3 HUGE DISTRACTIONS THAT WILL KEEP YOU FROM DOING FULFILLING WORK

There are some pervading lies that the personal development industry sells as being key to upping your business, your income, your influence or your success that I want to shed some light on.

It is more important than ever, in this noisy culture that wants to tell us the formula for ‘success’, that we sift through the nonsense and tune into our own intuition and desires.

I want to share three things that I see as huge distractions that are keeping us from doing work that is fulfilling and meaningful.

1) TRACKING NUMBERS / FOLLOWERS

Please hear this. Hitting 1K or 5K or 100K followers on instagram means jack shit when it comes to fulfilment. You do not need to have a big following on social media to build a sustainable, thriving business, service or community. Social media didn’t exist as a medium for businesses to use until just a few years ago so and even though it can be an effective space for sharing your offerings - the numbers game is a dangerous one.

One of my mentors has a thriving, six figure business doing what she absolutely loves with an 8K following on instagram. She has built her business through writing regularly to email subscribers and developing online courses to teach the stuff that she knows. She has harnessed the truth of quality over quantity and has been showing up consistently, building trust with the people she wants to serve. Her work is fulfilling and sustainable and she is not distracted by follower counting.

Big numbers does not equal ‘success’ or fulfilment. It is a façade that the ego wants to lure us into that we really need to do away with. If you’ve been struggling with feeling legitimate because of a small following, or you think you couldn’t possibly sell what you love or your ideas because you don’t have enough “reach” – it’s simply not true.

2) ENDLESS EDUCATION

This is a common myth that a lot of women buy into - a mindset that desperately needs some updating.

I see this all the time. We have ideas, passions, ideas bubbling up and instead of trying things out or dipping our toes out into the water of sharing those ideas, we spend our time trying to legitimise ourselves by going to every event, every training, every course, researching ever other similar business or idea instead of knuckling down and doing the work (this does not apply if you want to be a surgeon - please get a qualification for that).

Here’s the thing. You could have all the letters after your name and all the qualifications in the world and STILL - putting yourself out there to do the work you know will fulfil you will feel stretchy and uncomfortable. It will because it is precious to you and letting it out into the world will feel vulnerable.

This mindset of always feeling like we need to do more training and education is an easy one to slip into because we are programmed to try and keep ourselves safe from vulnerability and staying behind research or doing more and more qualifications is a safer space to occupy than putting yourself out there.

The danger is that often all of this endless education distracts us from the stuff we know we’d love to just be out there doing. It swallows up all our time and energy and ends up leaving us feeling burned out and unable to take action on the thing we longed to do in the first place. You do not need a business degree, a marketing course or a fancy qualification to dip your toe in, to launch that business or to talk about something you feel passionately about.

3) WAITING FOR APPROVAL

I am all for research. I love getting into the details of things, figuring out how things work, what the best methods are, what would truly resonate etc. When we have ideas that we’d like to put out into the world, what can happen is that we hang back and wait for someone else to give us permission; to tell us that we’re adequate or allowed.

Allowing the opinions or approval of others to shape our ideas rather than tuning into our own intuition and trusting ourselves is a huge distraction from getting on with the work that we most want to do and is a slippery slope towards people pleasing and losing our own voice.

It is really tempting, especially when we are thinking of beginning something new, or contemplating putting our ideas or products or whatever out into the world to consult all areas. We ask people in our family, we ask the whole of Instagram, we ask the man at the post office – we endlessly gather opinions. Often, what we are looking for is either validation that our ideas are good or for someone to tell us they are shit so we can back away and not have to sit in the potential discomfort of birthing something that feels important to us. Neither of these responses are going to propel us into meaningful work.

What is important is that you are excited and drawn to the ‘what’ of what you want to do, that you have information about the ‘how’ from your target market (not your auntie or your brother who will likely not be your target market) and that you cultivate a sense of inner trust in yourself and your own ideas that you can make decisions based on.

