How to Overcome Self-Doubt in Your Business

10/29/20 • 19 min

Group Coaching Masterclass | Weekly-ish Episodes About Life, Business & Group Coaching Programs

Many people say that self-doubt is really holding them back in their business. When I saw the statistics I was honestly surprised. I thought fear would be a bigger factor. But then I came across more information on self-doubt in businesses. One quote I came across that I want to share with you is “doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will”. I was shocked but I started to reflect on it. One thing I really talk about with my coaching clients is the belief that can accomplish their goals. And really a belief is the opposite of doubt so it started making more and more sense to me. Belief in yourself and your business is imperative to the growth of your business! You have to believe that you can, you have to believe it’s possible and you have to believe in your dreams. 92% of people let that doubt creep into their thoughts and let it take over their business.

The definition of self-doubt is a feeling of insecurity about your abilities or any actions you might take. This can begin in childhood, maybe someone made you feel not good enough. But we’re going to go into how this can affect your business now. I’m going to get into some strategies and questions you can ask yourself to help overcome self-doubt. Let’s also remember that this is part of your mindset. Your mind is the last thing to change. Your actions change first so give it time and work to really get into a new mindset and headspace. Action is going to get you to the point where your brain will actually believe it.

The first strategy I want to talk about is shifting your weaknesses into strengths. If you’ve ever been in a job interview and they’ve asked you what your biggest weakness is. I think it’s a terrible question. When you’re in an online business it can be isolating you don’t have a group of coworkers to talk to and that understand your business. We can get into the trap of comparing our own businesses to others and thinking well I’ve only been open for 6 months and they’ve been open for 18 months. So every time you’ve heard that “what’s your weakness” swap it mentally into a strength. Instead of harping on the weakness of your business, trade that mindset for something good you can bring to the table. For example, your weakness is that it may take you a little longer to complete a project, but it’s because you’re incredibly thorough and detail-oriented and dig deep into each step and make sure it’s done correctly. You may think that having three kids is a weakness for you, more people that need you, and more attention off of your business. But this can also be a strength. First of all, there are a whole lot more ups and downs that can happen, but that’s exactly what a business does too. So your management skills are going to be strong and prepare you for this in your business. Take the time to write down a couple of weaknesses that you feel you have and rephrase them into a strength. Revisit them and remember them!

The second strategy is the vision you have for your life and why that matters. Your self-doubt will convince you out of things you really want in your life and business. You need to stop and think past that. One exercise you can do is write down all about the life you want. I don’t care how scary or out of the box they seem. These are your big dreams! For me, I envisioned slow mornings, and I knew that meant retiring my husband. For all transparency, my husband got laid because of Covid, but he was able to not worry about finding a new job right away. Now that I got to check this off of my list, I’ll keep dreaming and adding big goals to this list. Once you have the long-term in mind, make sure your goals are getting you closer to your vision. It’s not just enough to just say “make money”, make sure you’re thinking about your impact and how that money can affect your family and others. You have a bigger purpose than just doubting yourself!

The third strategy we’re going into is taking action. As women, a lot of us spend too much time overthinking. If you haven’t heard of Mel Robbins’ 5 Second Rule I highly recommend taking a look at her Instagram or her book. She says that when she has a big idea that she wants to do, she counts to 5, then gets up and goes for it. Doubt has to be negated with bravery and courage. One thing I encourage against is to stop consuming all the content you can find before taking action. You don’t have to watch every single video or take every course to begin your journey or take the next step.

Another thing that really holds people back is stopping in their tracks when something doesn’t go their way instead of pivoting and trying something new. If Covid has taught us anything we have to be able to pivot and be flexible. The businesses that can make changes and be creative are going to be businesses that survive and thrive. I want you to write down the triggers that cause you to procrastinate. These triggers can stop you and make you avoid the things you really ...

Previous Episode

How to Battle Feeling Insecure in Business

We feel insecure in our lives and our businesses when we start comparing ourselves to other people. Social media definitely brings in these opportunities to compare. Before it, we would only be able to compare to people that we knew in real life. Now we have an endless amount of highlight reels to compare ourselves to. We have no idea how long it took them to get there, what their failures are, or how they struggled.

