320 Hidden THREATS! 3 Ways You're HALTING Your Business Growth
Self-sabotage in business.
Actionable steps to overcome it
In this episode, Kelsey delves into the topic of self-sabotage in business.
She highlights 3 common ways entrepreneurs may unknowingly hold themselves back and provides actionable advice on overcoming these challenges.
Tune in to uncover valuable strategies for breaking free from self-sabotaging patterns and unlocking your full business potential.
Episode quote: Overcoming Self-Sabotage: "She was stuck in a cycle of preparation and brainstorming and writing down ideas, but there was no action or result from it."
— Kelsey [00:25:19 → 00:25:30]
Episode Time Stamps:
[00:00] Recognizing and addressing self-sabotage in business.
[03:43] Identifying self-sabotage in business and overcoming it.
[09:37] Believe 110% in your product for success.
[12:39] Belief in product crucial for business success.
[14:12] Avoid constant launches; focus on improvement.
[19:15] Entrepreneurs need support and guidance for success.
[20:50] Investing in masterminds for business growth.
[25:19] Overcame self-sabotage, launched successful program, offered help
To connect with Kelsey:
Access the transcript for this episode:
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Hey visionaries.
Welcome back to the show. I'm so excited to sit down with you today and talk about the ways you might be self sabotaging your business. I know it's easier to blame plateaus and dry months on the algorithm, or the size of your email list, or the fact that, you know, nobody responded to a newsletter that you sent out. But honestly, sometimes there are different ways that we as entrepreneurs actually block our own success. This may not be what you want to hear. It reminds me of the Taylor Swift song. It's me.Hi, I'm the problem. It's me. Okay, that's the last time I will ever sing on this podcast. I promise you that. If you want to turn it off, I totally get it. I do not have a voice for the radio or for television or yeah, the singing voice. Maybe I have a voice for podcasting. Anyways, this is my mom brain going off on a tangent.
But the truth is, so often when we feel stuck in our business, when we feel like things are not progressing, unfolding, evolving, I don't know what other synonym I can use for that word. It is often because of something we are doing. So today I'm going to share three ways you might be self sabotaging in hopes that you can uncover one of these three ways. Or maybe you are stuck doing all three of them and you can start to actively shift it. And the first way to start getting out of that unstuck energy is to become aware of what's going on. So that's what we're talking about today. But just quickly, before we get into that up top, I wanted to say, number one, thank you so much for tuning in to the first episode of season 13. This is where I gave you guys a recap of 2023.
I talk about my journey into motherhood, and I give a little bit of a teaser on what you can expect for 2024. What my vibe is, why I didn't do formal goal setting this year, what my word of the year is. So if you didn'tune, into that episode, definitely head back in the podcast feed for visionary life and go check it out. And in that episode, I also shared that 2024 is going to be a year of more in person events with you guys. And I'm really, really excited for that. So first off, if you want to attend our entrepreneur meetup for women who have been in business for at least three years, head over to my instagram and message me. This is a meetup happening in Puslinch Lake at the cutest lakeside organic market we're going to sip almond milk lattes together. 2 hours of business connection.
And this is happening on April 19, so definitely send me a message about that if you'd like an invite. And on May 10, we are running an online business essentials full day immersive event. This is going to happen in Guelph, Ontario. You might remember I hosted this with Emily back in October. So if you're in southwestern Ontario and this sounds cool, head to kelseyridal.com occ or message me on Instagram and let me know that you are interested in coming to one of these events. We're so excited to be building more community in person this year. And honestly, I feel like after a few years with the pandemic, with everything going online, digital courses, online programs, et cetera, so many of you are craving that in person connection, and I am, too. So that's why 2024 is going to be the year of meeting you guys in person.
