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Uncovering our own stories can sometimes be easier when we notice other people’s stories and beliefs. Today I want to share some of my own beliefs that did NOT serve me so that you can use them as a mirror into your own world.

We’re about to get vulnerable, y’all.

I shared about this back in season 1 of effortless (listen on iTunes) but something I’ve had to work through is a tendency to fall into ‘victim mode’.

For me, it often sounded like, “why does this keep happening to me?” In 2019 I went through a coaching certification that included neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and a core concept of that is accepting ownership and ‘living at cause’.

What I noticed right away is that a statement like, “why does this keep happening to me?” is really disempowering for me. It put me in a place of not having control over things in my life and, uhm, I like having some control! Obviously we can’t control everything and there are situations that are well outside of our control, but in general, I’d rather feel like I have a say in my life than not.

If you find yourself often in a funk of, “why does this keep happening to me?” maybe this will be helpful for you, too.

Here’s a new belief I’ve adopted: I can make good things happen for myself. And I believe that you can make good things happen for you and your business and your life. I believe we all hold that power. When I started to recognize that for myself, things really shifted. I felt more in control and capable of saying no to things that weren’t working for me, and yes to things that were.

Now, let’s be fully transparent here—of course I still have bad days. Of course there are still things that are outside of my control (big issues—racism, poverty, hunger, etc.). But what I’ve learned and adopted is that I have a say in how I think and feel about things so that I can feel empowered to actually do something. In the past I’d hear about something going on in the world and think, ‘that’s so bad and messed up and who am I to do anything?!’ and I’d like that spiral into a whole feeling of despondency and sadness. Now there’s nothing wrong with those feelings and having that experience. And, I have found that I can move myself into an empowered position quicker and think… well I can call my senator. I can donate to this cause. I can learn more about this subject. And to me, that’s what it means to get out of ‘I am helpless’ and into someone who takes action and lives at cause.

The next big belief I had to work through was that I could charge for things I was naturally gifted at. This is really difficult for a lot o creatives. We enjoy what we are doing and it is easy for us to do, oftentimes. Therefore we make it wrong to make money off of it. But the truth is: the reason you are doing it—the reason you SHOULD be charging for it—IS because you are good at it. Doesn’t it make a lot more sense for someone who is actually an amazing designer and loves designing things to make money off of it versus someone who isn’t a good designer and hates it to make money off of it?

I really believe these things are like superpowers. They are your superpowers and you can use them to help others. Not everyone sees the world the way you do, creates the way you can, or delivers the results you deliver.

There’s a weird phenomenon I’ve noticed where humans spend half the time feeling ‘so different’ and ‘like no one gets us’ and the other half the time feeling like ‘I’m not special or unique’. What a paradox, right?! So many of us struggle with these extremes and in general with accepting, loving, and understanding ourselves. But what I’ve learned is that we all are a unique combination of talents, thoughts, gifts, patterns, ideas, and truths—and making money off of those things is incredible.

Another big block I experienced was ‘struggling for success’. Somewhere along the way I decided that ‘rags to riches’ was the only real kind of success. And while that is an experience for a lot of people, it doesn’t HAVE to be that way. I realize now, looking back at my past, that I often created situations that let it get ‘just bad enough’ that I could really ‘prevail.’ Now I notice that pattern and start to improve things before any unnecessary ‘rock bottoms’.

Because of my own challenges here, something I am very conscientious of now is refusing to perpetuate that belief in our industry. So while I do have experiences like overcoming a lot of credit card debt, I never use ‘just take out a credit card to buy something for your business’ as a marketing phrase. I think that’s really gross, honestly. I really believe you can start from where you’re at, wherever that may be, and only go up from there. Your journey will be just as epic, inspiring, and beautiful as any ‘rags to riches’ story.

Something I know to be true now is that success can be ease-filled. Success can be fun. Success can be exciting. Success can be generous. Success can be whatever you want it to be—it doesn't have to involve anything intense or dramatic to be of merit.

A fourth belief that I have worked through quite a bit is that I’m not good with money. I never really learned much about money, and despite being an incredible math student, I did have a negative experience with a teacher in high school implying that I ‘didn’t need to worry my pretty little head’ about something. Cue the eye roll. Anyway, I’ve done a lot of work around accepting that money doesn’t have to be challenging, that being good with money is a acquirable skill, etc.

