Episode 496: 3 questions to ask when it all feels too much
Ever feel like you're spinning your wheels in your business? Like you’re working hard but just not getting anywhere? Or maybe you’re questioning if this whole thing is still right for you. You're not alone. In today’s episode, we’re going to dive into those tough moments where everything feels a bit too much.
Fiona Killackey shares three powerful questions that could change how you see your business, your life, and maybe even yourself. These aren’t your usual “how to get more done” tips. She’s talking about questions that help you hit the reset button, figure out what’s really going on, and decide where you want to go from here.
In this episode, Fiona discusses:
Is your idea of success actually what you want? Or is it time to rethink it altogether?
What’s going well in your life right now? It might sound simple, but taking a good look at this could be a game changer.
Are you really putting in the effort that counts? Sometimes, we need to ask the hard questions about what we’re actually doing versus what we think we’re doing.
And finally, how do you start making real change without feeling overwhelmed by it all?
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Fiona Killackey: Do you love your life as a small business owner?
Let's be real.
Sometimes we just don't. It's my hope that this, the My Daily Business Podcast, helps you regain a little of that lost love through practical, actionable tips, tools and tactics, interviews with creative and curious small business owners, and in depth coaching episodes with me, your host, Fiona Killackey With more than 20 years experience in marketing, brand content and systems and having now helped thousands of small business owners, I know what it takes to build.
A business that you can be proud of and that actually aligns with your values, your beliefs, and your hopes for the future. So much of our daily life is spent working on and in the businesses and the brands that we are creating, and so it makes sense to actually love what you do.
So, let's get into this podcast and help you figure out how to love your business and your life on the Daily.
Hello and welcome to episode 496 of the My Daily Business Podcast. Today, it's a coaching episode, and honestly, you will want to write this down.
If you are listening to this while you're driving, at the gym, or on a walk, then make sure you mark this episode. Hit subscribe if you don't already, but somehow save it because you're going to want to come back to what I'm about to say. If you are in a position to take notes, then do so. You can also find the text format of this podcast at mydailybusiness.com/podcast496.
Alright, before I jump in, I want to let you know that our Marketing for Your Small Business course and coaching programme will be coming soon. We only offer this twice a year. It’s a way for you to fully understand all the areas of marketing—not just social media.
I know everyone gets so hung up on social media, but there are other places to market. I'm smiling because sometimes I’ll talk to people and say, "How's your email list going?" Or I'll ask, "What else are you doing? Do you do in-person things?"
The answer is often, "Never."
I’ll ask, "Do you do cold outreach?" No. "Do you have a pitch deck?" No. "Do you have this update on your website?" No.
If you are putting everything into your brand just on social media, it is a risk. It is a risk, and you want to be somebody who isn’t playing that risk. You want to have things coming in, knowing that stuff is happening, and knowing that you're growing your brand regardless of what the platforms do.
So if you want to learn all of that, and understand the actual foundations and fundamentals of marketing from somebody who's been doing it for 23 years, then check it out at marketingforyoursmallbusiness.com. You get the course immediately, and we will meet together for live coaching over a course of about nine weeks.
We offer that twice a year. If you already have the course, look out for an email because you can upgrade for a small fee. Again, the website is marketingforyoursmallbusiness.com, or you can head on over to mydailybusiness.com/courses and get it there.
Alright, the last thing is, of course, the most important: acknowledging the traditional owners and custodians of the land on which I run all my courses, meet all these people, and do all this stuff. For me, in North Warrnambool, that’s the Wurundjeri and Gunditjmara people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my respects to their elders past and present and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.
Alright, let's get into today's coaching episode.
I’m going to preface this by saying that these three questions I ask myself—and I get some clients to ask themselves, too—are so powerful. I’ve sent them to friends and I’ve got them on my notes, often sending them to different people that I think need them.
They are incredibly powerful.
So, again, if you're not in a place to write them down, just make sure you save this somehow. I think, now, with Apple Podcasts, you get the full transcript, so maybe just screen grab the questions to come back to them when you need them.
I want to talk about what can help. And it’s these questions that really help when you’re feeling like everything is just too much. When you're really questioning everything, feeling like it's all coming crashing down, not knowing where to turn, and feeling incredibly overwhelmed.
Now, I’m applying these to business, but I think you could apply them to pretty much anything in life—whether that's a relationship, your children, a health journey you're on, friendships, and a whole bunch of other things.
