Podcast Ep 326 - How to Eliminate Overthinking and Focus on What Matters

In this episode of the Flourish Academy Podcast, Heather Lahtinen tackles the mental clutter that can make running a photography business feel overwhelming. Heather shares a personal story about managing travel anxiety and how she learned to cut through the chaos of overthinking. She explains that instead of striving for perfection, focusing on a straightforward approach can make your business more manageable.

Join Heather as she offers practical advice on overcoming mind drama, simplifying your business approach, and staying true to what really matters.



Show Notes:

• Simplifying your business approach by eliminating mind drama.
• Heather shares her recent experience with travel anxiety and how she overcame it with a simpler mindset.
• How overthinking can complicate running a photography business.
• Three-step process for making business growth easier.
• How to shift your mindset from stress and anxiety to clarity and simplicity.



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TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to the Flourish Academy podcast, and today we're talking about creating a simple business approach by eliminating the mind drama. My name is Heather Lahtinen.

I'm a photographer, educator, and entrepreneur, and I founded the Flourish Academy as a resource for photographers of all levels. We want to help you pursue your passion on your own terms because we believe there is room for everyone.

In this podcast, we focus on creating breakthroughs with your mindset to discover the things that are really holding you back in business and life. Is it possible that you are making things more difficult than they actually are?

Yes, of course it is. But what if everything were easier than you think? I actually have this written down somewhere. I was really into this recently where I would just tell myself,

Heather, everything is easier than you think. It is always easier than you first thought. But when we think about growing our photography businesses or maybe you're just even starting out,

we tend to compound the complexity of creating that business by thinking thoughts that don't serve us. For example, you might think,

well, how am I going to find clients? What if people aren't willing to pay? Am I actually good enough? I don't know how to start a business. What if I die? Where do I find them?

What if they don't like my pricing? Am I actually good enough for this pricing? And then you just continue to spin and spin and spin. Well, I have a solution for all of this chatter and I'm going to share an example,

but really it comes down to this. None of that matters. You're just going to meet people, tell them you are a photographer, and then make them an offer. It is really that straightforward.

Everything else is just a bunch of thoughts in the form of mind drama that makes you crazy. You are making yourself crazy. Ask me how I know this because I do it all the time.

Okay, so I want to share this personal example because I think it will be helpful. It's always helpful to see it from a different perspective from someone else. I have pretty serious travel anxiety.

And I never used to. This is brand new, like as in this year, this is new. And it's because of these, you know, occasional neurological issues or challenges that I have.

I've had a few seizures this year. Okay, whatever. But I tend to have anxious thoughts anyway. Like, I tend to worry. But as of this recording, we just returned home from a trip to Alaska.

 They weren't going to get any presents, but they were going to get this experience. Now, it should also be noted that at the time we told them this, we did not have any extra money. In fact, at that time,

things were pretty tight. I had no idea, zero clue how we were going to pay for this. I just knew it was important to me to provide them this experience. So I was going to plan and save and do whatever it took.

In 2018, Ella picked Italy and now Evan selected Alaska. Okay. But the anxiety starts again because of the health issues, but the Pittsburgh International Airport is under construction,

I guess like many other airports. And within the last few months, the airlines have significantly increased the number of flights departing between 6 and 8 a .m.

groups dedicated to this issue at the Pittsburgh airport. And then the airport authorities telling everyone to arrive three hours prior to their flight if they are departing between 6 and 8 a .m.

Okay, our flight was at 7 a .m. But the ticket counters, bag check, doesn't open until 4 a .m. So as a result, these crazy lines are forming outside and inside the term 3 a .m.

It's just insane. it actually spills over then to the security line because there's just all of these people. So we have TSA pre -check, but we did have bags that we needed to check.

I was so stressed out about this problem at the airport. Like, what if we miss our flight to Seattle? Because then we would miss our connection to Anchorage.

What if this happened? Like, I started spiraling. So I had been working with my coach on this for several weeks. Like, it took some time to integrate it into my brain.

