Emma: [00:00:00] Have you ever found yourself staring at your screen, your heart sinking because your latest post didn't get the traction or the reactions that you were hoping for? Or maybe it's been a slow quarter and suddenly that tiny voice in your head starts with, Maybe I'm not good enough. Maybe I don't have what it takes.
Sound familiar? Well, you are not alone. Even I have it. And I'll tell you a story in a minute about that. And today we are diving deep into that sneaky little spiral of self-doubt that so many small business owners experience, and more importantly, HOW TO STOP IT IN ITS TRACKS. I wanna tell a little story.
Last week I was at a networking event and me and another woman, both what I would call good at sales, were talking about how we were struggling with sales. And um, we were overheard by someone else and they come up to us and they're like, what are you talking about? I said, oh, we are just struggling a little bit with sales.
And the third woman said to us, oh, right. How many [00:01:00] sales do you typically make? In a week or a month, uh, and I looked at the person that I was originally talking to and I said, oh, I normally make a sale a day. And the lady next to me said, I normally make a sale every about every two days, and the other one went, so why on earth are you struggling with sales?
Great question. Do you know why we were struggling? Why I specifically was struggling. I can't talk for the other person, but why I was struggling was normally I do one hour of business development every single day and every single day we normally make a sale. We have books that we sell, we have, The podcast that is free for people. We've got a ton of free resources, but we've also got business with the Queen tickets, go geter tickets, revenue raiser tickets. We've got something on the go. We are always inviting people in. So if I have one day where I don't make a sale. It's so ridiculous and privileged, but I'm like, ah, this little voice gets in my head.
So I feel it. Now, this is a different level to someone who is nervous about picking up the phone or nervous about sending an email or any of those things, [00:02:00] but let me sell, tell you, NEW LEVEL, NEW DEVIL right? So you have to keep your, your mindset in the game, and I wanted to share that with you because yes, you might not be making sales every day, like Anima McQueen of the world.
But you will have some kind of, uh, trigger that says, I'm not good enough. And that is just my trigger. Now, when I first started, my trigger was I'm not making any sales. I have no clients, no cash, no idea. I'm not making any sales. And so it was a different kind of, message in my head, but the message. I'm not good enough.
You are not good enough is still the same message. Depending on what level you're at, it doesn't really matter. And as entrepreneurs, we pour our hearts into our businesses. So when things don't go to planned clients, back out of an engagement or, engagement's low, or we get some tough feedback, it's easy to slip into a negative thought loop, right?
And one piece of negative feedback. To 20 pieces of positive [00:03:00] feedback, what are we gonna focus on? Oh, the one piece of negative feedback. You can bet your bottom dollar. That one piece of negative feedback. And once we are in that loop, it is so hard, so hard to climb out of it, isn't it? So first, let's just acknowledge something really important.
Negative thoughts aren't all bad. In fact, they kind of serve a purpose They alert us when something needs attention. They help us to improve, and they push us to do better. But there is a fine line between constructive reflection and then getting stuck in that mud of self-doubt. And that's the bit we don't want the mud of self-doubt.
So how do we shift our mindset when we feel ourselves sinking? Well, I've got a few strategies that I have used and that I teach my clients to use as well. The first one is pause and name it. You need to recognize what is happening. Are you catastrophizing? Chances are yes. Are you taking one piece of feedback and turning it into a [00:04:00] full-blown crisis?
Naming the thought helps you separate from it. Sometimes we are just in that self-loathing mode. You know, that one where you beat yourself up constantly for no apparent reason, and I just want to, um, share some of the work of Byron Katie when. We are in this self-reflection mode.
She offers four questions for us. I'm not gonna go into them, but I'm going to give you the four questions so that you can do some homework if you would like. The first question she wants you to ask is, is it true? The second question she asks is, can you absolutely know it to be true? So, checking the facts, making sure the evidence is there, and then how do you react when you believe that thought?
And the final question is, who would you be without that thought? Some really amazing work. Byron Katie, get your hands on some of her work if you want. The third thing we need to do is we re need to reframe the negative instead of, [00:05:00] I failed try. I'm learning. Instead of, no one cares about my content, try.
