Latest / Online Business Uncovered: Simple Strategies for Female Entrepreneurs / 29: Are you sabotaging your own success?

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29: Are you sabotaging your own success? · Online Business Uncovered: Simple Strategies for Female Entrepreneurs

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to the Digitally She Does It Show.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is episode 29, and in today's episode, I'm going to be talking about self-sabotaging behaviours and how to push past the fear that is stopping you from progressing in your business.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: So let's jump right in and get started.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Join me each week for a dose of motivation and marketing know-how, along with actionable step-by-step strategies to help you accelerate your business's growth.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: So let's dive in and don't forget to subscribe to all my upcoming episodes, which drop every Wednesday.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining me today.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host Karen and I really appreciate you hitting the play button to listen to today's episode.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now today I'm going to be talking about self-sabotaging behaviours and how to push past the fear that may be stopping you progressing in your business.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: But before I dive into today's episode, I just wanted to start by saying that I cannot believe we are now in the final week of work in December.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: How crazy is that?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea where this year is gone, it's just been a crazy one.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now I don't know about you, but for those of you that do have a family, I do find that having young children means life is a whirlwind.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Over the past few months, we've had play dates, school functions, and lots of sickness to contend with.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't really feel as though my feet has touched the ground.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And even today, as I'm recording this episode, I'm I'm sitting here with a cold, so just excuse my voice because um it's just you know how my life is at the moment.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of sickness in the house.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: We have literally had two solid weeks where my husband was ill, then the girls were poorly, and then we got through that, and then my young youngest came in with COVID.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Luckily, she's fine, and touch you know, and touch wood, we're pretty much all back to full health.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, out my my current cold, so I just think there's a lot of sickness going on going around at the moment, it's that time of year, and the truth is we're probably all ready for a break, so um, it is just what it is.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: But because this time of year is so crazy, I love that things do come to a halt over Christmas.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: I love that feeling on Christmas Eve when all the shops are closed, all the presents are bought, like you cannot do anything else.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: All you need to do is literally get ready for Christmas Day, but other than that, it's time to sit back, open the wine, and just enjoy the fact that you're now not at work and that you can focus on family time.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: I just love that feeling, and I love the fact of Christmas is that pretty much everybody slows down as well, so it's not like in the summer when you go away and then you come back to loads of emails.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Christmas it just goes silent, and it probably is what the only time of year where that really happens, so it definitely is a time to just kick back, you know, and it and just enjoy having time off.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think taking that time of Christmas is really important because I think we all need to have time where we become unplugged.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: We live in this world where we're dictated to by our devices, you know.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: If our phones aren't talking to us, then our Macs are talking to us, or our computers, or we're always being alerted of something somewhere that we're in this constant state of doing.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the lovely thing about Christmas is that you can turn it all off and just focus on what's important, and that's spending time with family.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Let's face it, business can be all-consuming, and it can be really challenging to get that balance, and so what's really nice is just you know, not having to make any excuses, not having to answer people's questions or be available to anybody, you can just take that time off.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: You can have some proper downtime where you can switch off and rest.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one of the things that I do love about this time of year is that we do get to sit back and reflect because I don't think we do it enough, I don't think we reflect enough about what goes on throughout the year because we're in this constant state of doing, it becomes our default, doesn't it?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's we're always thinking about the next thing that we need to do on our to-do lists, and we're not really taking that time to sit back and think about our successes or accomplishments or or even our failures.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: We just straight onto the next thing, keeping all of those plates spinning all of the time.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: I love New Year because we get to reflect and we get to plan and spend that time in that space of what we want to happen based off what maybe it may have have happened, but we get to really um spend that time thinking and planning and focusing on what is to come.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I know January can often feel quite dull and unexciting.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: My husband hates January.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Every year he moans about January.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: The weather here in the UK is so cold and gloomy, the the nights are so long, and and then we're dealing with the anti-climax of Christmas.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing: I love January because I feel it's a time of new beginnings, it's a time to plan goals and to create new intentions.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: I always feel like January is this blank page, and then we have the year ahead to write on it, and it's down to us to determine what we're then going to create.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: The future is unwritten, and we get to make of it what we will, and I think there's true power in that, and so every year in January, I get this sense of excitement about what is to come in the year ahead.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a time to shift mindset.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: We have to stay positive despite all of the craziness that's going on in the economy and around us.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: We have to keep positive and focus on ways to create true and long-lasting abundance in our businesses.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, let's talk about that.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about how we can create long-lasting abundance in our businesses during the next year and beyond.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, firstly, I think it's important to understand what success means to you because success can mean different things to different people.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: For some, success might come in the form of monetary rewards, but for others, it may be just creating more time in their business so that they can spend time with their families with their with watching their children grow up.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it might be the fact that they get to work three days instead of five days because maybe they want to spend two days with their children.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: So success is different to different people, it isn't an arbitrary thing that is limited in its meaning, it's purely subjective, and so you need to understand what your definition of success is so that you will know once you've achieved it.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, your idea of success should align with the vision that you have for your business because your vision and your purpose are the core pillars that underpin your intentions in your business, and I think once you have that down and you understand what that looks like, you will then know what you're looking to achieve.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, it's a it's about creating a plan of action that will enable you to get really clear on what you need to do to bring this all to life.