When I started doing the work the results compounded quickly. I went from living “paycheck to paycheck” and never knowing anything about my money to accruing savings into my persona l and business account. Being ‘good at money’ is something we can all do and learn to do, it’s not a special gift reserved for the few.

The last major block that I had to work through was this idea of ‘well, who am I to….’

Who am I to offer coaching? To teach others? To talk about mindset? These all came up very loudly when I started offering coaching and not just graphic design. I had built my design confidence and felt so locked in there, and as soon as I introduced something new—all new imposter syndrome symptoms popping up. I’ve made a lot of money over the last 6 years and helped a lot of people and those thoughts still come in from time to time, and the truth is—they don’t go away. You just learn to hold them easier.

Whenever my mind goes there, I challenge it with “well, why not me?” and I find proof that people of any age, of any experience, of any knowledge level, of any-anything can be successful doing things like I want to do. And I want to encourage you to adopt that mantra as well. Instead of ‘who am I to…’ change that to ‘why not me?’

Why CAN’T I be successful? Why can’t I be a millionaire? Why can’t I be booked out?

When you do this, two things will happen: first, you will realize that your brain is being a jerk. And second your brain will actually start to answer the question (that’s what brains do, after all). It’ll tell you exactly what you believe is holding you back. So for example, “why can’t I be booked out?!” your brain might actually realize that you aren’t telling enough people about your offer or actually selling it. There’s your action item!

There’s some of my dirty laundry. I hope hearing these have opened up an opportunity for you to explore your own thoughts and beliefs.

Did any of these resonate with you? Send me a DM on Instagram!

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“I am just being so lazy about it.”
”I am procrastinating on it”
”I can’t find the motivation for it”

Sound familiar? Disparaging yourself as lazy, useless, or unmotivated? Even when, in reality, you KNOW you’re so NOT lazy?

It’s just that there’s items on your to-do list that you can’t seem to get done for one reason or another… and an easier copout is to blame yourself and make yourself the bad guy rather. Here’s a alarming secret for you: the more you call yourself these words, the further it propels you down a path of NOT getting things done.

It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Personally, I’ve been in this place before. When I started my first company in 2015 I grasped onto this idea of “I’m a procrastinator. I’m lazy” and spent a lot of time beating myself up for it. I’d spiral into a hole of self-hate and poke at myself with questions like, “how did you let this happen? In high school you used to manage to do like 156 things at once and now you can’t even do one thing?!”

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From that place, the chances of finding motivation or willpower seem to slip away and you just create a cycle of wanting to do the thing, not doing the thing, feeling terrible about it, and so on.

In time, as different things shifted in my business I became very BUSY. I started working 12-14 hour days and it seemed like maybe I had “beat the laziness” and let myself feel really, honestly, inflated by that. I let this stamp of busyness mean I was ‘a good person’ or ‘doing it right’ — which is a whole different issue to be address, right? My worthiness has nothing to do with how many items I cross off a to-do list.

When I reflect on why it felt easier to work those long hours though, one big thing comes up for me: I had more direction. I had more clarity. Before when I felt “so lazy” it wasn’t really about my work ethic, or anything like that — it was just about the direction. The clarity. Getting started felt impossible because I didn’t know what I was starting. I couldn’t see how all the moving parts fit together or made sense. I didn’t really have a vision or end destination in mind. And some part of me — a much wiser part — didn’t want to waste time or energy doing work that didn’t ultimately matter. I didn’t really want to ‘do nothing’, I just wanted to do things that made a difference and I had no idea what those things were.

If that is feeling resonate for you, then I’m sure the next question is: how do we resolve this? How do we find a way to move forward instead of falling into re-watching Gossip Girl for the 52nd time?

Before we did into that, let’s make a quick disclaimer over who this is NOT for. If you’re someone with a lengthy to-do list and you fully believe and know that all the items on that list are essential and are managing to do all the things… this actually isn’t going to be as helpful for you. What you need help with is found inside my free guide Master Your 20-Hour (Or Less!) Work Week.

This is more helpful for people who barely have the list, who aren’t even suer what to do let alone feel inspired to do it. Let’s find that clarity! So the first step here is coming back to your why — AKA why you started your business. It’s okay if it’s not a grandiose answer like solving world hunger. It’s okay if it’s because you wanted to wear yoga pants and work on your couch. But to figure out the wHAT we need to come back to the WHY first.

