Donna: In today's episode, I'm gonna talk about self care, mindset and self sabotage, and you may hear me kind of flicking through pages because I have just been looking through my journal and there's just a few things in there that I'm gonna use as inspiration, so this might be a little bit of a rambling episode, who knows, but I am going to be talking about those things because I think as a business owner.
Self care is something that is so important, it's why it's a big part of the Ready to Rise program. It's also a big part of, uh, my coaching style when I am working one on one with clients, because the mindset that we need to have as a business owner is to get back up, full forwards, keep moving, try new things, experiment with all sorts of strategies and if it doesn't work, pivot, change, do something different.
If it does work, how do we optimize that? There's a lot that goes into it and a lot of it is all in our heads and sometimes talking about self sabotage and that's why I wanna address it today is that, the voice inside our head can really help to put us in a place where we can get stuck. Stuck in a loop and that loop can be quite damaging to our progress as a business owner.
And so, that's why I'm gonna talk about all of those things today in this episode.
Okay, so I'm gonna start off this podcast by talking about self care. First of all, like what is self care? It means different things to different people, but self care to me is something that you do to take care of your physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, or social health and it's done thoughtfully.
It's done with intention and with the intention of caring for yourself in order to increase happiness and focus and stability and joy and peace and, you know, feelings of gratitude and self love, and the reason why I feel self care is so important is because the world in which we live continues to move at a really, really quickening pace.
And this demand on our most valuable resource, our time is kind of unsustainable. In that fast paced way and so, selfcare is the way to kind of reclaim your power and recalibrate your body and your mind and establish your own natural pace, and I know that when you practice self care, when I practice self care, you can really harness your own energy to make more intentional decisions.
And the positive, like you'll gain fulfillment, you'll attract more of what you truly seek into your life and it also increases our confidence and it helps you to stay happy, and as you love yourself and as you love others, you will bring light into and otherwise really chaotic and fast paced world, so you know, it is an individual journey.
There's no right or wrong way to do this, but I think it's important that we have these conversations and we just remind ourselves about why self-care is so important and that it's not just one way, like, as I said like there's five different areas of self care and each of those areas we do dig into in the Ready to Rise program, my signature program, that is a big part of what we do when we go into each of those areas.
And one of those areas that I wanna touch on today is self care in mindset and so, our mindset really determines how we feel about the business that we're running and the life that we're living and your perspective. You know, the perspective that we have in our mindset really shapes our reality and you have the ability through consistent mindset work and through personal awareness to take control of your perspective.
I really do believe that you have the power over your moods and emotions more than we might realize. Now I am gonna acknowledge right here right now that yes, as a female, hormones definitely play into that. Let's not sugarcoat things definitely, a hundred percent and we just kind of have to ride with that.
But I do believe that there is ways that we can change our mindset which then has power over the way that we have our moods and our, and our emotions, so I think that's really important and one of the things that I have found really helps with my mindset, which plays into the toolkit of being a business owner.
Is doing an emotional check in, so in order to shift your mindset, if you're feeling like you're in a bit of a bad mood or you are sort of really just not feeling it, like if you're going through a bit of a tricky stage in your business, the first thing is to really get aware of what your current mindset is.
If you wanna shift your mindset, you've gotta be aware of where you currently are and it's easy to go about day to day tasks without really checking in with yourself and identifying how you truly feel, so the more that you can become aware of your emotional state, it will make everything else easier leading you towards living that happy, authentic life that we all wanna have.
It's really, really important and taking time for yourself is a really necessary element of self care. I don't believe that it's a luxury. I believe that it is essential and I think it's necessary as human beings. We need that for ourselves, so taking time for yourself is a great way to gain perspective on who you are in the life that you're living.
As well as getting clear on what it is that you want, how you want to feel, how you want to create, like what kind of life you wanna create for yourself, what kind of business you wanna create for yourself and spending some time alone to give yourself that space, to be introspective, to have a vision for the future of your life and the future of your business.
And to listen to that inner voice, not the nasty inner voice that will pick you to pieces. We have, I'm sure that what I'm talking about there, I feel like there's that, uh, good conscious, bad conscious on our shoulders, but sometimes it's like the mean girl voice and then it's the best friend voice.
So, I'm talking here about the best friend voice, listening to that inner voice and being grounded by giving yourself that time for self-care and a bit of self love. Then it's also about making sure that you in that space of introspection, checking in ,we, as I mentioned at the beginning, we do live in a really fast paced society in a fast paced world.