The three questions come from a place of wanting to help you, and when I've used them on myself, they've helped me. So often, we can get into this kind of— to quote Clueless—a shame spiral, where you just start spiralling down, down, down.
Now, what I'm talking about today is not when you’re really seeking mental health help from a professional. If you need that, there is no shame in it. Go and see your GP and get help. I am not a mental health professional, but I’m just sharing what works when things feel like a lot—but not to the extent where you need to see someone.
If you're in that place where maybe you're feeling like it’s the new year—or, well, technically, is it still the new year? We can say that—or maybe you’re listening at some other part of the year, like the end of the year or the new financial year. Whatever period, you might be telling yourself, I should be feeling better about things, or I should be in a better place financially, or I should— all the things.
These three questions are incredibly helpful.
The first is: What’s going really well right now?
I know, as someone who is quite creative and empathetic, I can really feel things. I have a lot of emotions, and I’ve always been like that. I can tap into how others are feeling, and that can be both a good and bad thing. With that, I can sometimes fall on the side of focusing on all the negative things happening, or I can focus on one thing that's negative, as opposed to the 20 other things that are really good.
So, the first question is about reframing things and thinking about what’s really going well right now. It’s so powerful because it actually forces your mind to think about other things, rather than just going into a free fall of thinking, Oh, this is wrong, and this is wrong. And then you look at the state of the world and think, What are we leaving for our kids?
I know I can go down that path and think, Oh my God, what kind of world, what kind of climate, what are we leaving our kids?
So the first question is: What’s going really well right now?
One of the things I've started recently, in addition to having gratitude journals, is keeping a "smile list". I have a wonderfully supportive husband, and we have a lot of deep chats in the evening over cups of tea. But one thing I’ve started doing more often is writing a list I call my smile list. It’s in my notes app, and throughout the day, whenever something makes me smile, I just jot it down.
Some days I end up with 30 or 40 things, and other days I might only end up with five. Some days, let's be real, I’m not smiling as much as others. But it’s helped so much.
Even today, I have something to smile about—a shout-out to Yarrali Couriers. There’s a guy who delivers things to our house occasionally from there. He is the most beautiful, smiley guy.
I mean beautiful in two ways—he’s good-looking, but he also has a wonderful nature. Every time he comes, it’s never too hot, the boxes are never too heavy, and he always says, I hope you have a really good day. You can tell he genuinely means it. He gets out of the van, and he’s just a really nice guy. Every time I see that courier truck pull up, I’m like, Oh, hello!
That was something that made me smile today—just the lovely Yarrali courier guy.
There are lots of things that make you smile, and they could be small things—like someone being kind to you when they serve you at the supermarket. But it’s so important to jot those things down.
It can help force your brain to focus on the positives instead of just focusing on the negatives. In business, we can get so caught up on that one negative comment, that one critical DM, the client who wasn’t happy, or we can fixate on one thing.
But we often completely miss the positive messages that come through, the wins that we’re having, and the progress that we’re making.
So the first question is really about intentionally shifting your focus from what’s not working or the negative thing or the one thing right now that isn’t going well to what is working.
And not just what’s working, but also focusing on how we spend our moments, how we spend our days, is how we spend our lives. If you're getting these little injections of the ability to smile at something throughout the day, that’s going to add up and compound over time.
Why not focus on those things instead of always focusing on the negative?
Now, I'm not saying you don't need to be, like, realistic and look at the stuff that's not working for sure. And part of working with a business coach is that we uncover a lot of the things that aren't working so well. But a large part of that whole, like, oh, feeling like everything's on top of you and there's so much is what are you focusing on?
What is going really well right now? And could you focus a little bit on that or even just remember that those good things are happening as well? So that is the first question. This idea of really asking yourself, what's going really well right now.
Okay, question two. And this is a big one, but you have to ask yourself this, and you have to ask yourself this, I think from time to time. And again, I'm talking about business, but I really think this also relates to health journeys, friendships, relationships, and family stuff. Is this is the question. Are you ready?
Is this still right for me? So this second question really requires, like, a whole bunch of honesty. Is this still right for me? You know, life changes. We change. Maybe you started your business in a completely different season of life. Maybe you started your business before you grew a family.
Maybe you started your business before a massive health challenge came up that you've now been dealing with for years and also trying to run the business. Maybe you started your business when just the economy was in a different place. Maybe you started your business when the market or the industry that you were in seemed so exciting.