Then, equipped with that, I want to invite you to daydream and visualize a year from now. What do you want? What do you want your life to look like? Your business to be like? Create that vision — no rules, just whatever you desire. Now between these two concepts (your WHY and your vision) you can begin to use those like ‘bumpers’ (like in bowling) to filter ideas, tasks, to-do list items through. This will help you stay focused on what you really desire.

This simple exercise creates less mental chatter, less overwhelm, and less shiny object syndrome. It helps create more clarity, more focus, and more intentionality with your work. Your work literally becomes more inspiring to do because you can see the link between it and where you are going with it. And in my experience, the “laziness” or “unmotivated feeling” seems to drift away easier when we can make that connection.

In my past I used this exercise to help propel my first business into consistent income and clients. I had been focusing on a lot of moving parts, unmotivated to do any of them well, and through this exercise actually ended up stopping like over 90% of my daily work to get hyper focused on the needle-moving tasks. I did LESS and made MORE because of this.

So here is your permission slip: stop beating yourself up for laziness, or procrastination, or lack of motivation. You are not flawed or destined for failure. You’re overwhelmed because of this lack of clarity and with a simple exercise you an begin to create more clarity.

I'd love to hear what clarity this exercise creates for you! Send me a DM on Instagram!

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Are you holding yourself back? Standing in your own way? We all have stories we tell ourselves and we believe these stories as capital-T truths. However, most of the stories running rampant in our mind are actually just ideas that we’ve given too much power. Some common stories in our online business space are things like:

• You have to work hard to be successful

• It’s hard to make money

• Businesses take a long time to be profitable

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With that in mind, I’d love to ask you this: how many ideas have you had this year that you haven’t followed through on? Or even taken the first step on? How many times have you been lit up, inspired by an idea… only to sit on it and never even let the idea become a reality.

I’ve found that a lot of business owners find that first step quite easy — fun, even. The idea and concept phase is exciting. And then, the next steps become…. impossible. Scary. Expensive. Hard. And they never happen.

What if those were all just stories we told ourselves? Stories that say, “this is going to be too difficult for me to figure out” or “I am not smart enough to do this.” Those stories are what prevents us from actually taking the action that most of us deeply desire.

Have you ever considered that? That the most difficult thing about taking action or following through is actually the thoughts we have about it? For so many of us it’s the FEAR that holds us back, not the actual action-taking, step-by-step taking, or follow through.

We’re scared of failing, of being rejected, of someone judging us…

Which, let it be said, are valid fears. Those things could all happen, in fact, there’s a big chance they might happen. If we can learn to accept that, then we can push through the fear more easily.

Let’s start with that pesky fear of failure. Here’s a ground-breaking realization: You will fail. 

You’re creating and growing a business, you’re taking risks, you’re on the road less traveled… at some point, you will fail.

And, it’s fine. If you accept that failure is going to happen, it begins to lose its power over you. The work here is to shift our understanding of failure — what if it’s just another stepping stone toward success? What if it’s a part of the process, part of the journey, a mandatory experience to get where you want to go? Would that lighten up some of the fear? What if you looked at failure as an opportunity to learn, to grow, and to move closer toward your desires? Would you be more open to the experience of ‘failing’?

Something I often task my clients with is exploring what would happen IF they failed.

It’s an enlightening experience, truly. I highly recommend reflecting on that for yourself, if this is a fear you have. When I did this exercise for the first time, the first thing I noticed was that failure is really a subjective word. I defined failure in my world (and so do you, in yours). So for me, I learned that failure meant “I couldn’t support myself.” This was super interesting to me, because I’ve been independent and supporting myself since I was 18 — this fear is real and valid, but also I have a lot of experience to show myself that I actually am really, really equipped to support myself. As I furthered into the reflection I also realized that I’ve created a business and ecosystem that would make it really difficult for me to not be able to support myself, even if everything went to shit.

For example, I have business savings and personal savings that can support me for a while if I lost any new income. I have long-term clients, so the chance of them all quitting at once is pretty rare. And I know I have skills and qualifications that would allow me to find a job, if I absolutely needed to.

I shareable of this to show you an example. I found my ‘worst case scenario’ and what I believed failure to actually mean for me — and I realized that the chances of me actually experiencing that are quite slim. So then I take this new understanding and knowledge, and I ask myself… “okay, if THAT’S failure, what’s so scary about launching this new program? Or posting that thing on Instagram?” and I show my brain that these things are not even in the same ballpark as failure, for me – AND even if they don’t work out like I’d like them too, they won’t impact me or my business or my life to the extent that I’m actually scared of.

