Get the heck out of your own way

In this previous blog post, on success being just as hard as failure, I promised to share another big lesson I learnt in 2020, and that is to get the heck out of my own way.

For so long, I always told myself, I just wanted a lifestyle business where I could work three days a week and earn a comfortable income. And that was my five-year goal. I'm running a million dollar business I'm working three days a week. I have plenty of time to pursue passion projects. I can live by the beach, all of that. That was my goal and then I hit that five-year goal in 2020, and I was running a million dollar business working 20 to 25 hours a week. And I realized, wow, okay, I need a bigger vision.

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How to recognise self-sabotage in your business

I had been standing in my own way. I'd been holding myself back. I had been upper limiting myself by saying that I just wanted to work three days a week and have a lifestyle business. In my mind, I thought that building a seven-figure brand, building an empire was going to be too much work, too much stress.

And I didn't want it for that reason but in 2020, something started calling me to play a bigger game. Something started to push me to question why I only wanted to work three days a week. Why I only wanted this million-dollar business, why I couldn't build a seven-figure brand or an empire on three days a week. And it felt really terrifying to have this big belief challenged.

Recognise there is nothing holding you back but yourself

I noticed that I was self-sabotaging myself back to my comfort zone. Every time I would take a little tiptoe out of my comfort zone towards this bigger vision, something would pull me back and it wasn't until the second half of 2020, where I realized actually the only thing holding me back was myself. If I want to build an empire and I want to make it easy at the same time, I don't want it to be stressful, I don't want to work 60, 70 hour weeks. I can do that because I'm in the driver's seat here. I'm in charge of designing what I want my vision to look like. And I'm the only thing standing in my way from this. So that was a really big realization.

Get in tune with what you actually want, and not what looks good

Another thing that I realized was I am in charge of creating how my life feels, and I really wanted a life that felt as good on the inside as it looked on the outside. So that meant what felt aligned for me on the inside, I really had to journal on what feels aligned. Yes, it might look good from the outside to be living on the road, travelling, chasing all of my goals. Whatever you think looks good on the outside. Yes, that might look good but is that what I really wanted? And was that what I really felt like? This is still a process that I'm diving into at the moment, really figuring out what do I want, not what am I told that I should want, not what do I believe that I should want, but what do I actually want out of my future? What does the future of this business look like? And how am I getting in the way of this?

 

Don't create an upper limit for yourself

Where am I self-sabotaging? Where am I upper limiting myself? Because trust me, if you have an upper limit, if you have somehow created a little ceiling for yourself, whether you realize it or not, you are going to hit the ceiling and then you're going to self-sabotage your way back down, just like I did. So I really encourage you to think, okay, do I need a bigger vision? Am I upper limiting myself? Am I holding myself back? Am I telling myself stories about what I can actually achieve? What's actually possible? Often what we think is possible is so different from what is actually possible.

I thought it wasn't possible to run a million-dollar business on three days a week, to build that in a year from when I set that goal. I thought it was going to take me five years to achieve that and I achieved it in a year. So really what we think is possible, a lot of it's just made up. So I really encourage you to think about that and dig deep!

 

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