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What you’ll learn in this episode:
As an entrepreneur, being perpetually stuck in your business is the kiss of death.
In order to for your business to grow and thrive, you need to make progress and move beyond the stuck-ness we often experience in order to create results and impact for your customers.
Although we’ve all experienced being stuck, the things that often keep us stuck are not the things that we think.
In today’s podcast I share the top 5 behaviors that keep entrepreneurs stuck and rob them of moving forward and making progress, and how to overcome them so they can grow. After listening to this you will be able to identify these behaviors and move through them to get out of stuck-ness and into the freedom and momentum that makes your business thrive.
Here’s a glance at this episode:
- Why asking yourself “Why” is the worst question you can ask when you’re stuck
- The curse of “I don’t know”, and why you already DO know
- Ask 25 different people, get 25 different people – and why more is not better
- Why talking to everyone is talking to no one – and how it slows down progress
- When having tons of offers means making less money (and leaving even more on the table)
Mentioned in this episode:
Work/Connect with me:
Consults That Convert FREE Training
[0:03] Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of the It’s Your Offer Podcast. I’m so excited to be here with all of you to talk about being stuck. This is one of those topics that I hear from entrepreneurs quite a bit. And I’m here to talk to you about some of the things that I have seen in my own business and working with my clients that keep people stuck.
[0:30] I’m excited to talk to you about this particular topic, because I think when it comes to being stuck, some of the things that we experience are extremely sneaky. These things tend to sort of creep in and keep us spinning and stuck in our old ways, limiting beliefs, lack of action, in a way that is stealth, that we don’t even realize the things that pop up that keep us stuck that are obvious, like something comes up on our calendar that was unexpected, and we can’t do something or, you know, we’re having an issue with our computer. And so we can’t move forward with something. Those types of stuckness are obvious. And we often go after those things and try to rearrange our world and our life in order to make sure that we’re not stuck in that way.
[1:26] But I believe that the things that really keep us stuck, that keep us from making the progress we want, working with the people we want to work with, finding the clients that make our heart sing making the money going out with the offers that are hell yes for us, are much, much more sort of sinister, and stealth, they’re under the surface. And they show up in a way that we don’t see. They often tend to be hidden in places where we are doing things or thinking things that we believe are actually increasing the likelihood that we are going to take action or move forward. But they are in fact, doing the exact opposite.
[2:11] If you’re an entrepreneur in business, you cannot spend your days and precious time being stuck. Having a thriving business requires movement, forward momentum progress, it requires you to move beyond the place you are right now, it requires you to get unstuck on a consistent basis. And I believe that most people don’t know how to do that they are stuck. They feel it. It’s frustrating. It’s sort of obvious in our body, and in our results. But we don’t know what’s really causing it and we don’t know how to get through it. Well, today I’m going to share with you what I think is keeping you stuck. And we’re going to talk about what those things are, why you should stop doing it immediately. And why it is actually the thing that’s keeping you stuck even though you don’t know it.
[3:05] So let’s jump right into this. Because actually, sidenote, not only is it keeping you stuck from taking action and moving forward, but it is costing you a lot of money at the same time. So not only are you not making progress, not having the impact you want not working to your full potential not doing the things you want to do in your business. But it’s also costing you a ton of time and money. So that is why we want to jump into this right now and walk through these handful of things, so that you can be onto yourself, and getting through it immediately.
[3:40] So number one, the first thing that I believe keeps more people stuck than they realize, is asking yourself the question of why. So when we come up against something that we’re not doing, let’s just say we don’t want to record the podcast, or we don’t want to reach out to the client, or we’re not doing the things on our calendar, we’re not following our to do list. We often ask ourselves, why why am I doing this? Asking ourselves this question of why within that type of a circumstance when we’re not doing something that we know we need to do we know it’s essential. We know that if we don’t do it, it’s not going to create the results we want. asking ourselves the question why, in my opinion, is really the wrong question to be asking.
[4:37] In so many situations, it really doesn’t matter why you don’t want to do the thing. Why you’re not following your calendar or why you’re not recording the podcast. The truth of the matter is most of the time when we’re not doing those things, it’s because we don’t want to it’s hard. We’re afraid to fail. We’re afraid If it’s not going to work out, all those reasons why we don’t want it was essentially do this thing that is pushing us out of our comfort zone. But asking the question, why is actually not helping us at all? Because it doesn’t really matter why we’re not doing it. What matters is how do we move through that stuckness? How do we move through that lack of movement, to just get it done, we don’t need to know why. We just need to get through it. And the way that we get through it, and the quicker we get through it, the more progress and results we create. And the quicker we get, quote, unquote, unstuck.