And if you don't take the time to really slow down and to be alone and not to feel guilty about wanting to be alone, as a mom getting that alone time can be pretty hard sometimes, especially when your kids are really small, like that can be hard and then you throw a business in on top of that and, so you are constantly on for your kids.
You're constantly on for your clients and customers. Your brain is constantly on with business ideas, maybe you're also shoulding your team and you are intentionally leading them and then you've got your partner that you're wanting to connect with and still continue to have that beautiful relationship.
And that's a lot of outgoing energy. The best way that I find to recoup some of that energy is to have alone time and I am a bit of an extrovert, like I'll talk to anyone. I have a pretty bubbly personality, like there's a lot of outward energy, but I also am a bit of an introvert at times, which sometimes surprises people.
And I think as I've gotten older, that's become more of a need and maybe it's because I'm actually listening more to myself in having those moments of introspection, but certainly as I'm getting older that need for time alone, that need to be introspective that need to just sit and be calm and be quiet is actually really important.
And my crave that in times when life is super busy, when the business is super busy or there's heaps going on with the kids or there's dramas in life, I crave that alone time and I figure out ways to make it happen, so it's really important to do that and that self-reflection will stop you from life kind of happening to you because you can be more engaged and participate in your life rather than just getting kind of carried away with the tide of life.
I hope that makes sense.
Right now, the doors to the Ready to Rise program are open and you need to hurry if you plan on joining because they close on the 6th of September. It's the last time that I'm going to be running the program this year, so if you miss out, you are gonna be waiting until 2023. This program is for people who are either wanting to start a new business and get it right the first time or reshape your current business to be more aligned to your core values. Do what lights you up and create a business that's super successful.
If you wanna learn strategies and skills to build a strong long standing business and if you want a business coach at your fingertips, that's me and be supported by a community of like-minded business owners like you. Then you need to sign up now before the doors close, go to donnahann.com/course and sign yourself up.
I can't wait to welcome you into the Ready to Rise community.
The other thing I wanted to try to talk about today which kind of loops into all of this, is self sabotage because what I sometimes see with business owners is that, there can be some self sabotaging patterns that sometimes you don't see yourself and I can, as a business coach, sometimes I have to call people out on this because they don't realize they're in a self sabotaging pattern or in a bit of a, a loop.
But what I know to be true is that everything that you want is on the other side of you facing your self sabotaging patterns, it's about getting out of your own way. Now I'm gonna talk a lot about being in a loop, a feedback loop.
A story, an internal struggle that kind of makes sense of, oh, here we go again. I'm back here again. Why can't I do this and this message that I'm delivering through this podcast today, it does come from a place of love because I know that, you know, I know what that feels like. I absolutely know what that feels like.
And so, I'm gonna share some ways to understand why that feedback loop or why that self sabotaging pattern is perhaps happening and how you can maybe break free from that and then how to kind of put some better self care practices and mind care practices in place.
Now I want a caveat that I'm not a therapist and I don't claim to be, this is just what's worked for me and what I often see in other women as a business coach is that, if we can identify the behavior, if we can identify that loop and if you can ask yourself, if you want to break up with that loop and find the solution, then what we do is we can put action steps in place that will break that pattern and create a new action.
And that action of constantly, consistently creating a new way of thinking, a new way of challenging ourselves in our mindset to rewire our brains and rewire our habits away from those self sabotaging behaviors, so I hope this is all making sense.
Now it can be a little bit polarizing, I mean, I've been in the situation before where someone has raised that to me and I'm like no, that's not me. Like I'm an action taker. I'm a go-getter, like that's not me. I'm not procrastinating. I'm not self sabotaging but when I really sat down with my thoughts, when I looked over the patterns that had been happening, damn straight I was and I was stuck in a loop. I was stuck in a loop that I couldn't see.
And so during my entrepreneurial journey and I'm sure along your journey too. There are times when we are confronted with difficult challenges and we can become trapped by limiting beliefs and we don't even know that we're in the loop until someone points that out.
So, if you've been struggling with lead generation within your business, attracting new clients or if you've been struggling with staff members for a while, or if you've got a new product or a new service and you've been procrastinating, it you're just toe dipping, you're not really jumping in with both feet.
Then what I want you to think about is right now, there is a problem that needs to be solved because if those are problems that continually pop up for you within your business, then it's an indication that you're in a bit of a loop, so what's the thing that when you think about your business, what's the thing that you feel like you can't move forward from?
What's the thing that you feel kind of stuck and is it the same story? Has it happened before? Is it for the same reasons? Do you keep coming up with the same excuses? Do you keep getting the same results? Now, I just wanna be really clear here that this is not in any way intending to shame you. If you are going, yeah, that's me.
