugal people have a tough time justifying the cost of outsourcing and delegating. Frugal people, especially frugal entrepreneurs, pretend that they're superheroes, but Superman is dead. You have a choice. You can either handle everything yourself or you can grow. Not both. And number two, flip your job. Here's another way of looking at the situation. I've adopted the mentality that I'm flipping projects. If I hire an assistant to handle phone calls or spreadsheets for my content marketing business, I imagine that I'm flipping a portion of my client workload. If I hire house cleaners, I remind myself that I'm flipping an hour of my time. It's challenging to get a project for $1,000 and hire someone for 700. You see yourself losing 70% viewing the glass almost empty. You think, I could do it myself and keep the full gross revenue Rewiring your internal script telling yourself that you flipped the project is a strong antidote to this dilemma. And remember your big why. Finally, remember the big why behind your workload, it's near impossible to work hard for the sake of working hard. There's always some ultimate purpose. Such as? You believe in the mission and purpose of the company that you're building. You're committed to creating financial freedom and you want to live debt free. Keeping these goals in mind can sustain you through the day to day that's required to achieve this dream. When burnout begins. Interval Train Outsource and remember your big why. You just listened to the post titled how to Handle Feeling Overworked and Overwhelmed by Paula Pant of affordanything.com Imagine you're.
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I found this article very relevant as I routinely struggle with burnout. I've learned that burnout has three main components physical exhaustion, cynicism about work, and self blame. When I fall into this rut, I typically need to pause and reassess. What are my priorities and why is all the work on my plate totally necessary? What can I cut out without sacrificing my larger goals? For me, burnout is a sign that I need to slow down and get back to basics. I need to reevaluate how I'm taking care of myself, and if I'm taking on too much, it's helpful to remember that it's a season that will pass and I'll learn something from it. During my last encounter with burnout, I decided to outsource social media marketing for the Economy conference, which is an event I produce. It relieved a lot of pressure to figure it out all on my own, and it's been a good experience and efficiency. By outsourcing to someone else who's more highly skilled, it frees me up to spend my time on areas where I'm more highly skilled. Outsourcing can also lead to more human connection, which is a basic need. I often miss the camaraderie of colleagues from my corporate career, and solo entrepreneurship can get pretty lonely. Asking for help has been a key component in how I manage burnout, and that will do it for another edition of Optimal Finance Daily. Have a great day. Thank you for listening and I'll be back tomorrow as usual, where your optimal life awaits.