Ok, so tell me - are you seeing anything here that may be distracting you from getting on with the things you’d love to do?

It’s totally normal and human and there’s no shame to be scattered with this stuff. Bringing attention to it is the first step - seeing where you might be hiding or distracted is KEY to moving forwards.

The next step is learning some incredible tools for moving out of these hiding or distracting ways and facing your fears. I have an AWESOME free ‘Facing Fear' resource that you can grab below and you can sign up to come to my FREE Facing Fear Masterclass on the 16th of October!

5 SNEAKY SIGNS THAT FEAR IS RUNNING THE SHOW IN YOUR LIFE

Fear can be a sneaky little bastard, you know.

Strong opening line, huh?

But it’s true.

 The more I work with brilliant women, the more I see the sneaky, undermining ways that fear can creep into our lives and hold us back. I’m talking about the less obvious kind of fear.

Sometimes fear is very visceral; we feel it in our bodies. Our voice gets shaky, our adrenaline runs wild, we have flippy floppy feelings in our stomach when we start to take any kind of self-supportive action or move towards putting our own ideas or talents out there. Our body reacts in response to potential vulnerability to tell us to pull back, stay safe.

And then there are the sneaky ways that fear arrives; showing up in ways that we have convinced ourselves as ‘normal’ or ‘realistic’. These are the ways that seem to be more difficult to detect because we’ve spent generations observing them as the status quo for women or being conditioned to understand these patterns as “just the way it is” for us.

I want to identify five sneaky ways that I have seen fear show up in the lives of brilliant women like you and me and how they are stopping us from doing the things that we would love to do, create or offer in the world. 

HERE WE GO:

1) PLANNING PLANNING NEVER DOING

Any serial planners out there? I love to plan and map out an idea. I love systems and strategy and figuring stuff out behind the scenes. I can see how it would be easy to get stuck there. It feels safe in the back end of your idea, where you can let your imagination run wild and use up those TK Maxx notebooks and absorb all those free trainings you signed up for, right?

The truth is that when we get stuck in the planning stage, it’s often just plain old hiding. When we never feel like the thing is ready, when we are always adding bits or editing or doing more training or having another planning session we aren’t having to let any risk into our lives.

And it’s clever, because fear is fuelled by this. Fear wants to keep us safe from any kind of risk wether it be rejection or criticism or potential failure so hiding behind planning and never getting to the doing is the perfect disguise that fear can thrive in. 

Unfortunately though, fear has no interest in what it would feel like to be proud of something. Or what it would be like to feel fulfilled just because you did that thing. Or what it would be like to connect with others around your idea. Fuelling fear by staying behind your planning and research is a sure fire way to keep your ideas locked up forever.

2)    WORST CASE SCENARIO THINKING

There is nothing that fear loves more than you thinking about the potential of failure or rejection. It thrives in environments where your mind can catastrophise the worst possible outcome. When our default way of thinking is how terrible something is going to be or how impossible your idea seems, fear is having the time of its life.

The tricky part of this is that often we justify our worst case scenario thinking by calling it ‘realistic’. Which is a lie. True realistic thinking isn’t binary (terrible or fantastic, catastrophic or brilliant). Realistic thinking is curious and self-supportive.

Worst case scenario thinking is fears favourite place to hang out in your brain

3) TALKING TO THE WRONG PEOPLE ABOUT YOUR IDEAS

 Want to give fear a strong head start and kill a good idea fast? Start talking to your relatives about your plans.

Seriously.

When we are working on something precious to us, it’s so important to know who we should be sharing those ideas with.

More often than not, the people closest to us will a) want to keep us safe from any kind of risk or project their own fears onto us and b) are not the demographic of people that we are trying to connect with and won’t give us much feedback that is useful.  Of course it’s important to involve our loved ones in our plans when it might effect them, but be aware that sharing too much with them might give fear an opportunity to thrive and cause you to question what you’re doing.

4) IT’S GOING TO BE TOO HARD, WHY START?

