You are staring at your to-do list. Feeling completely overwhelmed. You know you need to start working, but you just can't. So you scroll on social media. Instead, you reorganize your desk, you check your email for the 15th time. Anything but the actual work, you are not lazy. You are just stuck in overwhelmed paralysis. And I'm about to show you how to snap out of it in five minutes. Hi, I'm Cindy Gordon, a self-made entrepreneur, busy mom and execution coach. I've built and sold multiple digital businesses, and I'm the founder of the Growth Collective, a dollar a day support system where entrepreneurs get weekly office hours, actionable courses, and community that understands the overwhelm struggle. Here's what I know. When you can't figure out how to get motivated, when you're overwhelmed, it's not a you problem, it's a method problem. Before we dive in, if you're not getting my weekly productivity tips yet, grab them using the link in the show notes. They are the behind the scenes systems I use to stay productive while running my business. Today I'm sharing the mindset shift that helped me break through overwhelm, paralysis, and actually take. Action. The five minute action rule changed how I approach my hardest days. If you want more information like this, plus my weekly tips that over 1400 entrepreneurs use to stay motivated and on track. Seriously get on my email list link in the show notes. I only send these specific tips to my email subscribers. They are not available anywhere else. The women that I work with consistently struggle with this exact pattern. Your to-do list is a mile long. Everything feels urgent. You sit down to work and then you're suddenly frozen, completely unable to decide what to do first, let alone actually do it. So you tell yourself, okay, I'll start after I have my coffee. Or after you check your email or after you feel a little bit more motivated, but that motivation, it never comes. Instead, you end up scrolling, procrastinating, literally doing anything except the work that matters. And then you beat yourself up for wasting time, which makes starting even harder tomorrow. You're not unmotivated, you're overwhelmed. When everything on your list feels too big, your brain completely shuts down. So you are stuck in overwhelmed paralysis where you have so much to do that you literally cannot do anything at all. Understanding why changes everything here. So when you're trying to figure out how to get motivated, when overwhelmed, most people think they just need more discipline or better time management, but that's not it. Your brain avoids tasks that require too much activation energy. When you look at a massive project or an overwhelming inbox, your mind instantly calculates how much effort it will take. When that number feels too high, your brain says nope, and steers you toward easier, less threatening activities like scrolling social media. This is why procrastination isn't actually about laziness or lack of discipline. It's your brain trying to protect you from the discomfort of overwhelm. The task feels too big, so avoidance feels a little bit safer. The key insight here that most people miss is that you don't need motivation to start. You need to start to get the motivation. Action creates momentum. Momentum generates the motivation that you've been waiting for. The five minute rule works because it lowers that activation energy barrier so far that your brain stops resisting. So how do you actually overcome procrastination when you're stuck in overwhelm? Let me walk you through that five minute action rule, it's pretty simple. Here's what I want you to try. Commit to working for only five minutes. Literally just five minutes, so you're not committing to finishing the project, not even making significant progress. Just five minutes. Pick one task from your overwhelming list. Set a timer. Work for exactly five minutes. That's it. The game changer here is that after those five minutes, you have a complete permission slip to stop. No guilt. No, but I should keep going. No. Forcing yourself to push through. If you wanna stop after five minutes, you can walk away. Feeling good about taking action. If you wanna walk away after five minutes, you can walk away feeling good that you took some action. But here's what generally happens, and this is why this rule is so powerful. You actually keep going because starting that was the hard part. Once you're in motion, staying in motion feels easier than stopping. The hardest part isn't actually doing the work. It's starting the work. The five minute action Rule removes the pressure of commitment and tricks your brain past that activation barrier. So here's how I want you to put this into practice today. When the resistance shows up, remind yourself you only have to work for five minutes, not finish it, not perfect it. To build this routine, use this five minute rule at the hardest time of the day. For most entrepreneurs, that's first thing in the morning when the to-do list feels absolutely impossible. Or mid-afternoon when your energy crashes, pick your paralysis time and have this rule ready. The most common obstacle I hear is, but what if five minutes isn't long enough? What if I stop and never come back? So here's the reality check on that. Five minutes of progress beats zero minutes of paralysis every single time, and usually those five minutes turn into 15 and then 30, and then you look up at the clock and you've been working for an hour. This is especially powerful if you have a DHD or struggle with execution function. The five minute action rule works with your brain instead of against it. It removes the overwhelm of I have to finish this whole thing and replaces it with, I just have to start for five minute. Inside the Growth Collective. We talk about strategies like this every week during office hours because this is such a universal struggle. Having other entrepreneurs who understand that motivation doesn't come before action. It comes after, makes sticking to it so much easier. Let me give you some real life examples of what the five minute rule looks like in practice. So you are overwhelmed by your inbox. You can't face opening it, but you commit to five minutes of responding to emails, just five. So you're stuck on content creation. The blank page feels paralyzing. I know you know that feeling. Set a timer for five minutes. Just draft ideas. Terrible ideas are fine. You are just starting when you're avoiding client work because the project feels too big. Commit to five minutes of simply opening the file and reviewing what needs to happen next. When the admin tasks are piling up and you can't decide where to start, pick the smallest one first and you guessed it, work on it for five minutes. That's all I'm asking you to do is commit to five minutes. I rely on the system consistently in my own business. On days when I'm feeling overwhelmed and can't get myself to start, I tell myself just five minutes. Interacting on LinkedIn. That happened this morning. I was stuck in paralysis. I was overwhelmed, but I told myself five minutes and I did it nine times out of 10. I keep working well past those five minutes because starting was the barrier and not the work itself, and that was true this morning during my LinkedIn paralysis. When everything feels overwhelming and you can't find motivation, that's your sign to make starting smaller, not to wait for motivation to just magically appear. You don't need motivation to start. You need to start to get the motivation and the five minute rule breaks the procrastination cycle by removing the pressure, lowering the barrier, and creating momentum that carries you forward. So your challenge right now, not later today, not tomorrow, but right now, is to pause this episode and pick one task from your overwhelming list. Set a timer for five minutes and just start. After that five minutes, you can stop guilt free, but I'm betting you won't want to. This activation strategy is part of my reality check method that I teach through exclusively cindy.com and inside the Growth Collective. If you are an Instagram, I would love to connect with you. I want you to remember that when everything on your list feels urgent and you're frozen and overwhelm, simply reality check. One thing that you can start for just five minutes starting is the success. The rest is momentum. And remember, you've got this,

Thanks for spending these few minutes with me today. Remember, overwhelm isn't permanent. It's simply your brain's way of saying pause and take a little reality check. If this was helpful, you'll love my weekly email tips where I share the systems that keep me and hundreds of other entrepreneurs on Track Link in the show notes. If you got value in today's episode, please share it with another entrepreneur who needs that reminder. If you're loving the show, I'd be so grateful if you could leave me a quick review. It helps other overwhelmed entrepreneurs find us. Make sure you hit subscribe so you never miss your weekly dose of clarity. For more resources and to connect with me, visit exclusively cindy.com. Until next time, remember you've got this.