E3: Living on the GO GO GO: 4 Common Mistakes Keeping Entrepreneurs Anxious

The truth is many "Worn Out Entrepreneurs" are making these super common mistakes that are keeping them anxious without even realizing it.

How do I know? Because I (and many of my students) made them too! Curious and want to make sure you know what they are so you can stop making them?

Then press play on this episode where we cover:

• Going from the Red to the Green Zone and why it's essential to thriving
• The Sneaky ways you might be sabotaging your success without even realizing it
• The missing piece that many business owners neglect

This podcast is a must-listen for entrepreneurs, aspiring business owners, or anyone interested in personal growth and overcoming anxiety naturally.

Make sure to grab the free the 3 part mini audio training: From Anxious to AH-mazing right here: https://www.megan-nolan.com/atappp

Say goodbye to racing thoughts and sleepless nights with the Anxiety Tracker & Journal! Get instant access for just $11 https://www.megan-nolan.com/tracker

Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iammegannolan

Also, subscribe so you never miss an episode!

Please find the show notes below. Since it is a transcription there may be spelling errors and/or weird grammar. Ignore that and enjoy!

Hello.
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Purposeful Powerhouse podcast today, we're going to be talking about really common mistakes that you might be making that might actually be increasing your anxiety and stress levels.
They are so common that many worn out entrepreneurs make them and myself included.
Yes, I have my hand up.
If you can't see me, I made them myself many times over before I realized that they were mistakes that might actually be contributing to my anxiety.
And in our last episode, we talked about anxiety overdrive.
And so if you haven't listened to that, you can either listen to this episode and go back or pause this one and go back to that one.
But let me just start us off by telling you a little story, giving you a little glimpse into when I realized that I in fact had become the worn out entrepreneur and I was the epitome of the frantic frazzled.
Go, go, go, go, go walking the thin line between having a meltdown and a blow up at any given second and how I was making these mistakes that inadvertently were actually increasing my anxiety.
So anxiety overdrive is that cycling between the go go, go, go go, stress, state of action, taking can't stop, won't stop.
And the crashed out, shut down.
State of feeling defeated, depleted, worn out, exhausted over it.
Ready to throw in the towel.
There is a dance between those and what we're looking to establish and what I help you to establish through the tools that you're going to be learning here.
And in the mindful strength method and the special resource that I have for you at the end, totally free is to be able to come back to connected awareness, to find that happy place.
If you will that green zone in the middle where you have the ability to take action and to do the things, but you're not caught up in the spiral of stress and you are able to relax and rest but not get pulled down into the spiral of defeat and sadness and self doubt and all of that, that truly is resilience and that truly is what we want to cultivate so that you can keep coming back to that place of connected awareness.
And that will take us back into that place of stay and play, right? That place of connection and presence within yourself and within your nervous system so that you can regulate yourself, right? And and regulation of the nervous system isn't necessarily just being chill and calm all the time.
No, a regulated nervous system is able to respond to challenges and come back to connection and that is truly resilient, right? And we wanna be able to do the things but then come back.
But what happens with many worn out entrepreneurs is that we get in this state of feeling like you are captain of the Stress Express and you are going a million miles an hour and you are just go, go, go, go, go, can't stop, won't stop Because there's a million and one things for you to do.
And it's really easy for you to talk yourself out of taking time for yourself, even though you care, even though you want to feel good and you like feeling good and, and you know, you, you really place a high value on your energy and how you show up, but something's happening at a deeper level which we'll talk about in a little bit that stops you or you're doing things like the mistakes that I'm gonna be sharing in a minute that get you to the place that I got to when I was literally so exhausted, so worn out, so resentful of my business that all I could do every morning was just grab my yoga mat and take it out and put it on the patio and lay there and just cry.
And I'm all about a good cry.
I think they're very therapeutic and they're very important.
But literally day after day for hours, something was really, really wrong.
And, and you know, me being kind of the thick headed stubborn Capricorn than I am.
I was just like, I'm fine, I'm fine.
I'm fine, but I wasn't fine.
And I got to the point where I was either spiraling in, in anxiety and that, that fear stress state or I was super defeated and sad and depressed.
And I literally was completely out of integrity with myself because, you know, my brain of course, had a million and one things to say about the fact that here I was a personal trainer and a yoga teacher and I couldn't even get it together to exercise or I wasn't even meditating and all that squawky nonsense that it had to, you know, it had all sorts of fuel to go on about.
And so when I realized what had happened, then I had become what I now call the worn out entrepreneur.
I was out there one morning like full body, you know that like snap bubble sobbing body cry.