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I know on paper this may sound really easy, but speaking from experience, I know firsthand that it's not, it's not as easy as just creating a vision, setting some goals, and off you go.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's a lot more that tends to go into it, but it is a starting block.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: I know it takes time to get really clear on what you're doing, to figure out what it is you're creating, why you're doing it, and what you need to do to make what you want happen, and then it takes even more time to get the results that you actually want.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I think with anything, it's important to give yourself grace and time to figure it all out because being in business is not easy, and success doesn't just happen overnight, despite what you're what people are constantly saying.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: I see things all the time that kind of try and give this impression that if you follow this particular roadmap and you do this, that, and the other, then success is yours.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: I actually think that long-lasting success is a compound effect that builds over time.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: It comes from knowing your vision, understanding your purpose, and then taking small consistent steps towards achieving your goal.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why I love January because it's the perfect time to determine what those goals are, and then to reset and realign ourselves to what's important so that we can move towards achieving them.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Having said that, as I said, achieving goals isn't always easy, and sometimes it can prove impossible, especially if your thoughts and your behaviors are getting in the way.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, last week I was chatting to one of my close business friends who is currently evolving her business, she's in the process of creating a brand new program for her business so that she can start to move away from just offering a service-based model.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, she's been talking about doing this for a few years now and has recently taken those steps to start creating a program, which is all really exciting.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: However, one of the noticeable things that I see her doing before she's even put this amazing program out into the world is that she's starting to sabotage her own success.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: She's starting to tell herself that nobody's going to buy her program and that it's most likely not going to be good enough to command the fee that she actually wants to sell it for.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is something that is so common.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: I see this all the time with course creators.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Before they've even put pen to paper to create the thing that they have a desire to create, they're already telling themselves that they're going to struggle to get those sales and therefore achieve their overall goals.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this often plays out in the form of them telling themselves that they're even not good enough, or what they have to offer is not good enough, or they're just simply really bad at selling.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: All of which is completely untrue.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is that this kind of thinking dictates their behaviour, which becomes how they see the world, making it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing is that plenty of entrepreneurs have gone on to create successful and profitable businesses selling their courses.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: There are people out there who are smashing their goals every single day and proving that it is possible to have what you want.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: So the idea of not being able to have it comes from this inner belief that is often carried around but actually carries very little weight.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is that this belief is so powerful that it stops the person from achieving their goals.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Self-sabotaging behaviour is so common and it's an insidious pattern that is constantly repeated.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: The belief itself may have absolutely no merit, but it's something that is trapped in the person's thinking, which makes it harder for them to get to where they need to be because this belief is constantly getting in their way.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now it can be related to self-esteem issues, that feeling of not being good enough or worthy enough, and negative talk can really affect your self-esteem, and so it's really important to be careful about the thoughts that you're thinking and how you're talking to yourself.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what's interesting with my friend is that she didn't even realise she was doing it until I mentioned it.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: My friend is so brilliant at what she does, she provides a tremendous amount of value and support to her clients.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: I know this first hand because we've worked together on many projects over the years.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is that she doesn't always see this for herself.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now I think as entrepreneurs, self-doubt can often creep through and get in the way.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Much of what we do is based on our instincts and our guts guiding us.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: But the problem is because we often work on our own, those fears can stop us in our tracks, especially if we're pivoting or we're shifting direction in our business.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's that fear of trying something new or doing something different that we're not used to.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it's important to recognize the things that you're telling yourself and to stop negative talk that's going to hinder your actions.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now I've got another friend who acknowledges that she has a fear of success in her business because she fears that any success that she achieves will affect her family dynamics and change what she currently has because she loves her life and she is very comfortable and she doesn't want it to change.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: She fears the power of money and what it can do, and so what she does is then repels it through her actions, even though her business was created to support her family, and her intentions is to make money.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now, change can be really scary, and as such, can lead to self-sabotage of behaviors that prevent change from happening, and so it becomes this vicious cycle.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: We create a business to make change and then we prevent success from happening because of that fear of change.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Especially if you are someone who fears failure, then you're most likely going to end up avoiding any situation that could lead to the slightest possibility of failure.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: However, the problem with this is that this kind of behavior prevents growth, and if there's one thing that is needed in business, it's growth.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, what can we do to stop sabotaging success in our businesses so that we can go on to achieve our goals?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think as entrepreneurs, it's only natural to have that fear, especially when shifting or pivoting in business, because as I said, change can be super scary.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: But if you want to create long-lasting and true abundance in your business, then it has to start with you being aware of your thoughts.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: You must check in with yourself and make sure that you're not letting that fear dictate your reality, and if you are, then you need to take action to push past it.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now I work with so many clients who are shifting direction in their business, and I know it can be really tempting to stay in the lane you're in because that's where it's comfortable.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing growth does not happen from a place of comfort, it comes from being stretched, and when we're being stretched, that's when the fears and the self-sabotaging behavior starts to take place.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we must recognize our behavior and how we are talking to ourselves.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you are finding that you are not achieving your goals, but you don't know why, then the first then you must pay attention to your thoughts.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Do you believe you can achieve your goals or are you simply going through the motions?
