 One of the things about working for ourselves is that there are so many options for what we can do in any given day. There are so many strategies that we could try. There's so many directions we can go. There's so many products we can create. And so a common experience among my clients and maybe you as well is the feeling of overwhelm. Overwhelmed even, you know, taking my classes, for example, oh my God, there's so much to learn, right? So here is a simple tool that I want to share with you that I hope will help you with overcoming overwhelm. And that simple tool is to apply a temporary constraint. So here's how that works. So let's say I'm going to use some simple examples. Let's say that I have a lot to do on my to-do list and I look at this long to-do list and it creates overwhelm naturally. So instead of just looking at this giant to-do list, apply a temporary constraint to say, if I could only do three things today from this long list, just three things. What must those three things be? Okay. So that that's the formula. If I could only blank, what must those blank be? If I could only do three things, what must those three things be? If I'm looking at this long list, okay, if I had to pick three, if I only could do three, then it would have to be this, it would have to be this, and it would have to be this. Knowing that everything else can be done in the future, that's also very helpful. It's a temporary constraint that you are applying to help you focus. It's kind of like, you know, if you are overwhelmed with a site, if you're trying to find something, it's helpful to go like this, you know, to look specifically at specific places. Okay, is this there? Is this there? Is this there? So it's a temporary constraint because you can always remove it and go, okay, now that I've done the three, what else can I do? And you can keep applying the temporary constraint to help you focus, to help you have calm, calm, and empowered way to approach your day. Now, another way of approaching it, so let's say I am going to be teaching a course. And the course, well, let me, let me flip it around to say if you're taking one of my course, if you're taking any course online, okay, and you go, my God, there's so much to learn in this course. How do you apply a temporary constraint? You say, if I could only take three ideas away from this course that I would apply, what would those three ideas be? Anyway, you're looking for those three ideas as you go through the course. Ah, there's my first idea that I'm most excited to apply. Okay, let's hope for the second idea. Ah, there's a second idea. Oh, there's a third idea. And the course will always be there for you. If you wanted to do this again after you applied those three ideas, you can go back to the course and say, okay, I want to apply three more ideas from the course. What would those three ideas be? So this is a, this is a, this is a tool that I use all the time. I just, it's become so natural for me that I forget to talk about it, which is why I wanted to make a video about this because it's just very natural for me to apply temporary constraints all day long. I do this, you know, so for example, it's like, okay, I've got a lot to do right now. Okay, what's one thing I can work on for 25 minutes. That's it. That's a temporary constraint 25 minutes. One thing. Okay, what must that one thing be. Okay, just that one thing. Okay, as I'm working on that one thing. If I feel overwhelmed with that one big task, apply a temporary constraint to say, okay, out of this one task. If I could accomplish three small things from this one task three little steps. What would those three little steps be. And then I use that. So you could literally use this for anything you could use this for what you're going to do this hour, or you could use this for your life purpose. Okay, you could say this, the way I applied it to my life purpose was, if I could, if I only had one year left to live, how would I want to work? What would I want to work on? And that really helped me sharpen my focus to say, okay, if I only have one year left. I would want to work on this. I want to work on that whatever maybe and that kind of helped me a lot, or let's keep going on this big picture life purpose thing. If I needed a big question or calling, then I might say, if I, if I could only pick one thing that my life purpose might be about what might that one thing be. It's a temporary constraint so I'm just going to play with that right now. It's a game. If I could only pick one thing that my life purpose could be about what that what might that one thing be. So from the answer to these questions, I might come up with more than one. And that's okay. Oh, my life would be about love, bring love to, to, to business. But now, but what about this I could do. So it's okay to have more than you know you start writing more than one, but whenever you're overwhelmed again, just focus on the one or the three, and just work on that. Another example would be if, if I'm facing a difficult situation. I could say, if I could bring and if I facing a difficult situation there's so many strengths that I could bring to the situation. What, what's one strength. If I, what would wisdom do, what might wisdom do in this situation. So I pick one virtue wisdom, or pick one, another virtue courage or what just pick one and ask myself what would wisdom do in this situation. And I write that down, what might wisdom do. And the next one, what might courage do in this situation right there. So you can apply these temporary constraints to just about anything big or small. So I really encourage you to give this a try and let me know how it goes. So what might you be overwhelmed with today are you feeling any overwhelm right now in your life. Okay, what, what is it about. All right. How would you apply a temporary constraint to that. So give it a try. Let me know in the comments below I'd love to know how it helps you. Or if you have any questions, or you could even write it out. Okay, this is one thing I'm overwhelmed about. And let's try it out. Let's apply a temporary constraint. All right. So with that, I'm going to allow you to comment. And while you're commenting, I'm going to take a look at my Facebook live comments to see if there are any comments right now from any live people. And let's take a look here. I do. I have, I have comments here from, or I want to thank captain for joining me. I, Lisa, Shweta, Michelle, and Michelle says, yeah, I like the way I like that way of looking at it. It was just unconsciously doing that for the rest of the day now that I went a little off track. Yeah, so yes, so give it a try. You know, you apply she's going to apply to her business right now so she doesn't feel wrong. That's wonderful. It's lovely, lovely. And so captain says, for the long list you mentioned how do you pick the top three is it random or does it have to be based on their value. Oh, that's fantastic right so I imagine for the person who was overwhelmed. That's a good question actually. So the person who's overwhelmed. And when I'm overwhelmed. Okay, and I look at it to like a long to do list. If, if I didn't schedule to do any one thing and if I have an hour to just knock out my to do list like one hour miscellaneous to do is what I tend to do is I tend to do the quickest things first. Because it's like okay what's what's the quickest thing on here what's the one quick is okay that one yeah yeah quick okay I can do that real quick. Alright, check it out. And then once I do the quickest things, I start getting momentum and then I start doing the the concern I have with choosing the quickest and easiest thing is that people might just do that all day long and not get to challenging things. So for me, I have all my challenging things scheduled in my calendar. So I don't escape it. So for me, when I am when I'm faced with a giant long list, it's because I'm at the end of my day already. And I'm just trying to finish my day by knocking out some to do is. So at that stage, it's appropriate for me just to get some momentum and get going because these long lists of two things are, are not really things I scheduled it just it'll be nice to get things done. But if I were at the start of my day. Okay, let's say I was at the beginning of my day and I was planning the day. Right. If I was planning the day it would be a different set of it would be a different question you're right about the value, the value I would ask of this long list would be. Imagine that I finished the today, what would be the three things I'm most proud of to have to have made progress on today. What are the three things I would be most proud of. So that would be a different. Yeah, it would be a different way to evaluate what those three would be so thank you for asking. I thought also thank you. Says shredded wrote it helps to manage this idea helps to manage the ultra doing lifestyle and thinking so yeah totally. So, really, if you if you could start your days saying, what are the three things I would be most proud of to have made progress on today. And you made progress on every single thing you do you put in front of you if it's overwhelming you ask yourself okay of this overwhelming big task. What's three small steps I could make progress on right and that'll get you going and then you have some momentum. So I hope this helps. I look forward to hearing how you apply this and any questions that you have and thank you always for joining me and for watching. I really appreciate it. Have a great day. See you.