So I cannot wait. All right, let's get into today's episode. We want to talk about why you're self sabotaging your business success, or three of the ways you might be self sabotaging and how to fix them. Okay, so first, I just want to ask you a few questions. Have you ever felt in your business like you're just running around in circles? Maybe you are just sending a bunch of emails, recording a bunch of podcasts, posting on Instagram every day at 07:00 a.m. Chasing this success, but somehow you don't feel like you're progressing? Well, this might be a sign of self sabotage. And honestly, I can remember so many days, so many weeks in my business that I feel like my own mindset was my greatest adversary. I was literally trapped in these spirals or these cycles where I would think, okay, this is the way it has to be done, and I'm just going to follow this blueprint for launching that my coach gave me, and I'm going to just put my head down and work, work, work, and I'm going to follow the process.
And then the results wouldn't happen, the launch wouldn't go as planned, and I would wonder, what the heck is going on? And when I really started to do the work, I realized there were many things happening. Number one, I was trapped in an employee mindset. I was following a standard process instead of leaning into my entrepreneurial gifts. Number two, for so many years, I was trying to do things by myself on an island of one, I had no friends who were entrepreneurs. I felt like nobody understands me. Nobody was connecting or promoting me. I didn't have a network of people that were supporting me. And honestly, this is a way that we self sabotage.
We isolate ourselves, we hide behind our laptop. So I just wanted to cue this podcast up with saying, I have been where you have been. And if each day for you is feeling like a solo mission and you find yourself saying what I used to say, nobody really gets me, or I feel like this just isn't working. This is that self doubt, that self sabotage that tends to creep in. And honestly, so many entrepreneurs go through this, whether you're unknowingly traversing it, or maybe as you listen to this, you're like, yeah, it is me. I am the problem. It's me. I'm not even a Taylor Swift fan, to be honest.
So I don't know why I'm quoting that so much. But again, it's not the social media algorithm, it's probably not the size of your list, and it's probably not the fancy branding on your website holding you back. It's us. And I truly believe that at least 75% of business owners feel like they have this invisible chain pulling them down some days. And if we could simply cut the cord, release the chains around our neck, and let ourselves be free of self sabotage, so much would change. So first, let's kind of understand what is self sabotaging. So it's not always a practice done in full awareness. So it's not like you wake up and say, I'm going to screw myself over today, or I'm going to make my launch fail, or I'm going to desert myself on an island and not connect with others.
Honestly, so much of the time, this is subconscious. This is why, and this is going to be a shameless plug. This is why. The mastermind that I host for women, it is a group that meets every single Wednesday. That's why it's so important to have this group and to be part of it. Because with the person I co facilitate it with Emily, she can recognize these patterns and literally snip the cord, the chains that are holding you back within seconds. And we've seen people who have had breakthroughs going from delaying a launch of a group program to launching and having 20 paid members almost overnight. Like, this is crazy.
So it's not always going to be this huge, intensive process to get rid of self sabotage. Sometimes it literally is just someone calling you on your bullshit, giving you the next strategy, and then you are lifted. You are free. Okay, so that's a little intro to self sabotage. I've been working with clients for almost a decade now, and I see bits and pieces of self sabotage come up almost in every single person. And the challenging part about it is that everybody kind of has different chains wearing them down again. Sometimes people are stuck in an employee mindset and they're self sabotaging by working a nine hour structured day, five days a week, they're following really strict processes. They forget that entrepreneurialism, if that's even a word, is an abundant, limitless, unlimited path.
Right? So that's a form of self sabotage. So let's get into a few of the other self sabotaging mechanisms that I recognize in clients. So the first one that I want to share is you're self sabotaging by having a lack of belief in your offers. I know this sounds crazy because you look at an entrepreneur who's successful, and normally they have so much confidence, almost an arrogance in what they're selling. People like Steve Jobs, people like the guy who founded Microsoft. I'm blanking on his name, but he steps on stage and he's just like the hype man. Just getting everybody pumped up. So ecstatic.
