Heartache & Heroism In Small Business

  
Overwhelm

A recent discussion with a friend who is a life coach brought to my attention the plight of a mutual colleague. As is often the case, this person was struggling in their business, and especially struggling with a feeling of overwhelm and despondency, that is very common and yet is strangely missing from the mountain of articles and blogs written about small business each week.

There are a couple of things here that are interesting, not just on the circumstances of the distress, but in the actions to move out from 'overwhelm' - to reaching out for help. This is a small step with potential for big consequences, and it is in this pivotal moment sometimes, that action can lead to decisions that change lives. Sometimes for the better.
 


Getting Unstuck

What makes for the impetus to ask for help?

Sometimes it is the presence of someone who generates an air of 'approachability' and makes available the context for the person in crisis to feel able to confide. In this case it is certainly so. In the absence of such a person being available, many will just continue to 'bottle it up' and continue their downward spiral. This is a bit of a worry when looking at it from a strategic point-of-view.  Again others might seek help from someone without the ability to listen objectively, or offer constructive input.

Rather than leaving it to chance, a better approach might be to set in place a kind of 'early warning detector' to use.  When we are heading toward feelings of overwhelm, at the heart is often a belief that we sometimes carry around, that we should not ask, or not even need to ask, for help. Especially in business.

For our 'early warning detector' to be effective, we need to align it with the belief that yes, we can ask for help should we feel the need and that asking for help is a good thing to do.

Then of course, we need to have someone to ask, so preparing the ground for this, might be surveilling the environment and making a list of people who could be in a position to help in some way, should the need arise. Scoping them out while things are going well lets us be better prepared, for when we are not feeling quite so resourceful, or thinking quite so clearly.

Who do we know who can listen objectively?
(A sounding board sometimes is all that may be needed)

Who do we know who has knowledge around this matter?

Who do we know who has influence in a way that would help in this situation?

And if we don't have anyone like this who we know...

Who should we get to know who could be a help in this case?

People set up a business and very often put everything on the line in the hope that it will be successful. Sometimes the thing that is missing is having good support from outside the business to help when we face something that is outside our ability to resolve, or are just feeling 'stuck'.

There is help available. Finding and accessing that help is good for us to do and importantly, it is good for our business.

We can learn from these occasions and become more resilient and open up a variety of additional resources and skills that we can use to drive our business forward.

That's what heroism looks like in small business.





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Overwhelm. Nature's Prompt To Get Organized.

Meeting with new clients, it is many times the same story, told in a different way, but comes back to the same elemental position...

The business is doing well, but the place is not well organized and as a result,

things aren't getting done that should be,
things are getting done that shouldn't be,
some things are getting done that we didn't know
some things we thought were getting done aren't and we didn't find out until a customer complained


The upshot of all of this of course, results in a lot of messiness that adds nothing to the smooth running of the business, but does tend to lead to things like missed deadlines, added and unnecessary stress, double handling, errors and ommisions, poor operational management, and of course, lower profit!

There is a reason that overwhelm feels so horrible. It is a sign that your body is trying to tell you to stop and get things in order.

Looking at the long list of "Things To Do" can itself seem overwhelming. Even knowing where to start, prevents many business owners from doing something to address the situation. In reality, it is not nearly so onerous as the task may appear, and that's precisely where someone who is outside the business can help to give you some clearer perspective and guide you through the process, to come out the other side, with a well defined system for all the components of your business and processes documented to ensure that when staff changes are made, your intelligence and knowlege of how things work in the business is maintained and not lost out the door with the departing person.

Do yourself a favour. When you feel those first signs of overwhelm, start thinking of where you can call to get some help. There are no medals for 'soldiering on' and trying to do what you have neither the knowhow nor time, or skills set to do alone.