And I was just staring off into space and I was looking at a tree that's right out here and there was a leaf that was caught on a spider web and it was just spinning in circles.
And I thought that's exactly what I feel like right now, I'm literally going in every direction and I'm getting nowhere.
I'm barely hanging on by a thread, one wrong move and I feel like I could, it could all fall apart and it felt like I was just giving it all I had and it was just pouring out the bottom and I wasn't seeing any sort of growth or establishing the forward momentum that I wanted.
And I was just in that moment so struck by what I was seeing that I stopped and I froze and I heard the quiet voice of my heart whisper to me.
This is not your path.
There's more for you than this.
You're a warrior.
You'll find a way.
And I didn't know what it meant then.
But I do now.
And in that moment, of course, my brain, the negative saboteur committee in my head was like some kind of warrior.
You are, you're just laying here and no, no, no, no.
And I got up stop and I scared the chickens.
I scared the roosters.
I scared myself a little bit but I yelled it out because I needed to.
And that was one of the many lines in the sand that I have drawn.
But that first time and that commitment and decision to myself that I was ready to make a change because I could not and would not continue.
And so I started to take a look at what was happening in my life.
And this has really allowed me to understand what was happening and how, what often happens in the lives of many really purpose driven, highly sensitive service based entrepreneurs is that we tend to get in that go mode and it's really hard to stop.
And so what I began to do is really take a, a really soft look, you know, not a hard look like my brain wanted me to do.
And so as we go through these common mistakes, I want you to take that same gentle look.
And if your brain wants to make any of this wrong, if you see yourself in it, I want you to do just really pause and put your hand on your heart and acknowledge that you were doing your best and you're always only doing your best.
And I heard a really beautiful quote recently and I apologize because I would probably remix it slightly and I can't remember exactly who said it, but it was something to the effect of let us not look back in anger or forward in fear.
But let's look around with awareness and that really speaks to those different zones of that anxious overdrive or the shutdown collapse.
We want to come back to that centered awareness, connect an awareness to the present moment and just acknowledge that when we start to learn these things, then when we know better, we can do better, right? And so one of the things that really took me to that place of being a worn out entrepreneur was constantly powering through to override my anxiety.
I was constantly doing, doing, going, going and wrestling to me was and felt lazy air quotes lazy because in my mind, in order to be worth my salt or prove myself, I had to do all the things.
And so what happens for many well known entrepreneurs is that we tend to be in that go, go, go, go go mode, pushing through powering through on caffeine and Cortisol stress, convincing yourself.
And this is what I did, convincing yourself that long hours of work will not only accomplish a lot, will help you to get to the point of being so exhausted that you'll probably sleep better tonight.
Not true.
And so what happens there is that's caused by that drive in our head to keep going and power through and maybe we attempt to fix it by getting one of the watches that goes bing bing bing and you, you know, for a little bit, you get up and you do the things, but typically what tends to happen is that, oh, I'll take a break after I've done, you know, this number of emails or I've, you know, gotten to inbox zero.
Who knows what that is? I don't, um, you know, and, and kind of putting the carrot out that you'll take a break when that happens.
And when we are in any sort of posture, whether you're sitting or standing and your body adapts to it, and most people spend a lot of time sitting down, sitting in a weak, slumped, ouch, slouchy posture.
We tend to take short shallow breaths, which triggers more stress.
Our brain doesn't do well if we've, you know, command it, demand it to focus or do something for more than 5 to 45 minutes without a break.
So that causes stress in the brain.
So this can really contribute to anxiety and stress levels which then, you know, we think, oh, I'm gonna be so tired by the end of the day, I'll be able to sleep.
No, because you're running at 100 all day and then you can't go from like 100 to parked at the gate.
You know, think of it.
Like if you were an airplane, you can't be flying 500 miles an hour and then stopped at the, at the gate.
No, there's a deceleration process, there's an unwinding process like what, you know, so just think about that like powering through and then coming to a complete stop.
No.
So it's better to be able to take these little power pauses throughout the day so that you can keep navigating and you can keep regulating your stress level, your energy level and therefore your nervous system, we'll talk about that a little bit more in a moment.
So another thing that people tend to do is get really excited by the newest and hottest strategy and tell me if this sounds like you is, you're all about it, right? And living a holistic lifestyle.
Some of these you will definitely relate to, but what I think is really important is that oftentimes unless we're getting to the root of the issue, these can just be abandoned.
Trying the new app.
Right.
Trying the new workout, the new, um, supplement or maybe new essential oil or doing the cold plunge or, you know, taking the mushroom supplements or the coffee or, uh, you know, micro dosing or like doing all the things by doing all the things, but really kind of trying to put your finger on the fact that like something's just off, you can't figure it out and then wanting to be able to do all of the things.