And now you're like, you just don't find it exciting whatsoever anymore. And so you want to really, really get honest and ask yourself, is this still right for me? Maybe you are in the sandwich generation. So if anyone has not heard of that, it's the idea of people in like 30s and 40s and 50s where they're dealing with either very young children or teenagers.
And they can be your own kids, or they could be other kids that are just in your orbit. Maybe you're an amazing auntie, but a huge part of your focus is looking after a niece or helping other people that maybe even aren't related to you. But other kids grow up at the moment.
And so they could be very young kids or they could be teenage kids. Either way, they need a lot of your help. And then the sandwich part is that you've got that on one side and on the other ageing parents. And that is really difficult.
I am working with a bunch of people at the moment who have ageing parents or have experienced, you know, the loss of a parent or even, you know, their family members, their siblings being diagnosed with things. And so that is hard. Like, it is more likely that that stuff happens to you the older that you get.
I have lost both of my parents, and I know how difficult and how much time it takes up, and that sounds really awful, but I have no regrets. I spent a lot of time with my family, and I have zero regrets about that. And I'm so glad that I built this business to be able to spend so much time with my ageing parents.
But I really feel for people in that situation of life right now. And then on top of that, you're trying to run a business. And I'm not saying you can't do that. You absolutely can. I have so many clients who are in that sandwich generation and doing very well, successfully.
And I don't know my parents anymore, but I was in that for a while, a long period of running this business. I was in that sandwich generation. And so, you know, and I'm still in it because I've got in-laws and everything else. But like, that is hard. It is a hard thing.
And so you might question that maybe the business, you don't need to give up the business entirely, but maybe there's this area of the business that either needs to be outsourced or reduced for a time period. It's not forever, but just reduced for a time period.
But it could also be that your priorities might have shifted. Maybe you were smack bang on living in a big city and starting this business, and now your priorities are, I want to move to the country, I want to have more land, I want to have more space, I want to have more greenery.
And so I don't know if this business is going to run the same way. Maybe you own an agency, maybe it's something that you do a lot of face-to-face meetings, and you're like, I don't know if the business in the way that it is right now is still right for what I want in my life.
Maybe you've gone through a health scare, maybe you've gone through something else and you're like, actually, I want to live by the ocean, or I want to live in Peru, or I want to move to Mexico, or I want to go and move to Canada and start skiing. Or who knows, maybe your priorities have shifted.
And sometimes you've got to remember this is your life. It's not just your business. Like, you don't just get born and you start a business and that's like the whole purpose of your entire life. This is your life. So, like, what else is happening around it? And is this still right for me?
And maybe part of the reason that you're feeling like, oh, it is all on top of me is that there's just a shift at the moment and you are in that kind of uncomfortable space where you got your feet in both camps and you're sort of like, I want to have, let's say, for example, I want to move to Canada and start skiing and I want to have this life.
And I'm also trying to do this. And it's not again to say you have to give up your business. It is to say that it's just about thinking, okay, well, what could this look like? What could this change or shift? And maybe it's okay for you to think about considering a part-time job first, secure income.
Maybe you are going to pivot your business model. Maybe you are going to make changes that suit your current reality. I know and I've talked about it a lot on this podcast that I set up this business so that I could pick up. I had one son at the time so that I could pick him up from school.
He hadn't started school yet. I was like, I'll give myself a couple of years to get this business up and running and then be in a place where I can definitely do like school pickups and I can be there for my kids. Because that was really important to me. For some people, it's not a judgement whether it's important or not.
It's just this is something that I wanted, and it was something from childhood that I wanted, and so I wanted to make that happen. And so the business model was very much focused on three days a week, school hours. And I have worked like that for almost a decade.
And so now I have two children as of this year in primary school. One is, we're going to go to high school next year. And that is changing this model of business. Because, for example, like, speaking gigs, I used to say no to speaking gigs in certain parts of the country and even in Asia, because I was like, no, there's too much travel and I'm the primary caregiver and how's that going to work?
And, you know, and so now it's like, oh, all these things have kind of opened up because we have a different schedule in my household, which then makes the business change and evolve a little bit. So it's not always like this negative, but it's really taking a moment to go, is this still right for me?
Now in this, I also want to say, whether you're thinking about this in a business sense or a personal, like, relationship or a friendship or whatever, success isn't just about longevity. I think that needs to be, like, screamed from the mountaintops.
Because so often we equate success and the metrics of success with how long you have been in business. Now, I know that I also do that, like, I definitely interview people and I'm like, oh, my gosh, you know, you've kept this going for 20 years or longer, and, you know, it is. It's an incredible thing to be able to keep a business going for that long.