[5:42] So the first piece of keeping yourself stuck is getting drawn into this abyss of asking yourself, why don’t I want to do this? And instead, the better question would be, what do I need to do right now, to move through this stuckness to move through sort of this inertia, in order to get this thing done, and move forward? Why we’re not doing it doesn’t really matter. And I will tell you from coaching many, many people, the reason why is almost always the same. Like it’s hard, we don’t want to fail, we’ve never done it before we’re afraid. All of the above or the reason why. And none of them matter. As far as getting yourself to keep moving. So the so the number one reason is that we want to talk about here is keeping yourself stuck. The number one thing is asking yourself why.
[6:40] The second thing that I see quite often, that keeps people stuck, is telling themselves a story that they don’t know what to do. They don’t know the answers. They don’t know what to do. They don’t know the next step. And all of this, quote unquote, not knowing keeps us stuck, right? Where we are right in the churn, of thinking and rethinking and researching and looking outward and all of these things. Because if we’re telling ourselves a story that we don’t know, the truth of the matter is, we know, we just don’t ask ourselves the question, or ask ourselves to answer that question. When this habitual, I don’t know, story comes up. After coaching many, many clients, and also self-coaching on this 99.9% of the time, when you ask somebody, if you when you tell them? No, you know, if you were to take a guess, if you were to know what would you say? Or if I were to ask myself and self-coach, if I were to know, what would I answer? Like, let’s answer this question for myself. There is always an answer. There is always a next step. But this I don’t know, habitual response and story that we tell ourselves, keep us right where we are in that moment, right where we’re standing.
[8:17] And the reason why is because our logical brain, our primal brain is like What idiot would move forward to do something that they didn’t know how to do? Like, from a logical perspective, staying still and stuck and not doing anything, when you’re not sure what to do is, it seems logical, it seems reasonable. If your brain is saying, Yeah, that makes sense. If you move forward, and you don’t know what you’re doing, you could get hurt, you could die, it could break, you could fail, like all of those things. And so when we don’t know and we don’t take action, our brain processes that as something logical as a good idea as something that is reasonable. And so what that does is it keeps us right where we are, it makes us feel better. Well, if I don’t know when I don’t do this, this makes sense. Right? It’s a good decision.
[9:10] The other thing is we think logically, that the more we think about something in order to, quote unquote, come to this place where we know and have enough information to quote unquote, know that we are going to make better decisions that we are going to have less of a possibility of failing. But the reason why that is completely untrue, is because the biggest epic failure when you’re trying to go and create something, whatever that is, the biggest epic failure is doing nothing. It’s essentially failing ahead of time. Because when you stay exactly where you are, you have ultimately not succeeded at getting where you want the goal or getting the thing that you want. And so you will always fail at succeeding, you will always fail at getting that thing that you want, by staying stuck and not doing anything. So this number two issue of telling yourself, you don’t know buying into that story, letting the answer and there is what keeps us stuck from moving forward. And it’s the thing also that our brain perceives as being very reasonable, you know, who would argue with not doing something if you don’t know what you’re doing all of those things that buy into the story, but it is better, to not do anything for a lack of certainty or knowledge than to go forward toward the thing that we want. Even if we don’t make it all the way there, we’re still making progress. And what is that next step? What is the knowing of the next step to take in order to get to that place?
[11:02] Number three, is asking 25 different people for their opinion, or fill in the blank, you know, your 10 best friends, your, you know, five, you know, neighbors, whatever it is asking all of these different people, for their opinions on what it is you should do to move forward from where you are, keeps you stuck. One of the reasons this happens, there’s a variety of reasons. But one of the reasons specifically that this happens is because when you start asking a bunch of people for their opinion, guess what, you got a bunch of different opinions. And whether or not those are good or bad opinions, they are plentiful. Meaning there are all these different options, you ask 25 people, something, you get 25 different opinions. And what starts to happen is you start to get number one, like information paralysis, more options do not speed up our ability to make a decision. Sometimes that that seems so counterintuitive, like we want to have all these options, and the more options we have, the better the decision will make. But we’ve actually seen through the research that that’s not true, that more options don’t make people move forward more quickly, they don’t make them make better decisions, they don’t make people buy more things.
[12:27] Side note, this is why having 15 offers that you offer is problematic, because people can’t take in all that information. So they just get overwhelmed, and then they leave. So when you start to ask all these different people, you start to get all these different options, it actually becomes harder for you to make a choice. And then the other piece is a lot of times those different opinions, they conflict with one another. And although they might be good opinions or good, you know, advice, they’re in conflict with each other. And so then you try start to get into this place where you’re not sure what to do, you’re not sure which one to pick, or if you’re picking several of them, they’re competing with each other. Right, some of them could be completely negating the other, the other opinions, so asking more people creates more of a problem. And I see this both in people’s businesses, and I see this in people’s personal life. This is true, also, when I see people hiring people for their business.