I'm refining my message and finding my right audience. There's always a way to reframe the narrative. Yeah. And then four, we need to take action. Sometimes the best way to break the spiral is to do something very small. Very productive. Send that follow up email, write a post about what you've learned.
Action shifts the energy, and sometimes when I feel a little bit less clear, I know if I take a couple of action steps, the clarity comes sometimes action precedes clarity and action definitely precedes motivation, just saying. And number five, lean on your community, surrounding yourself with people who get it.
Talk to a mentor, a fellow business owner, or even your audience. Vulnerability creates connection. I just wanna caveat this with, please don't whinge. Please don't whinge on social media. That is not great. [00:06:00] If you've got something valuable for your audience, awesome. But don't get on there and rant. Don't get on there and vent.
That is behind closed doors with safe friends. Now I wanna talk about the community for a little minute. Sometimes we jump into a community, especially when we are new into business and they're all new business owners, and you're all doing the right thing and there's some camaraderie and bits and pieces, and then one of you grows and one of you almost outgrows the rest of them.
If you are sitting in a small business community feeling small and stuck, and sometimes that outworks as a belly ache or a headache or something like that, look around at the people you are surrounding yourself with. If no one in that group is a little bit ahead of you, you probably need to find some more people to broaden your horizons.
Horizons. If everyone is at the same space, all stuck. You need to move, you need to change something in that environment. I've changed [00:07:00] communities that many times and I've lost friends because of it, and even though I still wanted to be friendly with them, but I just knew I needed something different. I needed to uplevel.
You know, like sometimes you just have to make some choices that are good for you and your business and your mind. Yeah. And I was in a community very early on, and all they did was whinge. And I was just went, no, you know what? I'm out. I'm done. I can't do whinging. That's just not my frame of reference. I'm really optimistic every single day, and I choose to be that way.
And yes, business is hard, but if we whinge about it for the entire day, we actually get nothing done. So make sure you lean on the right community for you. And then I wanna talk about number six is celebrate your wins. Keep a success journal. I keep a kind word folder in my email, so when I'm having a a hard day, I look in that and go, no, no, I'm changing people's lives.
I'm helping women make more money. I'm impacting their lives. Look at the revenue they've brought in. Look at the profit they've brought in. And I can go to that for evidence that [00:08:00] everything is going well. Write down every small victory, if that's what you need to do. When self-doubt creeps in, revisit that list and remind yourself how far you've come.
You can't. Look forward for how far you've come. You've gotta look backwards, and that's the only time you'd look backwards if you're looking backwards, to kind of go, oh yeah, I've come that far. Where was I 12 months ago? Where was I six months ago? Hell, where was I three months ago? And you will notice such a difference.
Such a difference. So celebrating your wins is really important as is celebrating your business friends wins. You know the ones who are doing really well. You can see them putting in the effort. They're having wins. I've got one client at the moment and she, uh, is working her butt off. She's doing that much business development and she has done for the last six months to be fair.
But now she's winning awards. She's winning massive jobs. She's getting kudos. She's got leadership happening in her space. She's doing all the things, and she [00:09:00] is stunned and amazed at how everything that she has led her to this point is like. Everything she touches turns to gold, and I'm like, you need to lap that up.
This is absolute karma coming back. She's generous to her fault. She gives referrals. She helps people out when they need it. She's the epitome of a business woman doing great things for herself, for her community. And her fellow business owners, and she deserves all the wins, so celebrate other people's wins.
Just 'cause someone's light is glowing so bright doesn't mean yours has to dim anymore. We can both have, we can all have bright lights, right? Yeah. So next time you catch yourself spiraling, what's one strategy you can commit to trying? I've mentioned a few. I've talked about pausing and naming it. I've talked about reframing the narrative.
I've talked about taking action. I've talked about leaning on your community, and I've talked about celebrating your wins. Which one of those might you try? [00:10:00] And if you've already found a way to shift your mindset when negativity hits, I'd love to hear about it. Share your thoughts, and let's keep this conversation going until next week.