Yet so many of us in our first couple years of business, we still have that wavering belief in our offer, which is totally fine, but that probably means that the product isn't as good as it could be. So if you feel yourself wavering in your belief that this is such an amazing product, that this is a great way for your clients to spend their hard earned cash, then we need to go back to the drawing board. You are self sabotaging if you don't believe 110% in what you're selling, because I guarantee you that is rippling out into every piece of marketing you put into the world. Right? It's in your tone of voice, it's in the way you copyright, it's in the confidence you exude when you're at the local coffee shop or the local restaurant telling your server or your barista about your offer. If I say, hey, I have this workshop coming up on Thursday, I'm going to help nutritionists make bank through an online course. It's from seven to nine. I give you the entire method, plus a workbook to back everything up. I'm also throwing in some incredible email marketing templates.
Do you want to join me? If you're a nutritionist, you're probably like, oh my gosh, that sounds amazing on the other end, if I'm like, I'm going to test out this workshop. But I don't know that it's going to be that great. We might meet around 06:00 p.m. On Thursday evening. Nutritionists are invited, but I also think if you're anyone else, you can come too. And I might have some email templates, but I've never used them before, so they might not be effective. You're probably already tuned out. Like, I was watching Netflix recently with my husband, and I think we were watching the documentary around how juul the e cigarette blew up.
It's like that e cigarette that a lot of teens started to latch onto, and it is supposed to be a replacement for typical tobacco. Anyways, one of the founders, as we were watching this documentary, he said, belief is a marketing strategy. And I was like, oh, mic drop. Belief could be your only marketing strategy. Showing up with such an intense belief that it radiates over your whole body. You've built something that you believe in more than anyone else, because you're the creator, you're the spokesperson. If you don't believe in what you're selling, I guarantee you nobody else does. But I truly believe that with belief, you could build a million dollar business.
So really consider how this is playing out in your business. If you don't believe in what you're selling again, nobody else will. Your doubts can subliminally creep into every business decision. Your doubts creep into your marketing. Your doubts creep into your body language. Your doubts creep into your sales conversation. So, guys, belief is a marketing strategy. Your belief comes first.
And if you don't have belief, you are self sabotaging. So this is a really basic strategy. But honestly, square one, I can't even take on a marketing client, especially a solopreneur who's the spokesperson. If they are not 100% convinced that they have a product that is worthy, of course it creeps in at times. And I do help my clients to improve their offer because that's part of the business foundation. But if the belief really isn't there, and if it's nowhere close, then we have to start at square one. Go back to the drawing board and ask ourselves, why don't you believe in what you're selling? Okay, so that's, number one. As a way that we self sabotage in business, we don't believe in what we're selling.
Let's get into number two. The second way that entrepreneurs self sabotage is they over innovate and they under optimize. So here's what I mean by that, especially with online business owners who is predominantly tuning into this podcast, a lot of you have personal brands. You're building YouTube channels. You have online courses, you do coaching, consulting. You're a health professional. We have a tendency to want to launch new products all of the time rather than staying in our lane and focusing on selling and optimizing one offer to one audience using one marketing plan for one year. Now, I talk about this all the time with clients, and they don't like it.
They're like, no, because all the Instagrammers, they're launching new programs every single month, and I have to have a new master class every single Friday, and I'll launch an online course, and then I'll just move on to the next one. You guys, this is not effective. It's actually a form of self sabotage because you keep thinking, I'll just move on to the next thing instead of optimizing what you've built, having one product that is solid, that has deep roots, that you continue to improve and create more leads and awareness for if you are instead just moving on to, okay, now I'm going to launch another course. Now I'm going to build this master class. You are self sabotaging your success because you keep chasing the new shiny object. You think that burning it all down and building it back up is going to be the secret to success. Newsflash. That barely ever works.
Like, yes, you might launch something new every Friday, and you'll get a few new eyeballs saying, oh, I'm interested, but you're starting from scratch every single time. This is the ultimate form of self sabotage, in my opinion. So, six years or seven years ago, I hired a business coach, one of my very first business coaches at this time. I was selling social media courses. I was selling copywriting courses. I was selling a marketing masterclass. I was selling an intro to online business course. I had freelance services, lots for sale on my website.