So sneaky. Again, one of the ways that fear takes over is by making up stories in our heads to convince us that we are not up to the task. We stop before we start. We see the big picture ahead and, well, it’s going to be hard. Hard to fit into our life, hard to learn, hard to market, hard to plan, hard to finance. We shut our ideas down before they even have a chance to breathe.

When we stop before we start we are forgetting that we are evolving creatures. Our lives will change. Our circumstances will evolve. What feels unattainable right now might not in a few months or years. Giving up or shutting our ideas down is not the solution. SELF SUPPORT is. Curiosity IS. Asking ourselves “What is a small step I can take in the direction of this idea right now that will work with the context of my life?” or “How can I do something regularly that will give me the same feeling I am after from this bigger goal or idea?” 

Stopping before we start is also detrimental to our well-being because shutting our ideas down causes shame and resentment within ourselves and usually towards others. That disappointment is always channelled elsewhere – it does not just evaporate. It will feed into our relationships and other things we are committed to and we will end up associating those feelings with the idea that once brought us to life.

5)    YOU ARE CONSUMED BY WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE DOING

Are you watching someone else’s journey really closely? Are you checking in on their work, their numbers and stats? Are you looking at what they are doing and feel deflated or jealous or even a little bit irritated? First off, welcome to being human.

Secondly, fear is loving this. Fear is feasting on your fixation. Fear knows that as long as you are distracted, comparing, obsessing over someone else’s work or life then it’s able to keep you from doing what YOU were created to do, which is just fine with fear.

Fear wants you to think that money is scarce, clients are scarce, attention is scarce, customers are scarce, space at the table is scarce. That way, you’ll either just hold back or armour up.

Can you identify with any of this? I know I’ve been there, totally unaware that so much of my mindset was conditioned towards fear and staying small.

This doesn’t have to be ‘just the way it is’ for women. It can’t be. Because we need you in the world. We need creative, innovative, empathic women showing up and making an impact.

So what can we do? Can we just banish fear with some sort of pagan ritual or something?

Unfortunately not. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that we can make fear our friend. We can find work-arounds for fear and how it shows up in our lives. We can move through fear, seeing it for what it is and what it’s trying to do (keep us safe). We can have a healthy, empowered relationship with fear that actually propels us into action so we can do the things that we feel called to do in the world. Sound good? Don’t you want to get to that stage of understanding how fear shows up and knowing how to manage it so you can be more true to yourself?

There is so much to say about this so I’ve put together a free PDF with some really practical, helpful tips to help you move through fear AND! I’m going to be hosting an online Masterclass on Facing Fear on Wednesday, October 16th at 8pm BST – sign up up below to get more details and reminders!

5 SUBTLE WAYS WOMEN ARE SELF-SABOTAGING

I’m here for some straight talking today, folks. If I could write this whole blog post in CAPS and be sure it wouldn’t hurt your eyeballs, I would.

In all the work I’ve done with women of all ages and backgrounds over the last decade, there have been some emerging themes of self-sabotage that I have seen with my own eyes; some particular ways that I see brilliant women like you and I tripping ourselves up repeatedly over and over again.

Firstly, I want to lovingly say that this is the stuff of being human. These ways that we minimise ourselves, hand over power, get swept up and let fear lead the way – these things do not make you faulty – they make you human. The first step to being able to move beyond them into a truer sense of who you are is owning them; acknowledging that this stuff is real for you. That’s a biggie. So I want you to read this with an open mind, willing to see where it is that you might recognise yourself.

Let’s jump in. Below are five ways that I have repeatedly seen women sabotaging their own fulfilment and desires and holding back the progress of the sisterhood:

1)    Assuming there is not enough room for you.