But then getting so stressed out by the things, all the things that you're trying to like, fit into your routine that you stop doing all of it and, you know, finding a way to like, navigate it back in and keep it all consistent.
That tends to be, the challenge tends to be the sort of all or nothing approach.
And that can be, you know, something that is beneficial depending on what the all or nothing is, but what tends to happen is that in the all or nothing, we kind of just say screw it.
I'll start again on Monday and then that Monday gets put off till next Monday, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
And so, you know, kind of looking for this big reset and so it's really important to be gentle with yourself because as I mentioned, some of those tools are very beneficial, you know, cold plunging has an incredible amount of benefits, breath work, yoga, all of those things.
But it's really about finding a way that works for you so that it doesn't stress you out to do all of those things, right? Because you go into it thinking, oh, this is gonna help me with my stress and then it can become a source of stress in and of itself, right? Oh, we're so funny.
Humans.
We're so funny.
Ok.
So then another thing that can tend to happen is doing again, something very beneficial exercise, right? Doing some really hard workouts knowing that that helps you to, you know, burn off the stress without doing practices to regulate your nervous system.
So that's the caveat alone, intense hard workouts if you're already stressed out and you're already having fatigue in your body requires a lot of recovery.
And so that can be an extra load on your body.
And so what tends to happen if we just are in that, you know, and, and definitely that like high intensity personality that many entrepreneurs including myself tend to gravitate to words or to be without doing the more gentle things because a lot of times the gentle things, if they're slow or moving or they're quote unquote, boring, we're like, hey, whatever I need something like, let's get to the point, let's, you know, make this, make this effective and, and all that.
And so if we're doing these high intensity workouts without practices to regulate your nervous system, it tends to push even more into stress because there's more recovery for your muscles and your tissues and your joints.
And so, you know, a lot of times people will realize, oh, ok.
Well, if I'm going too hard and I'm super exhausted and it burns out, then, you know, the attempt to fix this often is like, ok, I'll go to yoga and I'll actually stay for Shawana because I know there's probably at least one of you that's gone to yoga and it's like, ok, this boring, sleepy part at the end is whatever.
I don't know what that's for.
I'm out of here and I used to be that person admittedly, you know, before I became a teacher and understood that the, the s wasna practice the practice at the end is, you know, is oftentimes and considered to be one of the most challenging poses in yoga, not for the physical attributes for the fact that it asks you to hold still.
I laughed because I'm like, for me the longest time I was like in the shama and I totally relaxed physically and internally like bing, bing mentally didn't necessarily sound like that.
It sounded more like, ok, next one I'm done, I'm gonna go and eat some, um, salad and I could probably have green juice and put all that.
Ok.
So that's another one is the going too hard without the nervous system practices, to create that sense of connected awareness and to cultivate resiliency in your nervous system so that you're not always up here and you're not always down here.
OK.
And so the last mistake that tends to really take many worn out entrepreneurs into anxiety, overdrive is letting your mind run the show.
And I know you might be thinking, it just does that, that's what my brains for.
Yes, of course, the actual organ of the brain.
Yes.
But the brain and the mind are different.
The mind is the brain in action.
And what tends to happen is because we have so many ongoing thoughts.
If we don't really begin to learn to take control of your thoughts, your mind will control you because you are running on automatic subconscious programs that you were taught and modeled as a child.
And they become something that you practice so much that it becomes part of your personality and your personality because of the way you think and you act and you show up then creates the reality that you live in.
Some people say that these personality traits are actually survival responses from childhood and it makes sense, right? Because in childhood, you were shown what to do and how to do it.
And you modeled that behavior so that you could handle and navigate whatever moment you were in.
So you can stay in your, in your family or tribe of origin.
So these responses are ones that you learned as a child and until we begin to recognize them and you'll notice them as frustrating patterns in your life that you're like, why do I always do this? That's probably one of them.
OK.
And so remember, gentle compassion and awareness because right now is when your judge is probably like, yeah, I always do that.
I always overwork myself and I always procrastinate.
It really pissed me off.
And the whole time I'm procrastinating on something, I'm sitting there and I'm totally stressing about it and I'm super anxious about it, but yet I continue to do it and it's driving me nuts.
OK.
So that's the kind of stuff that we want to be gentle about because until we begin to recognize that you're no longer available for that, that you're making the conscious decision to not practice that anymore.
It will run the show because they're subconscious programs.
And the interesting thing about this negative committee in your head, also known as the saboteurs or the different ways that we self sabotage ourselves is they are a symptom of stress.