Each time you start to feel this way, I have some strategies I want you to try. The first thing I want you to do is to write down 5 things you've accomplished this year. Start the sentence with "I did..." and go from there. The next thing I want you to do is to do good and spread good! Cook a meal for a friend, reach out to someone to spread kindness or something that truly makes you and others feel good. The next thing I want you to do is to cultivate your good friendships. And I want you to walk away from friendships that are based solely in commiseration. The last thing I want you to do is to curate your newsfeed. Just because you're friends with someone doesn't mean you need to see their shit in your newsfeed. You can unfollow anyone or anything you don't want to see or that makes you feel insecure.

I hope this was helpful in getting these feelings of insecurity under control in your business!

Next Episode

5 Ways to Get Clients from Email Marketing

Today we're going to talk about five ways to get clients from email marketing. By now in your business, you have most likely heard that email marketing works from a bunch of different business gurus, but you've been on the receiving end of some emails that are super annoying. You delete them, you don't open them. You send them to an email, you never check you unsubscribed from them. So if you do that, then your clients are probably going to do that to you, right? And why waste your time? So email marketing is a strategy that doesn't always feel effective, but I want to talk about it today with you because it can be a great place to show up and it can be a great place to direct your audience to where you'd like them to show up for you. It can be a great way to drive a point home because people need to hear things over and over again before it starts to sort of wake up in their brains and start to connect, right? It can be a great place to start building relationships and really just reminding people that you're there. They may not read your emails every time. They may not even open your emails, but they see you in their inbox. You are showing up for them, and you have to believe that on a regular basis that you are showing up for them. And for that, the right people will appreciate, you know, the wrong people will do just the opposite, right? They won't appreciate it. They might even unsubscribe, which when you start to see your numbers go down, it feels awful at first, right? But if you can get to the place where you separate yourself from the outcome, to know that your message is just not for them and that's why they unsubscribed it doesn't mean it's not a good message. There's a difference there. It's still can be a good message. It's just not for everybody. And the wrong people are excusing themselves and that’s ok. That way you're making room on your list for people who want to hear what you have to say, people are actually going to open up your emails, um, and build relationships back with you and who allow you to show up for them. The first way is a welcome sequence. When people sign up, for any reason, you can throw them into a welcome sequence. Every email marketing platform has all of these capabilities that I'm going to talk about today. They might call them something a little bit different. They might use different words, but they are all really the same function. Personally, I use Mailer Lite. Not a paid advertisement! When people sign up for any reason to your emails, it can be because of a freebie or it could be because of a workshop, any reason at all, you can throw them into a welcome sequence. A welcome sequence consists of about an email a day for somewhere between five to seven days is typical. You can do whatever you want. You can do three days. You can do 10 days or somewhere in between. And typically each piece gives your people an all-around view of your business and how you help them. This is how you build relationships with your audience. And it's also how you can provide value. So I'll give you an example. The first email might be a welcome email to the business. And it could have the freebie or whatever the reason is that they signed up. Maybe they signed up for the workshops. Then you give them information about the workshop. The next email can be how you started your business and why you started it. And what the purpose is behind it. Then another email might be about you that is a connection point. If you're a mother and that's a lot of the people that you attract, maybe you want to talk about motherhood. If you attract a lot of people who need time management help, maybe you want to start talking about that a little bit. If you have a podcast, you might want to dedicate an email just to the podcast so that you let people know, this is another way to connect with me. If you have a Facebook group that you love hanging out in, that might be an email. This a way that you can start to build relationships with your audience and show them how you provide value. You let them know what the brand is and what your secret sauce is. Just a little bit behind who you are and how you've become the way that the person that you are in the business that you are. So the second tip is a lead magnet. Now you have heard this called many things before a freebie, opt-in, etc... It is a piece of content that's completely free. And it is a way to kind of give people a little taste of what you help with and how you do your business. It can be a ton of different forms. This can be a checklist, a video, an ebook, the possibilities are literally endless. And the biggest reason that we do this in our business is that it turns a cold lead into a warm lead, pretty instantly. It's how you get people to taste a little bit of what you provide. It's also how you show off what to give your audience sort of a small transformation, and then having an offer at the end to stay in your audience so that they can g...