This is not an episode to shame you. I'm not about shaming at all. Like at all at all, but it's a little bit of a wake up and a shake up, it's to bring a little bit of awareness and that's part of being introspective and that's part of developing resilience as a business owner and it's part of growing as a business owner is to become more self aware and become really honest with yourself and to be objective and have a real think about whether you are in a loop, because awareness is the number one tool and the key to success.
So ask yourself, are you in a pattern? And if you need help with understanding that if you are like, oh, I don't know, maybe I, maybe I think I am. I don't know if you're unsure, ask someone around, you get a coach to help you figure that out and then it's time to take back your power, so what are three things that you can do?
That's totally different to the way that you would normally operate to break through this loop. Now, sometimes when we are doing this kind of stuff, there can be some resistance and pushback. There can be like an inner feeling. That's like, oh no, I can't do that. No, no, no, no and before you say no, it's about asking yourself the question, am I resisting this?
Because it's challenging me to go to a new level in my business? Am I resisting this because it's putting me outside of my comfort zone? Am I resisting this? Because I'm just feeling safe where I am and if those are the reasons why then maybe that's also part of what we need to kind of break apart in that sometimes self sabotaged is that, you know what you need to do, but you're not doing it, or you're doing the opposite of it because of the fear.
And that's where we need to identify that fear, so if you're afraid of doing something new, if you're afraid of doing something different, if you're afraid of failure and fear is like, the biggest killer of creativity and the biggest killer of success, because it keeps you in that loop. It keeps you in that, you know, fear can be really deceptive because sometimes you don't even know that you're in the loop.
When you're not really operating from a lateral thinking, you're in that fight flight or freeze brain function instead when we're in that fear mode and what we innately do when we consume by fear is to stay small, is to stay safe but being in business means that we've gotta move with the times. We've gotta change things up from time to time, like I said, new level, new devil.
And so it does require a bit of a shift, so trust in yourself, like listen to that inner intuition, listen to those thoughts that you have the grounded thoughts and get clear on what you need to do. Get clear on what the worst thing that could happen.
Like, what is the worst case scenario? What is that fear? That's really eating you up and then create a solution for that in doing that, what you're doing is you're sitting in the fear for a moment you're processing it. You're creating a solution. If, if the worst thing was to happen and then you can move forward, you can move on from that. You're almost kind of giving yourself that, like that insurance policy and going okay.
If the worst thing did happen, then this is what I could do to get myself back to where I am now and so yeah, if you're in that loop, a different bringing about a different action, understanding what the fear is, that's holding you and keeping you small and then identifying what the, what you would do in that situation to get yourself back to where you are now ,can totally remove that fear.
And that remove that self sabotaging behavior. We value safety so much and we value certainty so much as human beings that will continue to do the same thing over and over and never get anywhere and then we claim that it's not working. We say that, well, I'm just not cut out to be a business owner because it's not working.
But when we start to really identify, what's actually going wrong. That's where, you know, we have to get really real with ourselves, but that's where we can make the shift and where we can make the change, so that was a bit of a rant ,wasn't it?
So, what I want you to think about is what is the one thing that needs to happen in your business right now, but that you keep putting it off.
What is it that you're avoiding and where are you self sabotaging? Want you to face it? I want you to sit with the fear and then give yourself the opportunity to master it, master the fear and go get what you want. Go break that loop. Entrepreneurship is about fighting those internal battles and pushing forward to achieve our dream life really.
And this is why in the Ready to Rise program, not only do we talk about the business skills and strategies and all of that kind of stuff, but we also talk about self care and mindset. Really important two pieces, one can't exist without the other, so in wrapping up this podcast today, I just wanna encourage you to make sure that you are making time for you to have space to think.
For you to have space alone sometimes and for you to challenge yourself in getting out of your own way and in doing this, I just wanna say. If in doing this, you unpack some stuff that is really uncomfortable for you as I said at the beginning, I'm not a therapist and so I wanna make sure that you go and seek professional help. If this is something that unravels you a little bit, which is totally okay.
We need to dig into this stuff sometimes, but just make sure that you've got the support around you to be able to do that, to do that well and that's it for me today.
I hope it's been helpful. I hope it's been insightful, was a little bit of a kick up the bum session, wasn't it? which is not what I intended when I first sat down to do this episode today.
Yeah, but I hope it was really helpful and that sees you having even more success in your business and in your lifestyle choices, have a great day!