But it's not the only marker of success. And if you are feeling like you are killing yourself to keep this thing afloat, or to not even afloat, maybe your business is doing really well financially and you're just like, I'm just not in. It's like, my heart isn't here.
It's like, cool. Well, maybe sell the business, or look at, you know, succession planning or something else. Because that idea that I should just stick it out because longevity is the key marker of success. And again, this is the same in marriages, in friendships, like, it's okay to walk away. It's okay to change direction.
And so really with this question, is this still right for me? It's about making choices that serve you in your current season. And again, I have to stress, this could be applied to so many parts of life.
And I did a big kind of thinking on this particular question in another part of my life last year. I made some decisions that were hard to make and hard and sad and all these things, but I wanted to make them because they were the choices that serve me in this current season. So that's number two. Is this still right for me?
The third question. And of course, there are so many other questions you can ask yourself, but the third question is, oh, it's a big one. And it can be very confronting. This is really getting clear and honest and asking yourself, am I really putting in the effort?
Like I said, this last question is probably the most confronting because it forces you to really put a mirror up to yourself and be like, okay, how am I actually going here? Whether you're on a health journey, in a relationship, or with something like a friendship, for example, and you're like, "Well, they don't call me, or they don't do this, or I'm always the one that organises," or blah, blah, blah, all the things.
And then you stop and think, well, am I really putting in the effort? Am I reaching out to people? Am I actually getting on the phone as opposed to just sending a reply to an Instagram story, like an emoji, not even like a text reply? You know, am I checking in on them? Am I remembering key dates or their birthdays? Or am I really making some time in my schedule and calendar for that friendship? Or am I just being like, "Oh, everyone should come to me?"
In business as well, it's like thinking, okay, let's say you had to have a performance review with your boss. And let's say your boss is also you, obviously. But let's say I was in a head of marketing job for somebody else, right? And I've worked in head of marketing and executive roles. I would have a performance review quite often, to be honest. But I would have probably two to four performance reviews throughout the year, where it would be like, "Okay, what are we trying to work towards? How much effort have you put in? What concrete steps have you taken? Show me your work, show me the progress, show me the results."
How much real effort have you invested?
Now, sometimes—not all the time—but sometimes in our business, we can get a bit complacent. We can look around and think, "Oh, look at that brand, or look at that collaboration, or look at that thing, or look at how they've done that sale," and you're like, "Oh well." But it's like, have you tried it? Have you actually put yourself out there? Have you got uncomfortable? Have you got vulnerable? Have you done things?
Recently, I have been putting myself out there behind the scenes in a couple of ways. And it's really reminded me. I was talking to one of my friends and I was like, "Oh, I feel like 2017 Fiona is coming back." Because 2017, I just sort of started this business. I started, I think, at the very end of 2015, early 2016, and in 2017, I was still finding my feet. I'd gone from corporate consulting to doing business coaching, and I was not afraid of pitching myself and connecting with people, meeting up for coffee, doing all the things.
And so, a large part—obviously the pandemic, I had parents and other things that I was dealing with, and trying to get pregnant, having a child, all of that. Not to just say, "Oh, these are all justifications," but I can look at definitely some parts of my business and go, "I wasn't really putting the effort in."
And I think this is really important to ask yourself if you are feeling a bit under the pump and you're feeling like, "Oh, it's like, am I putting effort in?" And am I putting the effort into the right things? Or am I getting fixated and working on something that actually is not moving the needle whatsoever?
And so really asking, like, what have you actually done? What are the concrete steps? How much real effort have you invested? And we can also get caught up in comparison when we don't know what that company, what their marketing team, or who that person, what they have actually done all of the effort behind the scenes.
We can ask ourselves, "Oh, nothing's happening, or why isn't this working for me?" And everyone else gets these opportunities. But when we really get honest, maybe we realise we just haven't actually done the work required to create those opportunities. I see it a lot in people where they have a lot of learning and a lot of maybe even going from business coach to business coach to business coach and not implementing what they're learning, not putting the time in to take the action to make the things happen. And I'm putting my hand up, I have also done this.
I have totally, like, learned and gone down YouTube channels and done all this stuff and not implemented it. We are all guilty of this to some degree. But I see it so often where people are like, "I mean, I also see people really put the effort in." And I'm not saying, "Oh, you just put the effort in and everything magically appears." But I do see people sometimes sort of get annoyed when you're like, "Okay, well have you implemented this? Have you implemented that? Have you done this?" And there's sort of an "No, I haven't."