And when we are stressed, we are more likely to self sabotage because that's a survival response.
And when we are self sabotaging it causes stress.
It's this like, you know, feedback loop and what tends to happen when we have this overworked, overwhelmed, exhausted, dysregulated nervous system that we've been speaking to.
We're in stress.
So if stress triggers these survival responses and then we do the things like overworking or um self doubt, we tend to kind of default into like, why does this always happen to me or like being really vigilant or perfectionist or um being hypercritical or controlling or really, uh you know, hyper rational, all of these different ways.
There's, there's 10 different ways that we tend to self sabotage 10 characters of the quote unquote shitty committee in your head.
That doesn't talk very much nice things.
It just talks a lot of smack.
It makes you feel like crap and doesn't do very much.
That's why it got its name.
And so when we are stressed, that's when these characters kick in and then they create more stress.
Although they convince us that, you know, oh, don't do it right now.
You got plenty of time and then you sit there and you stress about it.
They feed you these little lies.
But then if you're sitting there and you are super in the, in the spiral of like, oh, I should really do it.
Why am I not doing this? I should just have the conversation or whatever it is, it causes more anxiety, right? Or more stress.
And so these are the common mistakes that tend to happen and you know, knowing that now like a lot of it's happening below the surface, right? Until you start to become more aware of your nervous system and how it operates until you become aware that you even have these subconscious patterns.
This is just happening.
So of no fault of your own, right? But when you know better, you do better.
And that's why it's so important to be able to take these little moments for yourself to learn.
And I know if you're anything like me, you probably are a lifelong learner and you love learning cool stuff and especially cool stuff that helps you to move forward in your business.
So as a quick review, one of the mistakes using anxiety as fuel for the Go go go go go to try to override it, pushing through on caffeine and Cortisol doing things that are helpful but not getting to the root cause of the issue and really pushing yourself going hard with hard workouts and not doing things to regulate and soothe and support your nervous system and operating on these subconscious patterns and programs that until now you may not even have been aware of and that's totally fine, right? This is the operating system that you were installed as a child.
And now you get to decide, you get to learn how to become aware of these patterns, practicing that gentle compassionate self awareness and become the thinker of your thoughts, take control of your mind to learn to think on purpose and that's really powerful.
And that's one of the the pillars of being a purposeful powerhouse.
We're gonna talk more about being a purposeful powerhouse in the next episode.
But I really wanted to share those with you so that in the off chance that you're making one or any of those, you can start to become aware of that and learn what to do to begin to shift, right.
Begin to make that transition from being and feeling like the worn out entrepreneur to being the purposeful powerhouse CEO that you truly are, whether that's the CEO of your business, you are certainly the CEO of your life, right, in control of the direction and the health of your life and potentially a business as well.
So that's what I wanted to share with you today because otherwise left unchecked, these things will just keep happening, right? And so then you can learn how to begin to become aware of it, right? We're taking your foot off the, off the right off the brake, excuse me.
And now you'll know, you know, some of the things that you can do in opposite to that, some of the things that you can begin to do, taking power pauses throughout the day, learning to do things, to regulate your nervous system, learning what to do to begin to become aware of these patterns of the saboteurs in your head so that you can begin to shift really getting down deep into the root of it so that we can have a lasting solution and a lasting shift in how you're feeling and how you're showing up and how you are really living into each day.
So if you would like to learn how to make that shift in just 15 minutes a day, I have a three part mini audio that you can grab in the link or comments below.
And it is a three part mini series really powerful to the point that you're gonna learn how to take your mind off of this negative patterning and out of these subconscious programs and become the controller of your thoughts, becoming intentional with your thoughts so that you can run your mind rather than having it run you so that you can go from being anxious to amazing in just 15 minutes a day.
Because the tools that I'm going to teach you in this mini audio training are so incredibly powerful and I go deep into what they are and how they work and how they are so incredibly life changing and how they have totally changed my life and the many lives of people that I know and love and also clients that I've gotten to share these tools with.
So you can go ahead and grab the free mini three part audio training from Anxious to Amazing that will help you to do that yourself.
Because when you have the tools to make these shifts, oh, it is amazing.
OK.
Well, that's enough for today, I'd say and thank you so much for being here and thank you so much for being part of this incredible community and learning how to think and move and show up on purpose every day, every day or as often as you can.
So until next time, take good care and see you later.
Bye bye

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