Somewhere along the way, we have been fed the lie that when we see someone else doing something we would love to do that it automatically disqualifies us from doing it. Somewhere along the way we have picked up the message that there is not enough room for our version of the same thing. Somewhere along the way we have decided that if someone else is doing it, they now have the monopoly and they must be doing it better. In addition to that, we often fold in the double whammy lie that if we do decide to do something similar that people will think we are copying, we’ll be unlikable, talked about and thought of as a fraud or second rate. So we shut the idea down immediately, tuck in back in our safe zone, we retreat and let resentment and jealousy wash over us.

When we think like this, we are operating out of a scarcity mindset. This is the mindset that says that there is not enough space for us all to move around and be ourselves. This is the mindset that has us moving through the world believing that everything is a race, that competition is rife and that spaces for creativity, fulfilment and innovation are limited.

What we need are women who are willing to see past these lies, who give themselves permission to learn, try and grow and create environments for others to do the same. When we assume there is a limited amount of room for women to do the things that they are drawn to, we make the world smaller for ALL women when in reality, we have an unlimited amount of space to expand and stretch as we need to.

SOME WAYS WE CAN COUNTERACT THIS:

Acknowledge your own desires. Write them down and then tell a trusted friend. Do some light market research. Practice your craft or your offering. Arrange to meet up with someone who triggers jealousy or scarcity in you. Reach out to them and tell them how brilliantly they are doing.

2)    Recruiting other women to your pain.

The second way I see women self-sabotaging (and this is a biggie) is by recruiting other people to our pain. We’ve all been there on one side or the other. Wounded people tend to want to rally other people to their cause. If we have been wronged by another woman, misunderstood or failed – the temptation is to bring our people along for the ride. We want solidarity in our pain, to have an ally. Real alliance does not look like taking down the sisterhood because of our own fears or pain.

A few months ago I was faced with this. Someone I love had been hurt by another woman and they were in pain. They were so consumed with their own discomfort over it that they wanted me to join them. They really tried to get me in there in the pit with them. There was even a moment when they couldn’t see past themselves and tried to give me my own (personal) reason to join them in their annoyance, but I could see what was happening and I was able to call it out. My friend responded so bravely and quickly realised what she was doing. We talked it out so she felt understood and seen without adding more pain to the mix.

Don’t look for solidarity in bringing other women down. Stop trying to find someone to dislike the same people as you. One of the most powerful ways that patriarchy can thrive in our world today is when women turn on each other and recruit each other to sides. We can disagree, we can find fault, we can be hurt and hurt back, but let’s not try to grab each other in from the sidelines to join in our pain. This is the kind of sabotage that ripples out and breeds insecurity like a disease.

SOME WAYS WE CAN COUNTERACT THIS:

Give other women the benefit of the doubt when you hear things about them. Deal with your own pain. Redirect conversations that would tempt you to get involved in petty talk or that try to drag you into mutual disdain for someone. Challenge negative talk. Be obnoxiously supportive of other women.

 3)    We are not taking ourselves seriously.

Another subtle way I can see women self-sabotaging is by seriously underestimating themselves. I can see clearly where this comes from: if we take ourselves seriously, invest in things, put ourselves out there and it doesn’t work out – then we have egg on our face and everyone will know. If we stay in the shallow, never invest fully, never talk about our offerings with any intensity or authority then we stay safe. No one can shame us.  

The thing about not taking ourselves seriously is that we never move from that place. There is nowhere to go from here. We are stuck. And that stuck-ness will eventually spill out into resentment, frustration, grief and heartache. We will never realise our fuller potential. We will never fail and learn. We will never find the true fulfilment that comes from giving things our best shot and growing along the way.

If you are not investing in your own betterment, if you are shying away from opportunities that will bring discomfort, if you are downplaying what you do or hiding it away from the world – fulfilment is going to be a really hard reach for you. There is rarely any comfort to be found in growth. Take yourself seriously. Take your own growth and fulfilment seriously and watch how you evolve.

SOME WAYS WE CAN COUNTERACT THIS:

Invest in yourself; even something small. Take a course, join a facebook group, book into a workshop, tell people about your products or services. Eliminate minimising language from how you talk about what you do: “my little business” or “just my side-hustle”. (You can also grab my FREE 30 Days of Visibility Instagram prompts to help you talk about the things you have to offer, build community and communicate the ideas you have stored up).

