Limiting beliefs stay with us

Before I started my new business I had to be mentally ready. When I left my old job, I was confident, passionate, and ready to start soaring! I felt that I finally got rid of the ghosts of past failures, mistakes, and low self-esteem. My first month of being an entrepreneur was awesome! I got clients right away, met some amazing fellow entrepreneurs, and was building the foundation of a successful business.

Then during month number two, I faltered. I didn't get any new clients. I was told "no" for the first time  of my venture. I lost that wondrous, magical momentum and began to doubt myself. There were days when I was a complete shut-in and was unable be a self-starter.

I had an appointment with my life coach, Rony, and was able to reset. My biggest take away from our session was that Limiting Beliefs Stay With Us.

For some reason, that was the most comforting realization to me. I thought that I was already "fixed," that there was no room for lack of confidence when I have so much at stake, and to feel inadequate was death to my entrepreneurship.

But what I learned was that this feeling of not being good enough rears it's ugly head during times of great growth. Feeling this way was not a sign of reverting back to old ways but was a sign that I was moving forward into bigger, expansive, scary territory. It's all about shifting out of that "not good enough" cloud, recognize it for what it is, and keep on keeping on.

What a relief! Now it's time to get back to business.

Turning Failure into Recommitment

This week I felt like a failure. I came back from a fun little vacation, and upon re-entry to normal life, I had trouble getting my engines revved up again. I missed deadlines, was late for appointments, broke commitments - I even broke a promise to my dog! Every time I messed up was another brick added to my wall of shame. Needless to say, I didn't feel confident nor up to achieving great things.

So here's the thing. I could have stayed on this depression spiral (and part of me still is struggling to get out of it as I write this post) but then I asked myself "something isn't working here, what can I learn from this?"

Something shifted when I asked that question.

All week, I kept telling myself that I was lame and I totally suck, which led to more suckage. This time I took one of my disappointments and made it into a insightful lesson.

I had met with a prospective client earlier this week. I was late to the appointment, but she was very understanding, and although she wouldn't be able to start training with me for another couple of months, she was interested. I offered to do her next workout with her and set her up with a fitness strategy in the meantime. She works out at 5 am, which is something that I totally do not want to do, but I still told her I would meet her - I need clients, so do whatever it takes, right? Well, the night before I had trouble falling asleep and knew that I would not be able to get up and be functional so I cancelled. She subsequently let me know that she decided to work out on her own in the meantime and will maybe look for a trainer a few months down the road.

Rejection sucks, especially knowing that it was because I handled the situation poorly. I sat in that shameful rejection for a few hours, and it was uncomfortable, depressing, and deflating. I hated it, and I could not bear to feel this way anymore. And that's when I asked myself, "What's the lesson here?" And that's how I discovered a few things:

1) Although "doing whatever it takes" can be useful in the short term to overcome an obstacle, it is not going to work for me for the long haul. I know I don't want early morning clients and this woman worked out at 5 freaking AM. Instead of thinking that I would have to fit in her schedule, I could have asked her if she was open to working out at another time. This was a HUGE revelation. I've been coached to make sure I have clients that are right for me - and finally experienced for myself how that can look. I can ask questions to create the right situation, or allow prospects to weed themselves out. This informs future discovery sessions I have with people.

2) I am going to fuck up. That's that nature of the path I have chosen. Even though I knew what the right thing to do was, I still didn't get it done. But now I can choose how I feel about the fuck up and figure out ways to handle the situation better when I comes up. I can decide to make my failures into productive ones. I even made up a term for it - Situational Alchemy.

3) Recommitment is a moment to moment decision. I declared that I am an entrepreneur, a coach, a trainer, an instructor. Even when I mess up and don't live up to those roles at times, I can recommit and get back in gear. My life isn't a sprint, it's a marathon, and I choose to keep taking steps in that direction, even when I falter.

I am an entrepreneur.

A year ago I took a stand in making big changes in my life. My goal was to discover what I was meant to do and what I had to do to get there. I got coaching, worked really hard, took a big leap aka quit my corporate job, and now I am a certified personal trainer and help people become healthy and fit for a living. I had been living my life in an unhappy comfort zone and then became brave and broke free. Now I am my own boss and do something that aligns with my core values.

At first I was worried that I made a mistake, that I wouldn't be good at this training thing, and that I would fail. During my first training session with my very first client, I had a huge revelation - I LOVE training. I was doing something that I enjoyed and was good at, I was helping someone better herself, and i was getting paid to do it! This is what I was meant to do.