A huge misconception that exists is that people don't realize that growth.
It is uncomfortable. Growth is not fun.
I can't count the amount of times that I've either wanted to give up or hated
the direction that my business was going. And I didn't know what to do about it.
What's up everyone. Welcome back to my channel, the best place for new coaches,
content, creators, and entrepreneurs in today's video.
I want to answer the question that I got through my Instagram account that I
wanted to dedicate an entire video on. And the question was, you know,
there is a flame inside that makes you keep going, but what if it turns off?
And that's why I've titled the video today, the way that it is,
which is starting to hit your business, watch this before you give up.
And I know that I haven't been in business for that long.
Actually I started my business in 2019.
That's when I officially launched the business. And now it's 2021.
And so it's been about like almost three years. This will be the third year.
And throughout this short period of time,
I can't count the amount of times that I've either wanted to give up or hated
the direction that my business was going and I didn't know what to do about it.
And so I just basically crumbled inside until I was reborn again.
And so let's talk about that because I know how easy it is to feel like you want
to give up on your business or feel like, you know,
it's not going anywhere that you'd like to,
or maybe you have a successful business, but it's not fulfilling you.
And you just realize that expectation does not equal reality.
And you're just like, what the heck am I doing? And so in today's video,
I want to share the three questions that you need to ask yourself before you
give up on your business. And for each question,
I'm going to try to back it up with personal experience.
So you know that you're not alone. And the goal is by the end of this video,
I hope that you won't give up on your business and instead take these other
steps instead, versus just cutting off your business entirely.
So if you're interested in that, then keep on watching. All right.
So let's talk about the first question that you should ask yourself.
If you're feeling like you might be hating your business,
but you don't know if it's actually true.
And that is be honest with yourself and ask,
do I actually hate my business or do I just hate the
season that my business is in right now?
These are two very different things.
There is one thing about hating your entire business,
not feeling attached to your mission,
not really feeling attached to the goals you've set versus feeling uncomfortable
because a huge misconception that exists is that people don't realize that
growth is uncomfortable. Growth is not fun.
Every time I go through a growth period,
I basically break down and cry because it feels so hard and it
feels so painful.
What you have to realize is that the result of growth is when you start feeling
great. But if you don't push past that discomfort and you decide to give up,
then you'll never grow.
And another thing that you have to realize is the goals that you've set in
business. Most people,
they set goals because they want to achieve something that they've never done
before. You wouldn't set goals based off of things that you've already done,
your goals should be uncomfortable.
So it doesn't make sense for you to think that the process to get to those goals
is going to be fine and dandy.
And I want to share my screen and show you and explain to you what the Valley of
despair looks like,
so that you can catch yourself before you give up on your business when things
get hard. So this is the Valley of despair. Let's say,
you're starting your business.
You're going to start at phase one because you have a lot of uninformed
optimism. You have the idea of starting a business,
but you actually don't know how much work it takes.
So obviously you're really excited about all the possibilities. Now,
as you start to do more work, maybe you enroll in a program like my program,
the boss Graham Academy.
And you realize that there's a lot more work than you thought it was.
Or maybe you're about to launch your YouTube channel.
And you're starting to get really scared about not only all the work,
but putting yourself out there. Well, now you enter phase two.
This is informed pessimism.
This is when you are acknowledging how much work it takes.
And now you're starting to feel a lot of doubt in your capabilities because it's
not what you had expected. Now, then you're going to enter phase three.
This is the Valley of despair.
This is when it's going to be the rock bottom moment for you,
where you feel extremely overwhelmed.
You're not seeing any results whatsoever and you just want to give up. Now,
most people they can quit and go back to the start with a new project,
with a new business, with a new platform, doesn't matter and repeat phases one,
two, three, but those who succeed,
they decide to push through phase three and then they enter phase four.
This is called informed optimism.
This is when you start taking action and you start seeing results.
Even if they're not big, they're small and you're making some sort of progress.
Now you have informed optimism because you know what you need to do to get
things done. And you feel optimistic about your future. Then lastly,
you enter phase five. This is success and fulfillment.
All the fruits of your labor are really coming to fruition.
And you really start seeing the momentum and the success that you had put in
throughout all these five phases.
Now let's say you're like watching this video and you're thinking to yourself,
no, I don't think it's the season that I'm in.
I think I actually genuinely don't like my business.
Well before giving up and thinking I'm not cut to be an entrepreneur,
or I should just close shop,
continually ask yourself if you would be willing to pivot instead.
And this is where I really want to embed some personal examples for me today.