And she said, what if you could only sell one offer? And I thought, well, I don't want to do that because then I'm really limiting myself. But she said, why don't you just package all of this up? Like, what could you create that is truly encompassing of all of your best work? Kelsey. And that's when I created the visionary method. And for the next three years, all I did was sell the visionary method. Yes, it evolved. Yes, it changed. Yes, I got more clear. But at the end of the day, if I had five minutes or 5 hours to work on my business any given day, over the course of these almost 1000 days, all I did was talk about the visionary method.
All I did was improve the visionary method. All I did was think about the visionary method. So instead of over innovating and feeling like, okay, the next thing, the next thing, the next thing, all I did was optimize for three years. I built out a simple funnel. I wrote all my email marketing. I had one call to action. It was to join the visionary method. And I launched it three to four times per year.
I took on private clients and helped them with the visionary method and starting their online business. And I didn't launch anything new. And it actually felt hard. I had a lot of resistance when my coach said this, but I get it, because what I was doing pre hiring my coach, lindsay, was I would show up to work on my business to launch products, to build my marketing plan. And I always felt scattered. I was like, 25% selling a social media course, 25% selling my email marketing course, 25% working freelance. There were just so many things that I could do, and then I'd be like, oh, and I need to launch this new thing. And I have a master class that I want to teach called entrepreneurship is possible for all of us.
And I have this webinar that I want to create. And I was all over the map. I was truly all over the place. So my efforts were so spread thin, my energy was diverted in so many directions. And the moment that I decided to channel everything that I had into the visionary method, it's like this bubble of fog lifted up, and people started to become way more attracted to me and my work and not attracted to me, rather my business, because the message was so clear. All they heard me talk about was the visionary method. And it was either for them or not for them, which was beautiful. So I guess the underlying message here and the phrase that I always say is to solve one problem for one type of person, using one marketing plan for one year.
And if you have optimized everything you possibly can, if the customer journey is so clear and so dialed in after a year, then launch your next thing, but don't do it before then. So that's the second way that entrepreneurs self sabotage. Now, the final and third way that you might be self sabotaging is something I call the lone Wolf syndrome. So you feel like you have to do all of this alone. You feel like you're not connected. You don't have people to call on and ask for help with. And going solo might feel heroic, but it's often a recipe for disaster. And as humans, as entrepreneurs, we are hardwired for community.
You guys, entrepreneurs need a support system, for bouncing ideas off each other, for obtaining advice and getting the right advice quickly rather than figuring it all out. Ourselves and community helps to motivate us and get us around like minded individuals who understand the journey. And I believe that a way entrepreneurs self sabotage in the early years is they get in this mindset of I have to figure it all out myself rather than asking themselves, who do I know that already has the answer? Imagine you had an advisory board with ten or 20 or two or three business owners who could hand you the blueprint to success. This is why people hire coaches. This is why people hire group programs or join masterminds. Because instead of me spending the next ten years trying to figure out what's the best strategy for digital selling of courses, what's the best tactic for filling a webinar, how are people generating leads through Instagram? What's the best way to start an affiliate program? I can literally put myself in a room with a few people and they can give me the exact strategies. Of course I'm going to have to adapt. Of course I'm going to have to ask, how does this fit in my business? But every single year I invest in a mastermind because people are just telling me exactly what's working for them.
They're supporting me, they're jumping on calls with me. And whether you choose to go the paid route and invest money to join a mastermind, which is an investment, not an expense, an investment has a return on investment. Normally, I'll put aside 10,000, $20,000 a year to invest in a business mastermind or a business coach. In fact, I just said yes to my next mastermind. I'm literally buzzing with excitement. It's a five figure investment, but I believe in the possibility of this group that I'm going to be surrounded by. I believe in putting myself in the room with a high caliber of entrepreneurs who intimidate me, right? Because I know it's going to have a return on investment and you don't even have to spend money, right? You could assemble your own advisory boards, call on a couple of your business besties, and say, guys, I would love to start a weekly or a monthly conversation. Last Friday of every month, let's meet for 3 hours, let's hold each other accountable, let's declare our goals, let's say what is challenging, and let's each give each other 30 minutes to talk, and then we'll do 30 minutes to share ideas, brainstorm, and problem solve with you.
