What are the limiting beliefs you may not even recognize that you have and how are they affecting your business?
Late last year, my business started to take off in the best kind of way.
I was able to double, sometimes triple my rates, and proposals were being accepted without question. Leads were coming in effortlessly.
Everything I had been journaling on, visualizing, thinking about just started happening.
What I didn’t recognize is that I wasn’t quite as prepared to hold all of this as I thought.
Slowly, 8 hour work days turned to 10, 12, 14 hours.
Sleep and nutrition fell to the bottom of my list. Sometimes it would be 2 or 3 pm before I realized I hadn’t eaten or drank any water by that time.
I was burning out quickly.
This continued for a few months.
At first, I thought that I could manage it all. I asked for a bit of help but didn’t want to take the time out to delegate, train, and manage anyone. So I stubbornly continued pushing through.
There were many days that my daughter would cry for me to just take some time off and hang out with her. And I would feel so torn between her and work but tended to choose work anyway. I was so focused on hitting business goals that everything else was secondary.
The Breaking Point
Over the course of the next few months, I was barely sleeping, migraines and headaches were back (which I pushed through instead of resting), I felt foggy, frustrated, and stressed to the max.
My motivation tanked. Somedays, I wanted to crawl under the blankets and not come out.
Until one day, it all surfaced. I broke down in tears, you know the ugly cry kind of tears, and said that I couldn’t do this anymore. I would rather just get a job if building my business was going to come at such a high cost.
Thoughts that you keep thinking become beliefs.
And unfortunately, I had been repeating the same sabotaging thoughts day in and day out for months by this point. Thoughts that went like this:
- I have to work hard for money.
- Nothing ever comes easily.
- The harder I work, the more I will make and then when I hit my income goal, I can start to enjoy life.
- I don’t have time for breaks.
- Business is not easy.
- My clients don’t respect me.
- I am sooo tired but I can not give up.
- I wish I could have some time and space to do other things to grow my business.
- It was easier working for someone else. I should just get a job because I won’t have to worry about all of these things.
Now notice how repeating these thoughts would make one feel?
After what I can only describe as a nervous breakdown, I decided I had to start prioritizing me, re-evaluate what I wanted and needed and make some major changes.
Creating Space & Pivoting
I got clear on what I needed to do to take better care of myself and do things differently. I knew I needed boundaries, with myself and others. I started to plant seeds that I would no longer be offering services. I rewrote parts of my agreements to ensure a better energetic exchange.
But then the business momentum I had been riding for months came to a stall.
I regretted speaking up for my needs and found myself questioning if I should go back to doing what I was doing so I could ride that wave again.
And somewhere underneath all of that was a silver lining. I had been creating space… space for me.
Slowly, my days became more manageable.
I was able to sleep, to eat, to spend more time with family.
And now a new problem was arising. My business had come to a standstill. Leads weren’t flowing in as they once were. My confidence was plummeting, and I was now consumed with new fears.
Fears that went like this:
- Why aren’t I getting as many referrals as I was? I must have been found out to not be as good as I thought I was.
- I knew that I shouldn’t have increased my prices
- People must hate me
- I now have to find a job because my reputation is tarnished
- Why isn’t my business growing? Where did I go wrong?
Again, sending myself down a spiral.
I stayed there for another few weeks until I was listening to a podcast in which the host asked, “what are you energetically holding away from you?”
I thought about it for a second and right away noticed my belief that “the business / income I desire has to come at a huge sacrifice to my life and family. I have to work hard for money.”
I had actually created an energetic wall between myself and prospective clients. Through my beliefs.
That limiting belief that I have to work hard for money is not new. It was passed down through generations.
I have replayed that story my whole life.
And here is a chance to rewrite that story.
I had to ask myself – what proof do I have that I have to work hard for money? What proof do I have that it’s wrong? What do I NOW CHOOSE to believe?
A Limiting Belief Exercise
When you are feeling stuck somewhere – whether career, life, business, relationships, get quiet and ask yourself what is the story I am telling myself about what I can not have? List out all of the beliefs. Which one feels the most charged for you? As though that is the truth? Start working with that.
Then list the proof of why it is true. Now look for the proof of why it is not (this may take a few days but set the intention to find evidence that this is not true), and decide what you will now believe.
Check out my free download, Rewriting Old Stories here.
What limiting beliefs are holding you back?