When youâre an entrepreneur, the biggest hurdle youâll likely ever face is your own mindset. I experienced this myself and you know whatâs crazy? When I was starting out, I thought all this talk about mindset was a bit ‘woowoo’ and wasn’t something that affected me, I wanted to take action instead.
I truly believed that I didnât have any mindset issues – but it really was the case of I didnât know what I didnât know. The truth is, in order to achieve success, we must first shift our thinking and overcome doubts and limiting beliefs we may have.
I know how doubting yourself, and believing that you canât do something, or youâre not good at something can hold you back from moving forward, or even getting started with something you know in your heart you want to do!
Common Limiting Beliefs
Letâs start with some beliefs you may have about yourself. Iâm guessing that this will sound familiar:
âIâm awful in front of the cameraâ
âIâm not pretty enough, too old, too big, etcâ
I actually hated being in front of the camera when I first started out, and you know what? It held me back. It stunted my growth, and I had to get over myself. Now itâs a lot easier!
Iâll probably never feel 100% comfortable in front of the camera and Iâll never want to become an actress, but I feel okay doing it. Itâs not stressing me out anymore like it used to. Like with everything, practice makes perfect, and your âfirstâ anything is nerve-wracking, right? So if itâs something that could potentially build you a successful online business, doesnât that make it worth it?
Youâll have heard this saying before; âgrowth happens outside of your comfort zoneâ- and itâs so true! When youâre holding yourself back from doing videos because of some self-limiting beliefs, youâre doing your students a disservice. Youâre keeping them from getting to know you better, from getting to trust you, so then you can help them through your offers. Because letâs face it, in the online world, thereâs nothing that builds trust like video content, and avoiding doing this can seriously hinder your growth.
Maybe youâre also secretly afraid that people will judge you. Well, people will judge you no matter what you do, so you may as well just DO IT. Thatâs partly why youâre worried about being bad on camera right? Youâre worried people will think you look awkward and laugh at you.
The reality is that people wouldnât be laughing at you, they might recognize that you are nervous and give you some encouragement, or they might even make a joke to make you laugh and feel more comfortable. Or they feel youâre more relatable because youâre not perfect.
Or maybe you believe in:
âThis will never work for meâ
âOther people can do this, but I couldnâtâ
This is the fear of failing. You might do all the right things to create your offer and sell it, but if subconsciously you donât believe that you can do it, itâs probably not going to be a big success. This is definitely something Iâve been struggling with. In my head, I was all for thinking big and could see the success, but deep inside of me, there was a limiting belief I had, that I didnât have it in me to be really successful.
When I started my own business, I thought I was smart enough. I had a lot of experience, Iâd been working in advertising for over 15 years, and until then everything had come to me pretty easily. I was good in school, university was easy, getting a job/promotion was easy.
But the truth is, I never aimed big. I always stayed in my comfort zone, or when I went outside of it, it was never too far. I didnât come from a family of entrepreneurs, and I had always been told that itâs better to be safe and have a good, stable job, and to work hard so that you didn’t lose it.
So that’s what I did. I was the âgood kidâ, who never had any problems, and went to college and worked really hard. When I left my job in advertising to start working freelance, it was the first step towards freedom. I basically did the same job, but now I earned more money, and I had the opportunity to take longer periods of time off to go traveling, and I wasnât involved in things like office politics anymore.
However, I wasnât in it with my heart. Every assignment was just a temporary job to earn money – and thatâs not very fulfilling, right?
When I started this business, (teaching yoga teachers about marketing) I was suddenly so passionate about it. I could see this bright future and I was so excited about what I did, but this did bring up a whole different set of fears and stress! I was scared that I would fail, that I wouldnât earn enough money to be able to pay my rent, that nobody would be interested in my offers, etc.
Guess what? I did fail, and I made mistakes. For example, I hosted a webinar and the sales page wasnât even ready so I couldnât tell my attendees (who were live on the webinar!) where to go to sign up for my program. Talk about embarrassing!
Iâm a bit of a perfectionist so making mistakes like that, (or failing in general) really gets to me. Actually, failing is something that everyone is scared about, throughout our whole lives, in fact. The thought alone of failing is scary.
