Ep 24 - 3 Fatal Mistakes to Avoid as an Entrepreneur - Part 3: Overcommitting

Do you ever feel like your calendar is a runaway train leaving you gasping for breath? Join us in the 3rd part of this series on fatal mistakes we need to avoid as entrepreneurs. And today, we're gonna be talking about the dangerous territory of over commitment. Saying yes to every opportunity, drowning in tasks, and that elusive work life balance, what was that? Get ready for practical strategies and a road map to reshape your business narrative. Let's do this. Are you a successful business owner who has a laundry list of ideas and struggles to achieve your big goals? Welcome to the CEO Amplify podcast. I'm your host, Donna Dube, and my goal is to empower you to drive meaningful change and amplify your profits without the overwhelm. Join us as we provide actionable solutions for visionary CEOs like yourself to up level your CEO skills, streamline operations, and master strategic prioritization. Learn how to scale your business to new heights working smarter, not harder. If you're ready to reclaim your time and accelerate your growth, let's dive in and start this exciting adventure together. Remember, the only limit to your business growth is the one you set for yourself.

Hello CEOs, welcome back. Today is the 3rd part in our series of fatal mistakes we need to avoid as entrepreneurs and I wanna spend some time talking about over commitment. For some of us this is a cycle that we go through over and over and we're stuck because we don't know how to break out of it. So let me ask you this, are you moment. Someone who looks at your calendar, sees all the appointments there, and starts to feel a huge knot at the back of your throat. Are you someone who sometimes feels you can't say no? You see, our lives today are busier than ever. But as visionary leaders, we need to learn how to get good at protecting our time. Because at the end of the day, it's not about how well we can focus, how much time blocking we do, all the different hacks and productivity things that we can put into place. These are great, but they're band aids.

The key to stopping overcommitting is to figure out why we're overcommitting in the 1st place. We need to put boundaries in place and set limits so we're not feeling overwhelmed. And I understand. In the early days of business, we're working so hard just to keep the lights on, and from some of us, we're not even seeing the results we wanna see. So much time and effort being spent, but we need to flip the script and learn how to run our business like a business. And really it's about ditching the employee mentality, about throwing that away and thinking like a true CEO. And I know for many of you, there's a learning curve here because this is a new way of doing things. Because up to where you've gotten so far. You worked hard. You poured everything into what you're doing, but the backlog and the list of things need to be doing just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And your calendar keeps getting you over committed and overbooked. Because all the hacks in the world will not help you if you don't understand the root cause of why you're in this cycle in the first place. And overcommitting is causing stress for you. It's causing extra work for you, and it's causing extra work for your team. Because you as a leader are saying yes to so many things, and they are being pulled in so many different directions. And I understand sometimes it can be tough to say no because everything looks like an opportunity, that stepping stone to success, but we are never going to achieve work life balance if we don't have work life boundaries.

There are 2 ways we have to look at these boundaries. External limitations have to be in place so that we have some breathing room, but we also have to have some internal limitations. And we need to be able to do some groundwork first in our mind and what we're thinking before we can set up those boundaries. So the first thing I want you to do is assess your current commitments. So if you have a piece of paper, that's great. If you wanna do it on a computer, Google doc is fine. If you don't have those things, pause this podcasting and go get them because I wanna make sure you're following along and doing this with me.

So on your piece of paper, I want you to draw a line down the middle. So you have 2 columns and on one side at the top, I want you to write light. And on the other side, I want you to write heavy. And I want you to think about all the things you've done in the past 2 weeks, and you're gonna put them on the light side or the heavy side. The light side are things that are easy for you. Things that light you up and bring you joy. The heavy side are things that you don't enjoy doing. They sometimes feel dreadful. You may procrastinate them and push them off. And I want you to start paying attention to where you said yes when you wanted to say no. Look and see where the bulk of your time is going. Because the truth of the matter is you're gonna feel more satisfied when you have more time to do things on the light side. So when you look at all the things on the heavy side, there's 3 things we can do with those delegate, automate, or pause. Now I'm not here to tell you that everything in your business that you don't like, you'll be able to fit into one of those 3 buckets. The truth is you're probably going to have to do some things that you don't particularly enjoy, But we want to cut that list down. I want you to become aware of what's draining you. What over the past 2 weeks did you say yes to that you wanted to say no to. And then I wanna challenge you for the next 2 weeks going forward. I want you to practice saying no because you see for some of you saying yes is your default. You're used to pleasing others and when someone asks you or invites you to something, you immediately say yes. You may not even consciously take the time to think about it first. I want you to practice saying no, and here's how you can do it.