In fact, it would take a lot of deliberate bad decisions and a complete lack of caring to get me all the way to what I had defined as failure. Equipped with that, I could now look at potentially launching that program or posting that thing and see it for what it really is: a small step. An opportunity to try, to learn, to grow. Not a risk that could mean my demise.

In our online space you hear a lot about success stories, overnight quantum leaps, etc. because that’s what sells and because if they told the full story of every single failure and misstep along the way, well, it’d take a long time to tell all of that. More characters than an Instagram post allows for! But I can guarantee you this — every success story includes a myriad of ‘failures’ that don’t get mentioned. Now, personally, I do think that’s an issue in our space, but that’s a different conversation.

The truth is, in my opinion, those failures had to happen to reach the levels of success you love reading about. Those moments of learning, those growth opportunities were necessary for them—and they will be for you, too.

The fear holding you back is pointless. It’s going to happen and you can trust that you are going to overcome it, work through it, learn from it, and ultimately be okay.

Another fear that comes up often is fear of rejection or judgment. There’s a deep worry that everyone is going to be mean, or think we’re weird, or hate us. This fear is sometimes more deep-rooted (and less obvious) than a fear of failure, but in this digital age it’s a common fear that holds people back.

Here’s how I approach this fear and help my clients with this fear: recognize that you can’t control what anyone else thinks, does, believes, or says. It’s a hard pill to swallow, truthfully—but in accepting this we can push past the fear and stay focused on our journey, rather than trying to control someone else’s.

What I mean by that, is focus on what you can control. I remind myself and my clients of this often. Here’s what I can control: my thoughts, my actions, my emotional intelligence, how I show up, what I say, how I engage and serve and support people. I can show up confident in my ideas, my messages and the impact I want to make on the world around me—and if someone chooses to see something different than that, it’s really out of my control. I am showing up in the best way I can equipped with what I have.

With all of this in mind, let’s talk about why you are holding yourself back. A great journal prompt here’s, “what am I afraid of happening if I do XYZ?” and let yourself really explore all the fears, what-ifs, and worries that come up. Please remember not to treat yourself harshly or judge yourself for inaction in this exercise. Approach this with gentle curiosity and compassion.

Whatever answers come up for you (it might be the fears we just discussed or something different), the next step would be to reflect on what would happen IF that fear came true. For example, what would happen IF I failed? Would I cease to exist? Would be world explode? Those things would probably not happen. What would happen if someone was mean to me? Would it hurt my feelings? Maybe. But would that ruin my life? Probably not.

If you’re into Harry Potter, I have a fun idea for you. I really do think of most of my fears as bogarts. They present as these terrifying, real things—but when you really look at them, play with them, explore them… they lose their power.

The very last piece of this, that’s perhaps the most important—always reconnect with WHY you are doing something. Connecting to your bigger mission, your bigger impact, your bigger goals can really minimize fear quite quickly. Personally, when I get scared or nervous, I remind myself that there’s one person out there I really could help. One person who’s whole life could change because of the work we do together—and who knows how many more lives they’ll go on to impact. It’s a ripple effect that I really want to be a part of. That helps me connect with the bigger things, and really my fears become smaller and more insignificant when I do that. So for you, think about what you do, who you help, and the bigger impact of your message, offer, products, etc. isn’t it so important to help the people you are meant to help? Don’t let a silly fear prevent you from that.

I'd love to hear about the impact you desire to make. Send me a DM on Instagram!

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We all have stories we tell ourselves. We believe a lot of them to be TRUTH or FACT, when in reality they are just an idea that we’ve really given too much power.

Some common stories in our entrepreneurial world are things like:

• You have to work hard to be successful

• It’s hard to make money

• Businesses take a long time to be profitable

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Those may sound like cold hard facts to you but in reality there’s no truth to them. They just become widely accepted and touted and ingrained in our minds.

Recognizing your stories may feel challenging. I find it easier to notice OTHER people’s stories and then reflect on if I have that same story. For example, if I hear my friend say, “it’s so hard to hold onto money” every time she makes it, I might reflect and ask myself if I think holding onto money is difficult. If I do find that it registers as true to me, I can start the process of rewriting that story.