I hate to break it to you, but you will fail. Me saying that might shock you, but failing is part of success. Youâve heard of the saying âsuccess is falling down 7 times but getting back up 8â, right? If you fail or make a mistake, you have to get up and try again.
The next limiting beliefs I want to address are money-related;
âYoga should be freeâ
âAsking for money is greedyâ
Hereâs the thing – no one works for free – so why should you? We work to make a living. We provide a service, and someone else pays for that. Itâs an exchange of energy and itâs totally natural.
Maybe in the past it worked that a master taught yoga for free, but never to many students and of course he or she must have had the means to live and eat and have a place to stay as well. In any way, thatâs not our society today. Today itâs very normal to be paid for your work, itâs whatâs expected, and if you want to be a part of this society, thatâs how it works – you need to be able to pay your rent.
You arenât greedy for asking for money, because in any ânormal jobâ you get paid a salary, you get paid to be there, and if you want to continue to share your teachings, it needs to be sustainable. Asking for money could also help your students get better results. I know that may sound strange, but hear me out.
When people have to pay for something, they are committed. For example, when I have to prepay for a yoga class thatâs happening in the evening, Iâm gonna show up, right? When I didnât have to pay in advance, I might skip the class because Iâm too tired and just want to chill out and watch Netflix.
It gets even more interesting when you have a high ticket offer, like a coaching program or an online course, where people have to invest more money.
My experience is, (I’ve heard this from others as well) that students in my higher-priced programs are much more motivated, and thus are more likely to actually see results. They do the work and they are committed because of their investment.
Asking for a higher price can actually help people more than offering something for free. Up to a point, of course, you donât want to outprice yourself or ask for a ridiculous amount of money that nobody can afford, but you can probably ask for a price thatâs a little bit higher than your first price and itâll be totally fine.
Our next limiting belief is around equipment;
âI canât do an online course because I donât have the money for expensive equipmentâ
I have one thing to say on this – start with what you have. You wonât know what you need or want until you try. You donât need the best of everything, and actually, you could buy the best of everything and not understand how to work them because theyâre so advanced, (like cam-recorders or microphones) and then take even longer to get started!
The most important thing here is for you to just get started, and faffing about with equipment is going to delay you. Just like earning money, spending money is necessary too. Yes, youâll need to put some money into it before you get something out of it!
Just think, starting an online yoga business is certainly a lot cheaper than buying a traditional brick-and-mortar studio. Teaching yoga online doesnât have to be super expensive, and once youâve got most things set up, there are very few ongoing costs. So buy that course, get what you need to start your business, and get going.
Ways To Push Past Limiting Beliefs
I’ve addressed a few limiting beliefs here that are very common. Now I want to share some general tactics with you for pushing past those limiting beliefs and move forward with your yoga business!
Step #1 Face Up To Your Fears
Write down all of your doubts, worries, and beliefs you have about starting your business. Awareness is always the first step. You need to be aware of the thoughts youâre having, and getting them down on paper can often free up our minds because we no longer have them circling around in our heads over & over!
Step #2 Decide On How To Tackle Your Fears
This is probably the most important stage. Nothing will change if you donât do anything about it, so after facing up to your fears, next you need to tackle them and find ways to make that belief become less and less of a problem.
For example, if youâre worried that you donât have a clue about how to set up a website, take a course! Or if tech is REALLY not your strong suit, hire someone to get your website up and running so you can start focusing on what you ARE good at.
Step #3 Plan It Out
Now that youâve identified how youâre feeling and what it is thatâs holding you back the most, and how youâre going to combat it – hold yourself accountable and come up with a plan.
Give yourself timeframes to get things done by. For example, I use Asana to plan out my whole business. It allows me to see what needs to be done by when, set deadlines for myself, and take action!
Plan out the things that scare you, give yourself a certain date to enroll in that course, or set aside an hour to film your first online lesson.
Waiting for perfection is never as good as making progress.
I hope that this has helped you address some of those limiting beliefs you may be experiencing.
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