Hey, my friend, what's up? And welcome back to another episode of do life big. I am so excited to have you here. You know, I'm getting ready here. The kids are going back to school. Summer is almost officially over. They start school in just two days. At the time of me recording this, and it's just crazy how fast every single summer seems to go. I swear each summer seems to go faster and faster. And I know you're probably feeling the exact same way if you have children of your own. So my voice might be a little off today because I have a little bit of a cold, and I'm kind of in the middle of losing it, I feel like but we're gonna do our best. We're gonna get through this episode and bring you some good stuff.
Today I'm gonna be talking all about how to stop overthinking in your business, and this is going to be helpful for you, not only if you're someone who tends to overthink in their business, but someone who tends to overthink decisions and their life in general, this will be helpful for you. This will be helpful for you regardless. So stay tuned. We're going to dive right in. And I wanted to start off by talking to you about a time when I was really overthinking in my business.
So I had started out with a health and fitness business, and I got to this place where I just felt like, Okay, I've done all that I can do here. I know I'm being called to do something else and move into a different direction. I know I'm being called to shift away from that network marketing model and move and develop my own program. I know that I'm being called to work one on one with people and help them with their mindset and help them overcome their limiting beliefs and create a new positive, empowering way of thinking. And I know that this is the direction I'm supposed to be going. And I was feeling like this for so long, but I kept overthinking my decision, and I kept saying to myself things like, well, Kathi, why would you do that? You already know this so well. You've been doing it for so long. You are making great money. This is what you're known for. Your whole entire social media is revolved around health and wellness. And what is that going to look like now, shifting away from that, what is that going to look like, starting over from the bottom, and I got myself really wrapped up into this analysis paralysis. And I'm sure that you can relate to a time in your business where you have over thought something and over complicated something for so long that you ended up doing nothing at all, right? Which we don't want that, because when you're not taking action, how are you going to actually grow and get closer to where you want to go.
And so for two years, I literally stayed in this stuck phase where I chose to just do nothing but go through the motions in my previous business. And that sucked, and it didn't feel good, and it wasn't exciting, and it wasn't fun anymore, and I didn't have the joy and the energy around it anymore. And I was basically living with the mentality at that point of not, what do I want to do, but what should I do? And on paper, it was what you should do is keep staying in the business that you're in, because that's what you know, and that's what you're good at, and that's what you've built an entire business around, health and wellness, and you make great money, and it's done so many wonderful things for you, and you've had so many great connections, and you've impacted so many lives. So you should continue to stay down that path. That is what you should do, but it wasn't really what I wanted to do. And this overthinking really was me not trusting myself, not having that confidence in myself that it's okay to “start over”. It's okay to pivot and shift and make new decisions. And it was more of like a wakeup call.
With the fact that life is just ticking by. The days are coming and going. You can't afford to let overthinking complicate things and keep you in the same place any longer.
And at that two-year mark, I drew the line in the sand, launched this podcast, created my mindset accelerator course, and I've been on my way impacting lives, but in a little bit of a different way, in terms of their online businesses, with helping them create a new way of thinking, really getting rid of their limiting beliefs. But I bring this up because a lot of the students who I teach, they get stuck in this overthinking phase, and it could be something really simple, like a post that you put up, or an email that you're about to send out or a launch that you're about to do. And really, when we overthink, it's really just our brains way of trying to problem solve. Right? Doubts during decision making can quickly spiral into overthinking, paralyzing our ability to make confident decisions. And sometimes, when this happens, it just makes things more complicated, right? How many times do you start out with this one little thought that goes into your mind, and it's just this one little tiny thing, and then all of a sudden, because you've spent so much time overthinking it, or over analyzing it, over complicating it, it turns into this big snowball of all these things, which most of the time it's because we're thinking about an unwanted future, an unwanted something that's going to happen that we have no control over, and it's something usually negative that we don't really want to feel. So we overthink it, we over analyze it, and then we never take action. And it could be a new launch, you know, where you're literally planning every little detail of this launch, but then your doubts start to creep in. You know when you start asking yourself and saying things like, what if I'm spending my money in the wrong places? What if the leads I'm getting aren't a right match, or they're not qualified for this offer, and you spend all this time? What if? What if? What if? What if? Can we relate?
