Sneaky ways mindset screws with your business

If you’ve been around Uncaged for a while, you have probably heard me talk about the importance of mindset for a new business owner.

But I am NOT a mindset coach.

My personal approach to mindset stuff tends to be “get over it and do what you need to do to get your business working”. ACTION will cure all your mindset woes!

And while, a lot of the time, this is true — there are still some mindset issues that needs more than this action-based approach.

So I want to talk with you more about mindset. Because it’s a thing and it needs to be addressed, especially for new business owners, and especially for business owners for whom YOU are your brand.

EVEN if you think you don’t have mindset issues, or don’t really even know what that means – I encourage you to keep reading!

 

How does mindset shit show up?

When you’re starting a business, mindset problems ABOUND. After working with hundreds upon hundreds of clients in my Uncage Your Business program over the years, I have seen allllll of the weird and wacky stuff  come up that at first glance, I wouldn’t have labelled mindset.

Sure there is the obvious stuff like:

• fear of failure
• not believing in yourself
• worry about what others might think

That stuff is pretty easily attributed to mindset.

But then there is also other sneaky stuff. Stuff like:

• procrastination
• perfectionism
• lack of clarity
• going in circles over ideas
• refusing to niche

It would easy to write this stuff off as CLARITY or STRATEGY problems.

Like, if you ONLY had the right strategy, or you only have the right exercise to help you get clarity, or if you could only just nail down your niche, you’d be able to move past it and move on with your business. But what I have seen time and time again is that people stay stuck in these cycles EVEN when they have the right strategy. EVEN when they sound clear as day to me on their message, or their niche.

Lack of clarity is a common mindset issue

In the past, I have coached my clients around the content, striving to help them get clarity.

Still struggling with niche? Great, let’s work extra hard to help you figure it out. Let me try to reframe it yet another way. Let’s just keep working and trying.

But of course — this doesn’t work. Eventually these students just kind of give up on trying so hard, or take course after course and still get nowhere. These students are not letting themselves be clear.….. because what would clarity mean? Putting yourself out there. ACTUALLY doing this damn thing? Meep. Scary Stuff.

STRUGGLING TO FIND YOUR NICHE?

GRAB MY FREE NICHING GUIDE HERE, AND SAY GOODBYE TO ALL YOUR NICHING WOES!

 

Enter our incredible Uncage Your Business mindset coach, Erin

After seeing so many students get stuck and starting to understand the complexities of how “mindset shit” (official term for it) plays out in a business, I knew I needed support in this area. While I can recognize it (and I actually have a life coaching background) I am NOT a great life coach, and I knew I needed someone with serious skills to help.

So several years ago, I brought in a mindset coach (who was actually originally a student in UYB!) Erin Foley.

Erin has her own successful coaching business where she coaches non-entrepreneurs who are in a new job or new role, who are having a confidence crisis at work.

She is an amazing mindset coach. One of the best I have ever seen (and I have been in some high end biz programs that had mindset support – Erin blows them all out of the water IMO). What’s fascinating about listening to her coach, is that she doesn’t come at it the way typical mindset coaches do. It isn’t all “think positively!”, and “connect to your purpose!”, and “say a mantra!”. NO fake it til you make it or misguided cheerleading here.

Erin is able to explain how your brain works and why it does what it does and then give you really practical tools to help move past it.

Erin now coaches alongside me in the program and has recorded mindset specific modules that are included in the program.

I always say she is the secret weapon in Uncage Your Business!

 

I can say, without a doubt that a few things happened because of her coaching:

1. More people finished the program. Those who would have either given up, or let fears stop them, or been perfectionists about everything and not gotten past module 1 – they moved forward, and they finished.
2. More people got clarity on the content. As I mentioned – lack of clarity is very often a mindset issue. I can teach you allll the ways I know of to think about your niche– but if you refuse to let yourself be clear, you’ll never get anywhere. This is a HUGE mindset piece that needs to be worked through to get anywhere in business
3. Students left with more confidence. Sure, knowing what they do and being able to clearly articulate it usually means people leave my program feeling pretty darn good about themselves. But Erin helped bring a new level of confidence that I hadn’t seen before. Because she helped people move through the ups and downs of the mindset shit she armed them with tools for how to move past shit stuff in the future when it comes up (because it will!).

I literally can’t remember how I ran Uncage Your Business WITHOUT Erin there.

This mindset stuff — it’s such a huge piece of business.

Mindset stuff is sneaky!

So — the point of all this — mindset stuff is SNEAKY. It hides in places you don’t think are mindset:

I’m just a perfectionist – I’ve always been one!

I take longer to process things than other people! It’s just how I work!

I JUST need to get clear on my message and then I’ll be good to go!

 

And it hides in obvious places:

I’m scared of what people will think

What if I fail?

Who am I to be charging money for this work?

 

Pay attention to the voices that are keeping you stuck in business — are they strategy, or mindset? Really?

I can promise you, even if you don’t feel like you have mindset issues now, they WILL come up, so make sure you recognize the signs and get support when you do need it, so that you don’t let is stop you in your tracks. Your business depends on it!

xx becca