Yesterday, I was sitting in a coffee shop, with a Google task bar full of work to complete and I was unable to do any of it. I just stared at my computer screen completely overwhelmed by my situation, and wondered how it was that I came to be in that particular predicament at that moment.

As an entrepreneur, and I get overwhelmed almost once a week. However recently, this overwhelm was become paralyzing, rather than being motivated by my fear, I was left incapacitated. Enter my full-fledged existential crisis.

All kinds of self-doubt passed though my mind, I kept thinking if m goals and dreams were really worth so much worry, if I really knew what I was doing, if I should just throw in the towel and succumb to my terrible, cubicle fate.

I decided that my real problem is not that I don’t work hard or don’t try, its that I’ve got so many projects going on at one time that its impossible for me to devote enough time to the thing that I am really passionate about: helping other entrepreneurs through the arduous and sometimes terrifying challenges of stating a new business.

I’ve decided to re-focus on this blog, to really devote myself to it wholeheartedly give myself 6 months to get 1000 subscribers or I’m moving on to other things that the universe has planned for me.

I write this today because I know that every entrepreneur has gone though a similar crisis at least once before deciding to give up or continue on with their dream. I’ve gotten out from under my crisis and I wanted to share the steps with you of how I did it:

1. Give yourself a moment (and don’t feel bad about it): When you get ovewhellmed, it’s because you feel confused by the many tasks you have to complete and the last thing you think you need to do is take a break. Don’t try to think about anything, just breath, let yourself feel whatever it is that your feeling without trying to avoid it, and it usually turns out that the discomfort you work so hard to avoid isn’t really that bad at all.
2. Write it out: Journal to try to sort out what it is exactly that you’re feeling, ask yourself “what do I really want out of this experience and out of my life?”
3. Give Yourself a Deadline: If you let yourself, you may put your business on the back burner for years on end without any real success. You can spend way too much money and time procrastinating on your ideas and never really take any action. Giving yourself a deadline to achieve a specific goal (in my case, 6 months for 1000 subscribers), helps light the fire under your feet. And if you don’t achieve your goal by that end date, at least you know you put your heat and soul into it, and you can (hopefully) be more comfortable with moving on.
4. Create an Action Plan: Create a list of everything you need to do to get where you want to be by your deadline, then create a Google calendar, and make deadlines for those smaller projects. Creating deadlines for even the smallest things, like when decisions have to be made or when research has to be done will help keep you on track.
5. Schedule Your Day: Unless you’re lucky enough to be working full-time on your business already, really discipline yourself to find extra time during your day to spend on it. Maybe you can wake up earlier or skip out on some friend time in order to work. Put aside a set number of hours to work on your business and stick to it.
6. Be Kind: However, if your alarm doesn’t go off or your cat gets sick and you don’t for whatever reason follow your plans, don’t beat yourself up over it. Just accept that you didn’t do as well today as you had hoped and reevaluate what you can do to be more productive in the future.
7. Reward Yourself: Even the most crazy disciplined workaholic needs a break. Just as you schedule your work time you schedule fun time as well. Putting an end time on your work day (a surprisingly difficult thing to do for any entrepreneur) can mean that you’re more relaxed and focused when the sun comes up tomorrow.