A lot of our stories come from our childhood. You could spend time reflecting on things you heard your parents/adults say growing up. Common stories are, “money doesn’t grow on trees” and “the early bird gets the worm.” While those statements from family figures were never meant to limit you, or affect you in an unhelpful way, they might have found a  nice resting spot in your brain and become something that you accept as truth and therefore shapes how you make decisions and live your adult life.

This topic was very powerful for me the first time I started to learn about it. I have found that a lot of people have no idea about this concept at all — I didn’t! Once you are aware of it, you start to notice your own stories more and more. Eventually you start to overcome your stories, which in my experience has led to more happiness and success, less fear, and overall just a more positive existence.

An exercise to get started with this work is to listen to people around you more closely (family, friends, coworkers, etc.). I have found that it’s so much easier to notice other people stuck in their stories than to hear own. If you need help, pay attention specifically to words that negate, like ‘can’t’ or ‘don’t’ — that’s usually how a story presents itself. Here are some examples:

• “I can’t make any money”

• “I can’t seem to find good friends”

• “I don’t think I can do this”

• “I don’t have enough time”

If you start to really listen to how people around you speak you’ll hear stories like this all the time. Now, I don’t recommend you start telling them that “it’s just a story” and making it a big deal (unless you want to open that conversation up with someone who’s open to it!) but the goal of this exercise is more about awareness. What I have clients do is notice, then flip it onto themselves and ask: do I have this story?

Why would you want to notice your own stories? When we become more observant of our thoughts we open the door to the connection between our thoughts and our actions. If you have a story that “you can’t do sales,” you might notice that directly correlates to your action (or INACTION) on making offers, connecting with potential clients, and ASKING for the sale. If that’s a story you have, and an action (or inaction) you experience, what does that mean? My guess would be: no sales would in your business.

Equipped with the knowledge that the root of this issue starts with the story, “I can’t do sales", you can begin to make shifts in your life. You could begin to rewrite the story and decide that sales aren’t scary, for example. In time, that would rewire your actions and results.

Personally, a lot of my stories develop from a place of wanting to fit in, fear of being judged or disliked, and not wanting to draw attention to myself. Those are pretty common fears, rooted in basic survival. Historically, you needed to fit in with your community because you needed other people to survive harsh winters, scary animals, and more. Being accepted and blending in benefited you. That’s a most basic human fear. And our brain is well intentioned with having it — your brain’s main job is to keep you alive and it’ll do what it has to to do that job… even if those old stories or fears don’t serve us today.

When I began to notice those stories for myself I wanted to rewrite them. I wanted to accept that it’s okay to be unique and to share my point of view. I wanted to believe that I’d be okay even if someone didn’t like me because of it. Here is how I rewrote those stories for myself: First, I cultivated more understanding around the story by asking myself some questions when I was in a calm/open-minded state. I asked questions like, “what makes an Instagram Live so scary? What do I fear happening once I hit that big red button? What’s the worst thing that can happen?”

Answers would start to pop into my head, and I generally trust the initial answer that comes up for me. In my experience that's my intuition or subconscious. In this scenario, answers like “people won’t like you or “someone will be mean” — and I take those answers, and dig in again with the questions: “what does it matter if someone doesn’t like me? What would I feel if someone was rude to me? What is the worst thing that might happen?

In time of the gentle curiosity and questioning I land on something that feels the most solid. In this scenario, that might be, “I might not appear as much of an expert as I want to be. I might say something stupid or inaccurate.”

When I land on something like that, something that’s feels more substantial I begin to flip the question in an attempt to “break the belief”. For this scenario that would look like, “What makes my X years of experience and knowledge not expert enough?”

Do you see how that is "in defense” of what I want to believe? I want to believe I am the expert. When I shape a question like this my brain struggles to disagree and recognize that the fear just isn’t based in reality. Another way to do this is to find evidence that says otherwise. Perhaps you recall times that people saw you and thought of you as an expert. Or you remember a time that you shared your knowledge and someone was positively impacted because of it. This would again help you “break the belief” because you’d be proving that even though you have these fears, they’re not actually the truth.

After I’ve done that I spend some more time with my journal. I reflect on how I will show up with this now broken belief and create a few positive affirmations to use daily afterward. I’ll revisit my new belief via affirmations until I’ve really rewired it in my subconscious and conscious mind. An affirmation here would be something like, “when I share my story I inspire others.”

Did this bring up any stories for you? Send me a DM on Instagram!

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