We all do it. I'm guilty of it too. Now, the problem here isn't necessarily asking the what if questions, those questions, they're okay to ask, but the problem is those questions are snowballing into more questions, and then all of those questions, and the massive amount of them leads to overwhelm. And what does overwhelm lead to? We all know this right? Overwhelm leads to inaction. It leads to inaction, and then nothing gets accomplished. And this is where we can look back and have regrets and kick ourselves in the butt, like, why didn't I just do it? I should have just gone for it. I should have just had the courage, the bravery. Why did I spend all this time thinking about what if? What if? What if? What if it worked out for me? What if that was the right decision, what if that was the right move, what if that was the right business, whatever it may be for you. And so it's really shifting that “what if” from negative situations to what if it works out and goes well and focusing and honing in on those things. So what can we do about this? Right? What can we do about this when we have overthinking and we're over complicating and we're going into this analysis paralysis, and now we're not taking action? What should we do about it?
So what we need to do is we really need to create a structure that you can use, not only when you're overthinking in your business, but if you find yourself overthinking in general. Think about this all the time, like, we all know people where it's like, well, they didn't text me back. They said they were gonna text me when they got home. Why didn't they text me? Like, are they upset with me? Did something happen the last time we were together? Like silly little things, even like that, can trip us up. So I'm going to give you five steps so that you can turn your overthinking into problem solving and actually take the action that you need to take, instead of being stuck in that analysis paralysis.
So step number one is you need to notice when you're overthinking honestly, just being aware of it can help you start to break the cycle. You know, it's kind of almost like, think of it like pressing pause on your mind when your brain is going crazy, overthinking or over analyzing, it just gives you the chance to stop for just a minute and do the next best step. Okay, so step one is just start to become aware of when you're overthinking, so that way you can start to break the cycle. That is the very first step.
Number two, this is where you're going to carry around a little journal with you with a pen, and you're going to grab that pen, and you're going to grab that pad of paper and you're going to write down those thoughts onto the paper. So whatever it is that you're overthinking or over complicating in your mind, you're going to get it out on to paper. Because getting them out of your head is the best way that you can do this. Because until you actually. Get them out and onto paper, they're just running around in your brain going wild, and it's leaving no room for any kind of clarity or solutions. And we want clarity, and we want you to be able to problem solve, and want you to be able to take action. So this is actually what I tell all my students to do. And I was actually on a call with one of my one on one clients the other day, and she was sharing with me some of her limiting beliefs and some of the things that trip her up and cause her to overthink. And one of the ways that I helped her try to work through that is by grabbing that pad of paper, bringing that pen with you, writing it down, getting it out of your head and onto the paper, clear the space in your brain, give yourself some time to really reread it and look at it, and then also give yourself the opportunity to think, you know, hey, like, what was just happening prior to this that caused me to start to overthink or over complicate? What am I worried about is going to happen? What am I focusing on? Like, really being aware of why you're doing it, and then trying to reframe it.