When someone asks you for something or invites you, you can say something as simple as this. Thank you so much for thinking of me. Let me check my calendar and make sure I can make this work, and I will get back to you. Now of course, we do have to follow through. We have to check our calendar and see if that activity fits and if that's something we're going to do. But this gives us an answer to give to the person. It allows us to be respectful, and it allows us to thank them for the invitation without us continuously saying yes. Alright. Now the 2nd piece of this is we need to work on our identity. What is attached to us saying yes? Are you someone who says, I am someone who says yes to keep make others happy. If that's the case, then I want you to do some mindset work and flip the script. I want you to shift into saying I'm someone who only says yes to the things I desire and have the capacity for to keep myself, my family, and my team happy? Right. Because we need to prioritize ourselves, our family, and our team, saying yes to the things that you have capacity for. Be honest with yourself, because when you say yes to only the things that you desire and you have capacity for. You can much easier say no to those other opportunities. And it gets rid of that underlying resentment that you may feel when you're continuously saying yes. So try that. I am someone who only says yes to the things I desire and have capacity for to keep myself, my family, and my team happy. Alright.

Now we can start to put some structure in place externally. So how do we know when we've reached capacity? You've got some non negotiables things that you cannot move around. They might be family commitments. May might be your personal commitments. You have to make your work activities fit within the time that you have available. It's not about making your mile-long to-do list fit in your calendar, because when you're doing that, you're spinning your wheels, because not everything on your mile to long to do list is moving the needle forward in your business. Working in your business day to day on the back end, the email, the content, the social media posts. Those things have to get done, but you as leader have to spend time planning, putting systems in place, mis simplifying. So are you saying yes continuously to the day to day stuff and not allowing time for the bigger picture. If that's the case, then I want you to think about how you can restructure how you're spending your time.

I know recently with one of my clients, we introduced the concept of buffer days. Days when there was nothing else scheduled, blocked off time on their calendar every single week non negotiable. No calls. No commitments. It was a time for the leader to think and act like the leader of his business. Every week, he had time to focus on working on his business, and it was such a game changer for him. He woke up excited again about his business, wanting to innovate and create and grow. Another hack and this has got to be the easiest of all, is having someone else manage your calendar. So you've heard me talk before about the scheduling ninja, setting up that ideal calendar that works for you. Now the next step of that is to pass that calendar off to a team member. "Here's my ideal calendar. Here's where you can book different things. Here's the rules of the road when dealing with my calendar," and let them management. Give them the expectations on where you want space, where you want time, and give them control. This allows you as a leader of your business to step away from saying yes to too many things that don't fit within your model calendar. Because the truth is no one is making you work as much as you are.

And if you want to see a change, you have to make a change to see a different result. So maybe for you, it's building in and solid chunks of time where you're gonna do work. Maybe it's putting a maximum number of calls that you can accept today. Maybe it's set those boundaries so that you can experience more balance. And I know you're gonna say to me, but Donna, what about all the things? What about all the other things that need to happen in my business. Who's gonna do them and when am I gonna do them? And I challenge you to think, are all those other things helping you grow? If not, then it's time to let go and stop. If they are helping you grow, then let's look at delegating, let's look at automating, let's look at building a system that can rinse and repeat. Build assets in your business that you can use over and over.

Remember, there's 3 main systems I talk about. You need a marketing system, a sales system, and a delivery wisdom. Once you have those systems set up and your team knows it can work like a well oiled machine. Right? Do some streamlining and structuring of your business so that you're not floundering around, because you don't have to keep running yourself into the ground to run your business. You have a zone of genius, and I want you to tap into it. Take time to know what lights you up and what drives your revenue.

Because at the end of the day, how much do you value your time? Success doesn't guarantee freedom. Overcommitting and overworking at 6 figures. Who's to say you won't be the same at 7 figures? Because we've all heard it before. What got you here won't get you there. It's time to take ownership of your mindset manipulation and your calendar. Breaking the over commitment cycle, it's not a one size fits all solution. It's personalized and a strategy that has to work for you. But it's about crafting a business that aligns with your values, empowers your team, and allows you to thrive, not just survive. So entrepreneurs, let's rewrite the narrative. I want your business to serve you, not the other way around.

Alright, this is the end of our 3 part series on fatal mistakes we need to avoid as entrepreneurs. So if you haven't heard this 3 part series, go back and listen to the episodes, and I'd love for you to pop into the Facebook group and let me know what you were able to change in your business. One of these fatal mistakes that you were able to catch you were making and how you were able to make a difference. Alright, thanks for listening, and I'll see you all next week.

Thank you for joining me on this episode of CEO Amplify. I appreciate you being part of our thriving community of ambitious business owners. If you enjoy today's episode, kindly ask you to share this podcast with a friend and take a hot minute to rate and leave a review. It would mean the to me. Your feedback helps me reach more people and continue providing valuable content. Thanks so much for your support. Keep shining, and we'll catch you on the next episode.