4)    Making our minds up about what other people will pay for, engage with or buy.

We are SO good at assuming we know what people are thinking. We are EXCELLENT at making up whole scenarios and thought processes about how we will be perceived, what other people’s buying habits are, their budgets, their interests, aren’t we?

Some of us are so quick to write off our own ideas, sabotaging them before they get out of the gate that we have never let our ideas out into the air to breathe so they stay within us, choking us up. Let me tell you, there is a whole WORLD out there of people who need to hear what you have to say, who may need to hear things from your perspective to find healing, who may need to engage with your product to find a solution to their problems.

The ever-expanding ways that people are able to consume or connect with things in the world today means that we just cannot write off who might be interested in what we have to offer. If there is something burning in your soul that you feel drawn to put out into the world, you owe it to yourself to set it free. We cannot control who buys it or who can afford it or if it will sell – we simply have to be true to the thing that we are being called to do.

SOME WAYS WE CAN COUNTERACT THIS:

Do your research! Ask your target market about the things you are considering offering. Use social media to build community and offer value to the people in your orbit. GET SOME INFORMATION! Stay curious and open to possibilities. Stay true to your pricing. Don’t look around at what other people are charging for things (they could have major issues around this stuff as well!) – figure out what you want to offer, how much it costs you to make or produce and what you want to be paid and then ASK FOR IT!  

Finally… 

5)    Being consumed by perfectionism.

Oh my goodness, I get this one. I totally do. I am a recovering perfectionist. It is hard work. It has cost me a lot to be consumed with perfection and striving.

Let me give you a little example: Just this year I finally decided to turn my e-course ‘Down to Earth’ into a book to sell on my website. I spent ages going through the content, compiling it and converting it into a PDF. I agonised over fonts and settings and colours. Finally I let it out into the world and a bunch of people bought it! I made some money from it!

Then I went through it again recently and you know what – there’s a whole paragraph missing on one of the pages. A whole freaking paragraph, just sitting there, half written.

Two years ago this would have crippled me and kept me up at night – hopelessly obsessed that people would think I was a fraud, that I was unprofessional, that I wasn’t to be trusted (the drama of my inner critic is obscene). Two years ago me would have taken it down from my website right away and had it redone and made a big public apology to all my readers and resent it to them again.

This time, I just cringed and then laughed. Of course there was a mistake in it! It was 80 pages long and I’m not a professional editor. It’s one tiny paragraph and it doesn’t take anything away from the overall goodness of the book. It’s still on my website, still for sale, in all it’s imperfect glory.  

If you are waiting around for the perfect website, perfect branding, perfect whatever before even dipping your toe in the waters of the thing you want to do then can I please encourage you to stop and just start. This perfectionism is a guise for hiding. This need to get everything just ‘so’ before you present it to the world is wasting your precious life minutes and is just fear showing up in a different outfit.

SOME WAYS WE CAN COUNTERACT THIS:

Set yourself deadlines for doing things and STICK TO THEM! No more pushing back timings because of polishing things endlessly. If something feels too big and you’re really not ready, find a smaller way to get it out there in the time being. Go for good enough when you can. Don’t be a slave to an algorithm. Try and inject some spontaneity into your day. Look back and reflect on how far you have come. Make a point to celebrate small milestones. Remember your own humanity and the humanity of others. Give yourself a freaking break.

Do you see yourself in here anywhere? Is there a part of you that might be self-sabotaging and wants to move through it? Leave me a comment and let’s chat it out. I am SO here for women who want to move through some of these sabotaging behaviours and mindsets. I need these reminders in my life too. It is not easy to look this stuff in the eye and own it but we desperately need women in our world who know how to evolve with grace and dignity. We need women in the world who can see their own BS and decide that they are done with it and ready to shed the skin they are in and become truer versions of themselves.