People who know me, know that I’m a highly sensitive person (HSP). I get overwhelmed quickly, other people’s energy affects me and on busy days I want to hide away and take a nap.
Running your own business is hard under any circumstances but adding being highly sensitive to the equation adds a whole different layer of complexity. I won’t lie..It’s bloody hard and some days all I want to do is hide in a dark room and withdraw from the world. There’s nothing wrong with doing that but it’s not always possible if you have client deadlines knocking on your door and honestly you don’t want to let it get that far. It’s exhausting!

So what to do when overwhelm strikes?

So, in order to deal with the overwhelm I have to put a few strategies in to place. None of them are easy to implement as an entrepreneur but they are so important to your well being, success and sanity.

Batch client meetings

This is a really good one, but can also be difficult. I’ve learnt the lesson the hard way.. It’s not even funny how much time and energy I have wasted running around during the week to meet clients. Not only do you not get any actual work done, but it also drains your energy and adds to the overwhelm.

Now I set aside specific times during the week that are reserved for meetings. I schedule a few meetings in a row and try to keep them as close together location wise as possible. Not easy if you have demanding clients and you need some flexibility but your time is valuable and people will generally respect that. If they don’t, ask yourself if they are really the client you want to be working with.

Schedule in downtime

We all know how important self care is, yet it’s usually the last thing we make time for. There’s always something to do:

• a blog post to write
• client work to finish
• admin stuff (seriously, does it ever end?)

But for highly sensitive people it should be a non negotiable item on your to do list. In fact, I want you to go ahead right now and do it. Schedule time for a bath, a visit to your favourite coffee shop with a good book or just take a nap! Report back in the comments how it felt!

Say no to clients

Yes it’s totally counter-intuitive. You’re running a business so why should you say no to clients?

It’s about only taking on as much work as you can handle. That’s especially tricky when you’re just starting out. I used to think that I needed to take on every single project that presented itself. The end result? A bucket load of work which didn’t light me up and total overwhelm. So check in with yourself before taking on more work.

And just for full disclosure, all of these things are works in progress for me and need constant reinforcement. So don’t beat yourself up if it takes a while to implement.