[13:28] So I can’t tell you how many times I have worked with people that have hired, you know, five other coaches or five other, you know, experts in one area or they have, you know, three social media people. And what ends up happening is, it’s almost like this analysis, paralysis, there’s all this information that’s coming in all this research that they’re doing that they end up doing nothing, because it’s completely overwhelming, and it slows their growth. So what you want to do instead is you want to pick your trusted advisors, you want to pick those people that are sort of in your inner circle. And you want to utilize all the resources and all the advice that you can get including your own and especially your own advice and perspective. And you want to take the next best step, you want to move forward to get yourself out of this place that you’re in and make that forward progress. I also want to add the caveat that you want to make sure above all else that the people that you are talking to, even if it is one other person is an expert in the area in which you are consulting them.
[14:43] So it is very normal and common and good practice for us to go and seek the advice of experts in order to make decisions to move forward to get us out of a place of being stuck to give us information so that we can then make good decisions. It is an extremely bad practice to go and ask people who have no idea. They are not the expert. And they are going to give you advice about something that they’re essentially not qualified to do. And that is a waste of your time and money. And it’s really a risk to your business, especially if you do that. So you want to make sure that you, you know, ask a trusted source, make sure they’re an expert. And you could utilize that information to then make your own choices. But asking, you know, 25 different people is a sure way to keep yourself stuck, it will slow down your growth, it will slow down your progress, it will cost you a ton of time and money. And it will ultimately not create the results that you want, although again, seems very logical, you know, ask a bunch of people kind of see what they say, take the average, then go do that. No, it’s not the case. It just keeps you stuck and spinning, and often gives you a lot of information that’s not going to eventually move you forward.
[15:58] The fourth thing is not being clear with who you’re helping, and why you’re helping them. In other words, you are talking to everybody through your business, instead of talking to your ideal client, about the problem you solve and the solution that you have in order to help them. Many times when it comes to picking a niche or focusing in your offer, or doing any of those things that start to constrain our focus, constrain our messaging, people start to kind of have their skin crawl, we really have this FOMO, FOMO is a very real thing. And we are afraid that if we get more concise, we constrain that we will end up missing people, we will end up losing money, we will end up losing steam. And we think that we’re going to make progress by talking to everybody by casting that net super wide. And I’m here to offer to you that talking to everyone means you’re talking to nobody. Because that broad brushstroke where you’re thinking about helping everyone and you don’t know why you’re helping them and they’re all having different problems. That actually slows your growth down. When you start to constrain and get clear on the problem you’re solving who you’re talking to how you’re helping them what that message is, and how passionate you are about it. You start to cut through all the noise get known for helping people for that. And also start to build momentum around bringing people into your world and helping them create results that they then go out there and tell everybody about. We think that the fastest way to get unstuck is to do all the things.
[17:44] But I’m here to tell you is not, it’s to be concise and clear. And talk to your people and make sure that you can message to them and cut through that noise and speak to them so that they can hear you and that you’re not talking to everyone talking to everyone will actually really slow you down, it will keep you stuck. Because it can become confusing to everyone, it becomes confusing to you, it creates all this administrative task. And that just keeps you spinning and kind of like running in place. And I’m here to tell you that you will be spending a lot of energy doing it right you will be working hard. But the amount of progress that you’re making will be a fraction of what you could, if you really dial things in if you knew who you were helping you knew why you were helping them. And you really double down on that messaging and those people.
[18:35] And then the fifth thing that keeps you stuck, and this is last but not least, but super near and dear to my heart is that you have a ton of offers to offer in this world. And you’ve heard me talk about this many times having a hell yes offer an offer that calls in your people. It offers a compelling solution. It channeled all that passion and that HELL YES energy into the equation so that your people find you see you know you they to trust you they know you can help them. They see the results you create. They are catching your vibe because they’re vibrating on that frequency with you. And they know exactly how to work with you. Because you have a few things out there that are clear and powerful and irresistible. And they know exactly what they’re going to get when they start to work with you. That is how you make the most progress. People that are stuck in their business with tons of offers end up creating confusion. They end up slowing their business down. Their marketing becomes a nightmare because they’re constantly throwing all these different things at their audience. It becomes one of those things where people cannot consume all that information. It’s the same idea as when you’re asking 25 different people, right? There’s all this swirl out there and people can’t grasp it becomes confusing. And so what they do is they leave, not to mention on the back end, it is a logistical and practical nightmare for you in your business.