So maybe this is a three hour meeting once a month, and it could just be with three of your business besties. I have this with my friends Steph and Krista. We just chat on Marco Polo. It's an app. It's free. We check in with each other whenever we want, so there's not too much structure. We will set up Zoom meetings or co working dates, maybe two to three times a year. But other than that, it's asynchronous communication, and we chat with each other, and we just say, this is what's going on.
Do you guys have any ideas or. Hey, I just signed a $10,000 client. I want to celebrate. And we share in each other's successes. So, again, get yourself a sounding board. A way that we self sabotage is thinking that we're alone on an island with nobody to call, and then we spiral, and then we give up, and then we cancel our launches, and then we quit on ourselves. So this is a way we self sabotage, because if the product is good, if you have optimized everything you can, now it's time to get around the right people and to make sure you don't feel that isolation that so many entrepreneurs feel. And this is a challenging one, because I think one of the reasons we become entrepreneurs is because we feel different.
We want to take a different path. We want to go left when everyone's going right, and by nature, that leads us down a road where we are alone. But then we need to find our people. Then we need to find the others who are walking out their own path. And if you are interested in joining some sort of a business mastermind, I would happily invite you to check out kelseyridal.com slash mastermind. This is where the group of female entrepreneurs that I co facilitate with Emily Elliott and I, we meet every single Wednesday. We talk mindset, business strategy. We have a incredible high ticket sales coach coming up the first week of February.
So if you're listening to this before then, let me know, and I can see if I can get you a free ticket to this training. Just dm me the word sales on instagram, and I'll send you the joining info. We have people who are teaching us about copywriting. We do these group power sessions where we give each other hours worth of advice within three minutes. It is the best group. I am shamelessly self promoting it. But again, if you're self sabotaging by pretending you're on an island by yourself, this might be the group for you. So, anyways, that is all for today.
Really wanted to share these three ways that we often self sabotage. And I want you to reflect on how you've been holding your business back. How have you been holding yourself back? And really to imagine the potential that could be harnessed if you cut those chains that are holding you back. And if I could just share a quick case study. So one of our mastermind members, we're going to call her m. Her dream was to launch a group membership program, but she was kind of trapped by perfectionism. She is a health professional. She is used to following very high standards, and with this whole online membership thing, she didn't feel like she had all of the pieces in place.
So she was stuck in a cycle of preparation and brainstorming and writing down ideas, but there was no action or result from it. So Emily and I jumped on a call with her, and we worked through all of these limitations and self sabotaging mechanisms with her. Fast forward. Just a month later, and the program has been launched. She finished her beta cohort, and at the end of the beta cohort, 90% of the beta testers signed on for a paid membership. Like what? And to think that had we not jumped on that call with m, those self sabotaging ways that she had unknowingly carried around with her for years and years may have still been holding her back. So I don't want you to let self sabotage be the hidden enemy of your business success. So if you're ready to break free and if you need any support, I am here for you.
Dm me on Instagram. Apply to our mastermind again. I'll put the link in the show notes kelseyridal.com mastermind. Or just call on your business besties. Find a way to do this, and don't spend a penny. All right, you guys, that is it for today. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and I will be back probably next week. Again, I am taking a maternity experience.
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Mentioned on the Episode:
Join our event in Puslinch, Ontario on April 19th 2024.
It is a free event for established female business owners. It's a day to connect, share, and support each other in our business journeys. DM me on Instagram for a ticket!The Mastermind by The Visionary Method™ and The Magnetic Life™: Join an intimate business mastermind for women who are running online service-based businesses, and who are looking to plug into a community of other powerful leaders who are ready to grow in their health, wealth & relationships. Hosted by Emily Elliot (Mindset & Success Coach) and Kelsey Reidl (Marketing Consultant).
Click here >>> https://www.kelseyreidl.com/mastermind
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