But I said to her, well, like, what if we miss our flight? Then what? And she's like, well, you just rebook. And I'm like, yeah, but it's much harder to rebook four seats than just one.

And if we miss that flight, we can't get to Anchorage. Like, what if we had to stay in Seattle. And she was like, oh, well, then you get a hotel room. And I was like, yeah, but how? How are we going to do that when we're just landing?

And I'm going to be super tired and so stress. And I happen to know that these two things are major triggers for my seizures. And two of my seizures happened while traveling.

So obviously, that's the reason. Travel's a problem. And what if I have a seizure at the airport or on the plane. And she said, well, if you have a seizure, you know how to handle it. And I said,

yes, but it's terribly inconvenient and it's scary for my family. I told her, I will just be so relieved. Once we make it to Anchorage, I will be able to breathe and I will relax and I'll be so much better and happier.

And she said to me, Did you know that you don't have to wait to feel better, that you can actually choose to feel happy now? Which sounded like a completely foreign idea or topic to me.

Like that was just not even in the realm of possibility for my brain. And then she said, Heather, you are playing out all of the scenarios that you don't want,

that you are stressed out about when the reality is you're going to go to the airport, get on a plane, and close your eyes. This does not have to be a problem.

This does not have to be stressful. This could even be fun, and it will be fun, because adventure is fun. And you know, I hesitated for a minute.

I was like, okay, and you're crazy. I mean, I was starting to come around to her perspective, but I still wanted to fight for my stressful sob story.

I wanted to hang on to my limitations. So I said, yeah, but we have to get up at 3 a .m. And that's insane because it's basically in the middle of the night. I'm going to be so tired that just wrecks me.

I can't function with little sleep that time of a night, just go on and on. And she said, 3 a .m. can be disorienting. And that's fine. You can recognize that.

But it does not have to be a big deal. It's okay to be tired. It's okay to be uncomfortable. You can still do it. And then she said,

this was really key for me. She said, you don't have to hurry up to get somewhere to feel better. You can choose to feel better now. You can choose to believe that you are setting yourself up for success,

and then you go to the airport, you get on a plane, and you close your eyes. And she just filtered out all of the mind drama and got right to the point.

And then I was smiling because, again, I was starting to maybe believe this. And I said, yeah, and you know what else? Chick -fil -A at the airport opens at 4 a .m. which means I can get a breakfast sandwich.

I love their breakfast sandwiches. I never get one because I'm never out and about in the morning. So really, I can go to the airport,

get on a plane, eat a delicious sandwich, and close my eyes. And that's all I have to do. And it was absolutely unbelievable to me how well this worked for me when it came time to wake up at 3 a .m.

I woke up. I actually felt better than I imagined and it was because I kept telling myself, go to the airport, get on a plane, close your eyes. Go to the airport,

get on a plane, eat your sandwich, close your eyes. I just kept repeating that and it worked. Everything was fine. bags were checked. Security line was long,

but we got through with plenty of time. We got on a plane. I ate my sandwich. Close my eyes. We got to Seattle in plenty of time, made our connection to Anchorage,

and everything went perfectly. So why did I want to have all of that suffering and anxiety and feel all of that stress head of time when it didn't even happen that way.

It wasn't even necessary. I want you to take this back to your business. So let's look at this business scenario. This is the one where you're ruminating and saying things like,

how can I find clients? What if people aren't willing to pay? Am I actually good enough? I don't know what I'm doing. I'm probably going to die. What if someone makes fun of me? Who do I think I am? All of those things.

mind drama, just thoughts, and they're unnecessary. What if you stopped spinning on all of those details that do nothing but stress you out and just remembered our three -step simple process that we teach inside of Elevate,

which is to number one, meet people, number two, tell them you are a photographer, and number three, make an offer, period. It is so simple.

Everything else is just a distraction that takes your eyes off of the prize. If you love photography and you want to create a business,

you want to make money with photography and have fun. All you need to do is keep reminding yourself repeatedly as often as possible. All I have to do is meet people, tell them I'm a photographer and make an offer.