Welcome to episode 2.08 of Your Biz, Your Rules. In this show, I’m going to be spilling the tea on some of the lessons I learned the hard way in 2021, but because I also celebrated my 6 year business anniversary last week, there’s something else I want to do too…
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TLDR:
💛 After being in business for one year, I wrote a blog post listing out the big lessons I learned in those first 12 months. I’m reviewing that post today – here are my key takeaways:
💛 I can’t trust other people more than I trust myself – I know what’s best for my business
💛 Nobody is as invested in my business as I am
💛 Sometimes I run, sometimes I hide
💛 When people show you who they are, believe them
💛 The rest cycle is where it’s at
💛 Expecting people to meet my standard of integrity does more harm than good
💛 People are paying attention, even when it might not seem like it
Show notes:
Welcome to episode 2.08 of Your Biz, Your Rules. In this show I’m going to be spilling the tea on some of the lessons I learned the hard way in 2021, but because I also celebrated my 6 year business anniversary last week, there’s something else I want to do too…
After being in business for one year, I wrote a blog post listing out the big lessons I learned in those first 12 months. I haven’t really revisited that post since, but I thought it would be fun to react to what I shared there, and see if my more experienced more jaded self has anything else to add.
Dreams change.
I definitely think that dreams can change and I’ve seen evidence of this – I started my business doing one thing and now I’m doing something different (I talked about this in Episode 201).
This doesn’t make you an imposter, it means you’ve done the work to get the clarity and to figure out what your zone of genius is. You don’t get this by deciding to run a business that focuses on a particular thing, it’s something you learn through experience and embodiment.
Time is Sacred.
This was before I started overworking and burned myself out with client work! Little did I know what was coming.
But it’s almost like I’ve come full-circle on this now. Now I am back at a place where I feel like I’ve got a lot of space in my life, I do get to read the brilliant books and explore my creative hobbies but for that big chunk of time in the middle, this was not the case!
An additional lesson to add here is that we’re never done! There’s always more of this stuff to work on and so while we might feel good in the moment about things like working hours we need to stay on top of our thinking because otherwise, we can very easily, slip into bad patterns and bad habits.
Isolation kills.
This didn’t last long and a lot has changed since then.
I now have three dogs which definitely stops me from feeling too alone but a lot of the daily, weekly, and monthly things that I’d made so set in stone, are no longer there.
One thing that I will say is that my daily morning check-in with my bestie, Tara, is still a thing.
The way I check in with clients has changed because the way I work with people has changed but I do have Voxer check-ins with each of my clients every single week.
The pandemic had a big impact on in-person things like dinner and catch-ups with friends.
You’re still raw cookie dough.
This is something that I still keep front of mind because I will always be committed to learning and evolving and really developing my mastery so that I can provide the best level of service and support to my clients.
But you do need to bring an element of discernment to that too because it’s so easy to learn to the detriment of implementation – there are so many courses and opportunities to learn new things that it can be a slippery slope.
Not every client is for you.
This one feels very, very accurate and I think this is something that I’ve really tried to carry with me over the past 6 years. And what I probably didn’t acknowledge at the time was that some people can be the right fit for a set period of time but then they’re not going to be the right fit forever.
This is something that I struggled with a couple of years ago – the idea of letting go of people that I loved working with and were the right fit earlier on but as we both grew and evolved in different directions, that stopped being the case. That was a painful lesson for me to learn!
We need to remember that working with the right clients is a benefit for both of you, especially if you’re offering services and are very connected to the people you are working with.
Things that I learned in the last year of my business
I trust myself
I know what’s best for my business. And I don’t mean that I don’t trust anyone else but it’s about not trusting other people more than I trust myself.
I have to trust my own ideas and my own feelings because nobody will even know my business better than I do.
Nobody is as invested in my business as I am
I hate this about the industry. I’ve had experiences of people caring and being invested in me and my business during their launch period but then when I’ve joined their programme, they just kind of disappear.
Sometimes I run and sometimes I hide
I have a tendency to check out of a relationship if someone hurts me or I think they might be about to. Sometimes that self-isolation is a bit of a premature decision – it’s more of a trauma response and I’ve really had to learn the difference over the past 12 months.
I think that when we have had difficult experiences in our past that have made us a little bit more guarded, it can push us to the extreme of running away every time it feels like someone is going to hurt us – that’s not necessarily fair to them and it’s also not necessarily helpful to us!
Once people show you who they are, believe them
I cannot tell you how many times I have tried to make excuses for people or justify their behaviour, just so that I didn’t have to admit that they were no longer the right people to be around.
If somebody consistently shows you that they are not the right person to be around, then believe them. Because the only person getting hurt in that situation is you.
The rest cycle is where it’s at
I’ve been learning a lot more about my Human Design and, as a Manifestor, I really need to lean into that rest cycle. I have these bursts of inspiration and massive sparks of drive to get things done but it’s not sustainable for me.
In the past, I’ve tried to operate like the Duracell bunny that keeps going and going and going and it just doesn’t work for me.
Taking more downtime and resting more has been a really steep learning curve for me but it has had a MASSIVE effect on the quality of my life and my enjoyment of my business so I’ll definitely be continuing with that!
Expecting people to meet my standard of integrity does more harm than good
In fact, expecting people to meet any of my standards, does more harm than good. Especially if I don’t communicate it to them – if I expect something from somebody but I never actually tell them that I’m expecting it and then I get pissed off when they don’t deliver it, that’s on me!
I need to learn to walk away because the frustration that comes with this unfulfilled expectation does not do me any good – I think a lot of us have that childhood wound of feeling like fairness and justice is everything but that can also be really, really maddening.
So releasing the expectation that you put on other people is such a power move! I just use Cord Cutting for this and instead of imagining cutting the cord between myself and another person, I imagine myself cutting the cords between me and the expectations of others (or of myself!)
People are paying attention even when it might not seem like it
This is an important one to remember!
Over the past year, I’ve had people sign up to work with me, who I never even considered might be interested because I didn’t even know them! One person said she had been lurking on my email list since 2017 and then signed up for my highest ticket coaching programme and paid in full.
Even if it feels like you’re shouting into the void, just remember that you never know who is listening and who;s life you might change with that one piece of content.
Final thoughts:
Your challenge for this week is to spend a few moments reflecting on what you’ve learned over the past 12 months, and share one of those big lessons over on Instagram. Don’t forget to tag me so I can come and leave you some love!
Spoiler alert for our next episode – I’m going to be sharing a full overview of The Unshakeable Business Method, the system I teach every one of my clients. See you then!
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