As of right now,
I help content creators and new coaches get visible and get paid.
And what that means is I help you get visible with social media and get paid
with business strategy. That's what I do,
but I wasn't doing this all throughout 2019 until now I have
pivoted a few times, however, I'm still in business.
I'm still working with clients that has never changed.
I'm still doing YouTube videos. I never gave up on that,
but I made minor adjustments and tweaks to my business to the point where I now
feel happy with what I'm doing.
And that's not to say that I will never pivot again.
What makes you happy now may not make you happy. Six months down the road,
a year down the road. Once you start collecting more experiences,
once you start collecting more data, and once you just growing as an individual,
it is absolutely normal that over time in business,
you no longer feel connected to what you're doing,
but that does not mean that you should give up entirely.
When it comes to being an entrepreneur, being a business owner,
it could just mean you need to make some adjustments,
whether that's an adjustment in your product suite,
whether that's an adjustment in the niche and adjustment in your team or your
work schedule,
there are so many little adjustments that you can make either little or big,
actually that you can make in order for you to feel excited again and passionate
again about what you're working on. So for example, when I first started,
I had a Facebook group called the fearless boss network.
This Facebook group was catered to helping anyone who was a millennial.
It was super broad. And in that Facebook group,
I gave advice on starting a business. I gave advice on YouTube.
I gave advice on how to land an interview at a job and how to ACE that
interview. I gave advice on Amazon because I invited guests experts. You know,
it was kind of all over the place. And when I first started,
I really enjoy doing that. But over time I started to resent my Facebook group.
I started to get really unclear as to who I was really serving and how I would
even monetize this. And it just didn't make me happy anymore.
And so instead of thinking, okay, well that must mean that I'm a failure.
And that must mean that, you know,
I should just drop this business entirely and go back to a nine to five instead
I pivoted and I changed that Facebook group to turn your followers into clients.
And I niched down and I started telling and explained to my audience,
it's been a pleasure serving you, however, I'm going in a different direction.
And now I want to help coaches specifically because I feel the most connected.
And I feel the most happiest when I can help this specific segment of people.
And that led to what I have today. However,
remember I didn't give up just because I didn't like what I was doing.
I just made a pivot and pivoting can be really hard and uncomfortable,
but I guarantee you, and especially from experience in your mind,
you make it a bigger deal than it actually is. And over time,
you're going to feel much happier that you pivoted,
especially if you're pivoting into something that you feel more confident about,
that you feel more clear about, and also your audience doesn't mind either.
And even if you might feel sad that you're going to lose a few followers or that
you're going to lose a few customers by pivoting,
what you have to realize is the moment that you,
as the business owner start showing up differently, because you're happier,
you're more confident you're going to attract a whole other slew of new
customers, new followers that are a hundred percent ideal for your business,
and that make you super happy to even have this business. In the first place.
I gave an example about niching down.
And if you're interested in learning more strategies on niching down,
or even how to get started in the first place,
when it comes to creating an online business,
make sure you visit my free training@wwwdotfollowerstoclients.com industry.
Meaning I also share my journey and I give really awesome tips and strategies
when it comes to niching down for your business.
The link is in the comment section or in the description box below pivoting my
niche and niching down a little bit from what I was doing before in 2019.
Another good example that I to share with you is my program,
the boss ground Academy.
This is my paint program where I teach people how to create their own coaching
or consulting businesses. And by the end of that program,
they're able to turn their followers into clients and basically launch their
business. When I first started creating this program, I was super happy with it.
I was very excited to sell it. I was just over the moon in love with my product,
but over time as I started to get more experience,
as I started to work with more people,
I started to fall out of love with my own product.
Now I had two decisions that I could make.
I could either give up on this product entirely and create a new product that
would make me happier, which is fine,
or I could make adjustments to my current product until I loved it again.
And so this is what I did instead of spending more time and energy to create a
whole new product.
I basically rebranded the boss Graham Academy and went from an old logo to a new
logo, an old look and feel to a new look and feel.
I redesigned the entire curriculum, refilled, everything, added new content,
remove content that I was no longer aligned with updated the sales page,
everything.
And today I am obsessed with my program because I made those steps
to improve it. And so whether you create a new product as your way of pivoting,
or you update an upgrade, your existing product,
I assure you that those two options are way better than giving up on your
business entirely. If you do feel like you hate your business,
remember there are other things that you can do, whether that's pivoting,
upgrading, whatever you need to do to love your business again.
And just to give you an extra example, that's not, business-related,
it's very similar to being in a marriage or being in a long-term relationship.
