Stop Shoulding On Yourself
“I start to hear all the things I ‘SHOULD’ be doing on social media and I want to run screaming for the hills.”
One of our Impact Incubator participants shared this during our weekly coaching call and you should have see the chat started blowing up in validation after this comment.
Turns out, many of us feel overtaken by the “SHOULDS.”
Any of these “shoulds” sound familiar?
Posting 3 stories, one static post, and a reel a day, engaging more, etc on Instagram
Doing a 5 day challenge for a launch?
Learning TikTok when you have no desire to point and dance?
Hosting your own podcast?
Running a free FB group?
Charging more for the sake of charging more
Making their programs “evergreen”
The list goes ON AND ON AND ON.
I remember when I first bucked the “shoulds” in my own business…
Someone I looked up to told me “You’re not a serious business owner unless you run your business from Infusionsoft.” (now known as Keap).
This is back in 2013 when I was peddling jewelry and small gifts and just barely learning about email marketing to grow my business. The truth was I couldn’t afford to invest in that software at the time, so I stuck with MailChimp, which was still free to me in that stage. I felt ashamed for having the MailChimp logo on every email that went out because I thought it meant I somehow wasn’t good at business.
But you know what happened?
I decided to continue anyway– to grow in the way I could until I could afford the bigger platform.
I delivered my first course via MailChimp–not some fancy pants software I couldn’t afford, and ended up netting just over a quarter of a million dollars from that simple course alone during it’s existence.
The more I imperfectly delivered, the more my confidence grew.
I’m not suggesting delivering your course via Mail Chimp is right for you.
Because that would just be me telling you another thing you SHOULD do.
The things that will work for you are the ones you’re actually going to use, be consistent with, and learn from.
So how do you move out of the quicksand of “SHOULD” land? This is what has worked for me:
1. Get clear on YOU, your capacities, your energy, your skills, and what you ACTUALLY want. Define success for yourself.
Most of the time it’s not a “mindset” issue like the gurus want you to believe (and pay them thousands of dollars to fix.) When you’re just starting out anything new, it’s easy to fall into the trap of comparison and seeing what everyone else is doing who appears to be successful. So you make this decision to do everything you see everyone else doing– which is the quickest path to not-enoughness.
Ask yourself: What is MY truth? What do I REALLY want?
Start with where you are already feeling confident/good/skillful and build from there. (if you need help getting started, download our free Income and Impact Blueprint, here, where we will guide you in the steps we take every client through before we set any goals.)
2. Get clear on who you are serving and what THEY want.
This is not easy work. It requires you to talk to people and get to know them and really listen empathetically. It requires you diving into the psychology of the person you are serving, finding a need, then filling a need.
Ask THEM: What do THEY want? What do THEY need? Where do they hang out? How do you get in front of them? What do you offer than can solve a problem for someone else? How can you deliver it in a way that also honors what feels good energetically to YOU? How can this interaction be win-win for both parties?
(If you find yourself struggling with answering these questions, grab our Ideal Client Self-Guided Curriculum. This is the core of all business transactions, regardless of how big or small your offer is).
3. Put blinders on and get to work.
Don’t look left. Don’t look right. Baby steps each and every day. Celebrate your wins and get better. Show up each day for yourself and for the people you serve. Learn from people who are ahead of you on the journey, but more importantly, from people who share your values and prioritize the things that are also important to you. People who fill your skills gap and embody what they are actually teaching you.
The “shoulds” can plague us at any stage of business or life, but they don’t have to. Whenever I’ve gone my own way, it’s always paid off and it will for you too.
This whole business building and expanding journey is also building and expanding YOU. And the more you stay aligned in your truth and your heart for service, the better results you’ll see.
You’ve got this.
P.S.
When you’re ready to finally launch that course or group program out into the world, and you want to learn from leaders who walk their talk with transparency, humanness, and integrity, here are some ways you can work with us:
THE IMPACT INCUBATOR: a year-long mentorship that supports aspiring and seasoned course/program creators, professionals, speakers, and leaders create and launch a 1-to-many offer that maximizes your impact and income.
THE TRUE SUCCESS CIRCLE: An intimate mastermind of experienced course/program facilitators who are ready to launch better. We stick by your side for 90 days leading up to and through your launch. You get more support and strategy and peace, less overwhelm, chaos, and launches that don’t give you the ROI you want/deserve.
VIP DAY: We meet, go through your IP and body of work to help you design your overarching framework, get clarity on your offers/programs + deliver to you a launch plan that you can take and implement with you team.