And it's like, okay, well, this is the mirror. This is what you're saying you want, and then this is what you're doing or not doing.
So yeah, and even saying this, I know that people are going to listen to this and feel quite confronted or be like, "Oh my God, is she talking about me?" And I'm not talking about anyone in particular at all, but I'm just saying it's a common theme in business when people are like, "I want this, but I'm not going to take the steps towards getting it."
Even with my health journey, I woke up in 2022 and had a day where I suddenly couldn't walk. And then I couldn't walk for eight weeks after that. And I had not been putting in the effort to look after my health. I had not. I'd been kind of going on these half-assed walks. I had not been doing any kind of stretching. I had not been doing any kind of Pilates or anything to help my core. I was carrying a lot of stress and not necessarily talking about it with people, and I was just saying yes to everything, and probably just not really saying to people, "I need help," or "I need this."
And so that culmination of that back injury, which ended up being three herniated discs, and I went to see all the specialists, and I got told twice, "You will need surgery. There's no way out of this without surgery now." It took so much work, and I'm very glad that we have the health system that we have in this country and also that I had the means to have private health insurance and to go to the physio and all of this stuff.
I mean, health is such a... Oh, I could go on a whole other podcast about the inequities and inequality in health, but I have been on a massive health journey for the last three years of fixing that problem. Having a standing desk, going on a million walks, going to my Pilates once or twice a week, doing my stretches every time I make a cup of tea. These things take work.
And I've had people go, "Oh my goodness, oh, you're looking fit and healthy." And it's like, this has been three years, man. This has not just happened overnight, and this will be the rest of my life. Because every single specialist that I saw said, "Once you've triggered the herniated discs, it's only a matter of time. Like, if you don't look after them and manage them, it will come back."
And that pain was excruciating. I never, ever want to be in that situation. It was also not just the pain, it was the lack of freedom. I couldn't drive, I couldn't walk, couldn't get out of bed sometimes. I was like, "How am I going to have another toilet?" Like, it was just horrendous.
And my heart goes out to anybody who is dealing with chronic health problems and chronic health pain, because I had no idea. I had no idea until that happened how absolutely debilitating, how hard it is on your mental health. But my... I'm very lucky that I was able to work through that. But that has also been a whole bunch of effort that has gone into that.
And so that is the thing I'm talking about. Getting really honest. Am I putting the effort in? Am I just half-assing things and then expecting them to have this fantastic result or outcome?
So I guess to recap those three questions:
The first being, "What's going really well right now?" And my like, smile list.
The second, "Is this still right for me?"
And the third, "Am I really putting in the effort?"
It is hugely important to ask yourself these questions because they can really help you get clarity when everything feels overwhelming.
You know, remember, acknowledge what's going well, check if your path still aligns with your current life and be really honest about your effort level. And sometimes the answers, they might surprise you and that's okay. That is where I honestly believe that growth happens.
So that is it for today's coaching episode. Really asking yourself when things get really tough, what are these three questions that I can work through? These kind of powerful self-reflection questions. And how can I be really honest with myself and what will I then do with those answers?
Because it's one thing to kind of ruminate and journal and do whatever, but then what's the implementation after that?
So that is it for today. If you want to go through this in text format, you can find the, you know, transcript of this over at mysdailybusiness.com podcast 496, and we will link to anything that I've mentioned in there.
And yeah, I just want to say thank you for listening to this podcast. Because as I'm saying all of this, I'm like, it is so wonderful to have a community around me that listens to this, that takes the time to leave a review or send a message. Or I know when I put out the stuff about my health years ago and like, I wrote a Sunday email about it, the amount of support that came back and also the amount of people that are also dealing with this.
So, yeah, I just hope that today's episode is helpful for you. And like I said at the start, I'm not a mental health expert. So if you need help, please, please take the step. Call somebody, contact your GP, look for a path forward. Because there are paths forward. There are always paths forward.
We will link to some mental health places on the podcast show notes as well.
Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to the My Daily Business Podcast for a range of tools to help you grow and start your business, including coaching programmes, courses and templates. Check out our shop at mydailybusiness.com and if you want to get in touch, you can do that by email at hello@mydailybusiness.com or you can hit us up on Instagram at mydailybusiness_. You can find us on TikTok at mydailybusiness or find me Fiona Killackey on LinkedIn. I look forward to connecting.