The flame might die from your relationship,
but that doesn't necessarily mean that you break up or you have a divorce.
Maybe there's other things that you can do,
whether that's going to couples therapy, whether that is going on a vacation,
taking a break, hiring a babysitter, hiring a cleaner,
doing whatever it takes to make the relationship work.
And it's kind of the same with your business.
There are different steps that you can take before giving up entirely.
Now moving onto the third question that I want you to ask yourself,
especially if you've gotten to this point in the video. And so far,
none of the other two questions hit home for you. And that is ask yourself,
are you tired? Because it's okay to feel tired in business.
It's okay to take a break. And it's also okay to recharge.
Understand that some seasons in business are slower than others,
and you're not always going to feel happy and enthusiastic about running a
business because yes, you have your business. That is one aspect of your life,
but you also have your own health that you have to take care of your own family,
that you have to take care of your friends, your family, your fitness,
all these different things. You can't expect yourself. Year over year, month,
over month, week over week to always feel happy and always on.
Even for me, a trend that I noticed within myself is this year. And last year,
November, December, January, February, I feel like crap.
I start comparing myself to other people in business.
I start feeling behind because I guess in Q1,
I'm always thinking about what I want to do. I start goal setting.
I start thinking about new year's resolutions,
and then I start getting anxiety and they start getting stressed.
It happens to me. And so in Q1,
I know that I might not be as consistent on social media.
That's also why I took a 30 day break back in February two months ago.
And the same thing last year as well. I noticed a trend. It wasn't intentional,
but this is something that I know about myself. And I know about my business.
I know that every Q1, I don't feel great. And so, because I know this,
I give myself permission to slow down,
even though it's easy to feel bad for not posting consistently,
or it's easy to feel bad for not showing up whatever showing up looks like for
you. You have to realize that you've got other months in the year to kill it.
And I want to show you my sales from 2020.
What I noticed is that the first two quarters of my business,
it was slow. I was breaking down a lot.
I felt like I wasn't growing fast enough. I felt just sluggish all the time.
However, in Q3 and Q4,
my sales started to really pick up because all of the effort and all of the work
that I was doing behind the scenes,
whether it was on myself mentally and physically or strategically on my business
were starting to pay off. There is a compounding effect in business,
the same way. There's a compounding effect in fitness.
And so what you have to realize is that in business,
especially if you're watching this video during this season,
when you're feeling upset,
just know that the work that you're doing will be seen eventually.
I know what it feels like to feel super tired,
or I know what it feels like to be working on behind the scenes projects and
your audience and your followers don't know.
And don't see the amount of work that you're putting in,
but know that it's going to pay off in a few months time and for you to be
patient.
Another thing that you have to realize is that breaks are a good thing and don't
feel ashamed. If you need to take a month off of your business.
That's essentially what I do. Every like January to February,
I'm always just taking it slow. Instead, what I do is I work on my health.
I work on reading more books or watching more Netflix or whatever it is to get
my creativity back up.
I don't try to punish myself for taking a break if you're watching this video.
And like I said, if those other two questions, didn't sit with you, then again,
ask yourself, can you take a break? Are you just tired?
Is it okay that this season is a slower season and that you can catch up later
after you've rested and recuperated yourself,
because those are the critical questions that every business owner,
no matter if you're a beginner,
intermediate or expert should be asking yourself every single year,
when will I schedule break time? When will I schedule a vacation?
These are things that nobody talks about,
and it's really toxic and misleading when you see other people act like they're
always on. And so remember this, it is okay to take a break.
So for in this video,
we covered three critical questions that you should be asking yourself.
If you're feeling like you're hating your business,
or you're hating yourself as an entrepreneur and what to do instead of just up
number one,
ask yourself if you're mixing the feeling of growth and discomfort with giving
up on your business, because those two are not the same thing. Number two,
ask yourself if you'd be willing to pivot or make adjustments to your business
in order for you to like it again. And again, don't be afraid of pivoting.
Don't be afraid of adding changes. Your business is meant to grow,
and it's meant to evolve. And number three,
ask yourself if you're just tired and if you'd be willing to take a step back so
that you can recuperate and rest. And so when you get back into your business,
you can feel yourself again. Now while you guys wait for next week's video,
I post a lot of videos on entrepreneurship, marketing, social media,
and all the likes of that.
So make sure you also check out these two videos that I have right here.
I promise they won't disappoint as always guys. I appreciate you.
I hope you guys have a great day, a great week and a great life.
And I hope to see you in the next video. Bye guys.