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are trying to sell your online course but it's just not working for you, are you thinking in the right way?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Are you creating the right thoughts around you selling your course, or are you sabotaging your success by thinking that nobody's going to buy your course?
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really important to just check in and see what thoughts you're thinking so you can start to shift them.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Your thoughts are so incredibly powerful because it's your thoughts that create your reality.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you are constantly telling yourself that you cannot do something, then that's what your outcome's going to be.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it's important that you reframe how you see your goals.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps your goals need to be broken down into smaller goals that feel more achievable.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you are constantly thinking negative thoughts, then ask yourself, why do you feel like this and where does this stem from?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now it may be from a past experience, or perhaps it's a belief that someone else has passed on to you.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Without realizing it, we can often carry around beliefs from our parents, things that we've grown up with over the years.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: So ask yourself what do you need to do to make your goals happen, and then more importantly, who do you need to be to make those goals happen?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we need to step into a bolder, more confident version of ourselves to make things happen, even if we don't feel it.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: That saying of faking it until you make it does bear some truth.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: The thing is, the more we do something, the better we get, and the more confident we become, and so sometimes it's just about starting that can be the difference between success and failure.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: When launching an online course for the first time, or when launching anything for the first time, it can be super scary, but the more you do it, the easier it gets because you learn things along the way that helps you to do better the next time round.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one of the wonderful things about where we are right now is that we have a whole year ahead of us to be the person that we need to be to achieve our goals.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: We are the master of our own destiny, and as an eternal optimist, I do subscribe to the belief that we can have what we want to have, but we just need to get really clear on what that looks like so that we can work out how we can make it happen.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: But in order to achieve this, we have to kick negative thoughts to the curb because no good comes from them, they just get in the way and they stop progress.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: We need to stop thinking negatively and focusing on the things we can't control and put our energy into the areas that we can control and then just ignore everything else.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are someone who dwells on the negative, then focus your energy on celebrating your achievements or accomplishments instead of spending time dwelling on perhaps what wasn't accomplished or what perhaps didn't work.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's important to actively work on changing your behaviour so that you're not sabotaging your own success and getting in your own way.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think this has to start by acknowledging your thoughts and your behaviour and then taking responsibility for your actions.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the truth is that we're all 100% responsible for the reality that we're creating in our business.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's not down to anyone else.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you are wanting to increase your revenue next year, or perhaps you're looking to achieve more success in your business, setting goals is just the beginning.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's about taking the action that matters, and you can only take action if your head is in the right place.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are looking to step things up in your business next year, then first get clear on what your goals are, and then write a letter to your future self.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Putting pen to paper can be incredibly powerful, and it will help you to get clear on who you need to become to make these goals happen.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, write out your goals as though you've already achieved them.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Identify who you need to be to make them happen, and then write a letter to that person.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that we all have it within us to achieve the success we desire.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: We just need to be super intentional, not only with our actions, but with our thoughts as well, so that we stop letting fear dictate our reality.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to today's episode.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you found this episode of value, and of course, please feel free to share it with others who you may think will also benefit from listening to today's episode.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you are feeling inspired and would like to know more about getting started with creating an online digital course, then why not download my free ebook, 10 Steps to Digital Course Success, by visiting my website www.caren davis.com.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: I will be back in January with a brand new episode, but until then, I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Digitally She Does It Show.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Don't forget to check out the show notes for all the links and resources mentioned in today's episode.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: New episodes drop every week on a Wednesday.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: So why not rate and subscribe so you never miss an episode?
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for tuning in today, and I will see you next time.