[20:09] I mean, really think about when you are trying to remember or talk about 10 different things, whether it’s in your personal life or your business, or whatever it is, it becomes extremely difficult to do that in a streamlined fashion. And so we get really bogged down. And this is also how we burn out. And this is how we only skim the surface with the people that we can help because we can’t access all of those people with all the time and energy that we have, especially for small business owners, where we don’t have a huge marketing budget. And we don’t have all that manpower behind our business in order to do that huge companies that have these millions of dollars of budget and huge teams, they can talk to all these people, and they can have all these different offers and all these, you know, income streams in that way. But as a small business owner, more, you know, really less is more. And that’s what you want to look at.
[21:00] So a few powerful optimized offers that call in that ideal client that let them know the problem that you’re going to solve that give them a compelling solution. So that they know that you can get them out of pain and movement, a pleasure, that wrap in all that passion and energy and hell yes-ness that make you you and make you want to go out there and help these people. That is how you get unstuck. That is how you build and make money very quickly in your business. It is really it’s that beautiful, Central, Central, you know, place where everything in your business kind of pivots off of. And when you do that, and you build your belief, and you double down in that you pull yourself out of stuckness and into momentum. And let me just tell you, it is so much more fun, so much more fun, so much more streamlined, and so much more enjoyable for everyone that is, you know, coming into contact with your business.
[21:56] So to recap, here are the top five things that I think are keeping you stuck in your business and costing you a lot of money.
[22:05] Number one is asking yourself, why when you are stuck asking yourself, why do I want to do this? Why am I not do it? When why did this start happening? Any of those things? Keep you stuck? You don’t want to be asking that question. You want to be asking how do I move forward? What is the next thing that I can do to make progress, it doesn’t matter why you’re stuck.
[22:27] Number two is telling yourself you don’t know, here is like the million-dollar tip that nobody tells you, you know, you absolutely know. And don’t tell yourself you don’t know, telling yourself you don’t know living with that story will keep you spinning and spinning and spinning in the same place. And just keep you stuck from moving forward.
[22:47] Number three is asking 25 or fill in the blank of number 10. You know, 15, whatever 25 Different people what they think or what their advice is, you don’t need to ask 25 people, find a trusted advisor, find somebody who’s an expert, it is good common practice, if we want if we need information about something or we want to move forward that we will seek the advice of experts, a coach a mentor, and you know anybody thought leader, but you want to pick somebody who is credible and could help you. And you want to really go all in on that more people do not create more freedom, it creates analysis paralysis, it creates too much information, and it will keep you stuck. Even though it sounds very logical that, hey, if I ask more people, and I kind of take that average, and I you know, figure out what everybody is saying, then I’ll make a better decision. That’s actually not true. We see from the research; it keeps you actually stuck more.
[23:45] The fourth thing is not being clear about who you’re talking to and trying to talk to everyone, you will not make money, you will not get more clarity in your business by trying to talk to everybody, you will actually just get more frustrated, you will have more of a logistical nightmare, there will be more administrative tasks that you have and there will be less progress. So if you want to get out of where you are, get unstuck from that, pick the person you’re talking to get clearer, know who you’re helping and why you’re helping them and really constrain around that. The more clear you are, the more momentum you create, the more money you make, because people buy when it’s clear, and when they get confused. They leave and that is how people lose money and lose traction.
[24:30] And then last but not least, having a ton of offers confuses people and it slows your business down and keeps you stuck. If you want to create massive growth in your business create a hell yes offer that sells itself. Go and create the thing that calls in your ideal client owns a specific problem gives them a compelling solution wrapped in all that HELL YES energy so that both you and them are in this love fest of energy and it is clear the results You’re giving how you help people, and what it will be like when they work with you. That kind of focus and growth creates a tremendous amount of momentum and moves you forward out of stuckness. When you’re trying to manage a ton of offers, when your business is splintered, your marketing efforts are all over the place. Everything is disjointed. The only thing it does is create squirrel, and squirrel keeps you stuck where you are it really stunt your growth. So have a hell yes offer, do not have a ton of offers to keep you stuck.
[25:32] So action steps for today, I want you to go on and audit in your business right now. And look for where you might be doing this. None of us are immune, I have not met one entrepreneur yet who has gone through this list, and has never done any of these things. This is a process and we really going in and looking at it is the first step to really uncovering how you can clean this up how you can move yourself into a phase of momentum of kind of clearing this up and creating that freedom so that you can get yourself out of this stuckness being stuck is the kiss of death for an entrepreneur. You cannot stay where you are and grow. You have to be able to make progress and move forward. And sometimes do the things you don’t want to do or move beyond the things that you’re doing now, in order to create that growth in your business. And the fastest way to do it is to go through these five things, see where you’re doing this and then start moving through it the way that we talked about in this podcast. I promise you not only will you feel better, it will feel lighter, it will feel more free. But it will be so much more fun. And you will be making so much more money and helping so many more people than you ever thought possible.