And so the step three here is to prioritize your tasks. So when you have a list of all these different things that you need to do, right and you're overthinking, you're over complicating and you're in this analysis paralysis, and you're not really doing the things that you need to do to grow your business, or in whatever area that it is that you're trying to improve, it's because you really haven't prioritized the most important things. And so if you just have a little list, even in your phone, of like the top three to five things that you need to get done every single day, and do those things first, and then you can literally, physically check them off or swipe them away. Your brain will feel so much more clarity, and you'll be able to make better decisions, and you'll be more likely to take action instead of overthinking. See what happens is, we have all these different ideas in our mind, and we have so many different things going on all the time. You know? We have my gosh, we have our relationships, we have our house we have to take care of we have our children. We have to keep them alive. We have school coming up and school supplies. And, you know, our own journeys, and we're working on ourselves. And there's so many different pieces to the puzzle. And if you don't have a clear cut list of the things that should be a priority in your business, and you just keep it all in your head, you'll just continue to feel this overwhelm, and you will continue to be stuck in this analysis prowess, and you'll continue to overthink, and you don't want to feel like that, because we all know when you feel like that, you get nothing done, and then when you get nothing done, then you feel sorry for yourself, and that's where you start to beat yourself up, all right. So that was number three. Make sure you have a list where you prioritize this task that need to get done in order of importance, like three to five things every day.
The fourth one is to trust your intuition. You know this. This one probably is my favorite one, and I think it's the most important one, because a lot of times when there are decisions that we need to make in business or in life. It's really hard sometimes to quiet the noise and get out of the well, I should do this. This is what people expect of me. It's really hard to get out of that and get into your heart where you really listen and ask yourself, well, what do I want? Not what should I do, but what do I want to do? And it's that ability to be able to quiet yourself and really just be alone and ask yourself, What should I do next? What is the next right, best move for me in this business? Instead of always thinking, What should I do, stop for a moment and ask yourself, what do I want to do? You know, never doubt your own judgment. This will help you trust yourself more. I think that we need to just learn to trust ourselves a little bit more. We have everything that we need inside of us right now. We already know all the answers. You know exactly what you want, you know exactly what you need to do, but actually doing it is another thing. And you'll be more likely to take that action and actually do it and have the courage to do it when you become aware that you're overthinking, when you actually start to write everything down and get out of your head and get it onto paper and learn how to reframe it when you start to prioritize the task of order of importance, three to five things, and when you can listen to your intuition, trust your intuition, never doubt your own judgment. You know, on the last episode I had shared that we were really excited. We were getting ready to purchase this trailer on Anna Marie Island, and we were going to purchase this trailer, and we were going to remodel the whole entire thing, and we were going to rent it out as an Airbnb. Now, I would not typically purchase a trailer. We like to purchase homes because obviously they appreciate over time you own the land, yada, yada, yada, you get the gist of it. So with a trailer, it depreciates, right? There's no equity in it. You also, we wouldn't also own the land all these things. However, the person trying to sell us this trailer really made it look amazing, right? They said things like, you can expect to make, you know, “X” amount of money for the year on this property. These are my other ones that I own, too, and they're doing this much per month. And so when we hear the numbers, we're like, this is a no brainer. Obviously, we should buy the trailer. We will renovate it ourselves. We'll get this thing up and going, and it's going to be cash flow. And that's what we want, like, we want multiple streams of income, but we want cash flow. We want passive income, right? That's what we're that's what we're all about over here in the Reuter household.
So all of a sudden, like, we're just thinking about it, and I'm like, geez, I mean, this sounds really, really good. And then we're like, Well, we were just kind of trusting everything that this person was saying. That was stupid, lesson learned. And we were so busy. We were putting this deal in place, like while we were in North Carolina. So we never went to go look at the place either. But we did pay to have an inspector go do an inspection on it and all that. So we did pay for money for that. We were serious about it, like I was so excited to come home. I'm like, yes, it's gonna be great. We're gonna come home. It's gonna give us something for Nick and I to work on together. It's been so long since we've done something like fun, like this together. We'll be able to go to the island. We'll, you know, remodel everything. We'll make it our own. We'll make it look so cute. It'll be, you know, really like ocean. And it's gonna be awesome. People are gonna love it. It's gonna be like, a really nice one-bedroom hotel room, basically. Then we were so excited. I was so pumped. Got home, we drove to the trailer park. We went in, we're like, Wow, this place really needs a shit ton of work. That's okay. Did all the measurements, and we were still serious about everything. But like I said, we had just gotten back from North Carolina. We were gone for like, three weeks. We hadn't actually purchased the property yet, just put a deposit down, by the way. And we were sitting at dinner at hurricane Hanks, it's called we were sitting there. We had a couple darkened stormiest, had some scallops wrapped in bacon, and we're talking about the trailer and everything. And we're like, we should probably look and see how often these places are actually renting out, right? So we're online, we're looking. None of the trailers that are being used as Airbnb’s had, like, any bookings, except for like, one, and it was just like a couple days they were renting for like, $90 a night, when we were told they were going to rent from 250 to 350 A night. Now I know this is a slow season, but still, and we were looking in the area, and we're like, wait a minute, this doesn't make any sense. First of all, why and who would want to come and spend if you're coming on vacation to the island, right? Wouldn't you rather go to a one-bedroom condo in the same area with a pool, versus a trailer? You know, the ceilings are lower, it's a trailer, you know what I mean, versus like a condo or a hotel room. And the condos weren't that much more money, like 20 extra dollars a night. It was like no big deal. And those condos were all rented out from now until the spring, whereas all these trailers that were renting for Airbnb’s, they had no bookings from now until the spring. Couldn't find any bookings at all, except for that one or two places I had a couple nights. Big deal. Now, in the back of my mind, I did think to myself, all right, if this guy owns four of these trailers, and he's telling me he has two bedrooms and they're rolling this amount of money in, which is a really good amount of money, and his one bedroom is rolling in this amount of money, why would he want to get rid of another trailer, like it's kind of like a no brainer to keep it. So that did kind of cross my mind, but then at the same point in time, I'm kind of like, well, maybe he just doesn't want to renovate it, or maybe he just doesn't want to have three or maybe he needs the cash right now for something else. I have no idea, but I trusted it until we saw that there were no bookings, and then until we called the actual property management company and found out that these places are really only renting for X amount of money, and that basically would have costed us money every single month to have this trailer. So we pulled out of the deal, and that was all like us trusting our intuition. You know, there was a piece of me that was like, oh, but we can say that we have a little place on the island, but then it's like, you have a cafe, like you don't really, like you don't own the land. So anything could happen. And these places aren't renting. You can't afford to be dishing out, you know, 1550 a month for rent, then this place isn't renting, like you're doing this for cash flow. So again, it was just that all about trusting that intuition and really just trusting yourself with that judgment. So I kind of digressed a little bit there with that story, but I just bring that up because there have been times where I have not trusted my intuition, where I've ignored it and bad things have happened, so please, trust your intuition. You're not being paranoid. You're not overthinking it by trusting your intuition, your intuition is so important.
And then the last step is to make sure that you are assigning your responsibilities and delegating these tasks to people so that you can take action far too often, especially in business. There's so many different jobs and components that are in business. You know, there's marketing, there's advertising, there's email marketing, there's content creation, there's so many different things. And you could be doing it all, but you shouldn't be doing it all. You need to have help, and you need to assign responsibilities and be okay, delegating what you think that people can't do better than you, you need to be okay delegating that away so that it can free up more times that way you can do the most important things in your business that no one can do the way that you do.
So just to kind of recap real quick, the five steps here that you can turn your overthinking into problem solving and actually take action as number one, just become aware of it and notice when you're overthinking. Number two, grab a pen and paper and write it all down. Number three, prioritize your task. Number four, trust your intuition and number five, be okay delegating and assigning responsibilities so that you can take action. Let's move away from overthinking and over complicating, and let's get it all out on paper and move into action starting today. And if you have not done my free 62nd quiz yet to identify what your entrepreneurial persona type is, it is the bomb. You will love this. You can go to kathireuter.com/quiz I will put it in the show notes. It will help you identify what your entrepreneurial persona type is. There's four of them, where you are in your journey and the exact task and steps that you should take next to get to the next level. So thanks so much for being here. You know, I love you, and I will see you the next time. Bye.
