Today, I will write about the five reasons you experience stress as a wellness entrepreneur. Me and my family are in the tail end of COVID and I wanted to relate how this situation could be a stressor for how I handle my business.
I will go over the five reasons and bullet points, and then we’ll break them all down as we go through this blog.
- Number one, you feel as if you have no control over your schedule – that can lead to a lot of stress.
- Number two, you doubt that you’ll ever be successful or that being successful might not even be possible for you – that can definitely cause a lot of anxiety and stress.
- Number three, fear that you will fail and put your family out on the street, or feel that you’re going to do the wrong thing and ruin it off. That definitely can cause stress, and I’m laughing because this was actually one of my thoughts sometimes.
- Number four, lack of trust in yourself. And
- Number five, not knowing where your next client is going to come from, and you think I’d put that as number one but you have to read below as to why I put that as number five.
Similarities Among All Five Reasons Of Stress You Are Experiencing As A Wellness Entrepreneur
The common theme here is that they all stem from you. If this is your one takeaway, you don’t have time to read to the whole blog right now, take away this: All these have to do with your thoughts and beliefs surrounding a certain situation.
And how do I know? Because not all entrepreneurs regard these situations as stressful. This is a difficult thing to swallow because that means that you need to be responsible. It means that to make a change, you have to come out of victim mentality, that none of this is happening to you. In fact, some of this can be happening for you.
Stress is normal. In fact, I have many podcasts on this and episodes around 60s, the 40s, the 50s and I believe in the 70s, there’s a bunch. You can read this post on how to overcome fear as an entrepreneur.
So listen to some old episodes on how I cover how stress is normal. In fact, you’re never going to make stress go away. To create resilience is learning how to come back from it – how to recognize the symptoms when you aren’t stressed or feeling stressed or stressed out or anxious and learning how to down-regulate your nervous system. This is the key to preventing burnout.
I actually have a three-step process regarding creating this resilience so, continue reading this blog and I will go into more specifics where this whole process for myself has really evolved. I did this because there’s definitely days in my business – most weeks – where I do still feel anxiety and stress. Now, however, my belief and trust in myself has greatly deepened so this happens less – less in frequency, and less in intensity, for sure. But I’m only human. So when I do start to feel stress or anxiety, or a situation happens like COVID where I’m forced to take over a week off of my business and in-person sessions, when I just came back from a vacation, I can ask myself, “How is this happening for me?” instead of to me. How I feel and how I problem solve is much different when I’m asking myself, “How is this happening for me?” So, ask yourself this question. How might that be true?
The goal of following this blog is to help you become more aware of your stress triggers and to know what to do in the moment. Okay, let’s break down those five reasons, one by one.
1. Stress From Your Schedule
Often, you might feel like you don’t have control over your schedule or not enough time, like you’re getting squeezed from both ends, maybe your kids are getting sick with COVID, maybe you’re getting sick with COVID, maybe they are not able to go to camp as planned.
That’s what happened in our case. We have over two weeks about of Kayleigh not being able to go to camp, plus, creating the time for both Shawn and I to recover and heal and rest from COVID. It means a lot less working time, which happens. This is life. But, if you have more than one child, if you have extended family members that possibly you’re caring for, if you have a lot going on in your life, which we all do, you can feel like it’s completely out of your control and that can be very anxiety provoking and exhausting, which definitely won’t help your own health either.
So, What Do You Do Instead?
First is noticing when you start to feel these feelings about your schedule or if you have trouble feeling your feelings, which sometimes my feelings would come in so strongly that it would completely cause me to freeze, or go into a high anxiety or stress response, it’s really noticing when that happens and why – What is specifically going on in your world? What actions or non-actions do you take because of this? Maybe you completely freeze up, and you go to Netflix, and sit on the couch with your kid and just binge watch on TV and movies all day. Now, there is a time for that, of course. If you’re sick, or you just want to snuggle with your kid and help them to feel better, of course, do that. Be on the couch all day. Kayleigh and I had several days of that.
However, if you’ve had several days of that, and you’re not sick yourself, maybe take a look – why are you on the couch and avoiding your business? It could be because you just feel so overwhelmed, you have so much to do and not enough time, so you don’t even know where to start and then you freeze. That is a good place to start – it’s just recognizing that and forgiving yourself. You’re human, have compassion, this is a place to start. We can unwind that. It’s ok!
Or maybe you’re like me, who just tried to action and outwork everything, thinking that it’ll just be okay, if you can continue working and steam rolling. Now, today on this blog, I had to check in several times. In fact, even though my voice feels raspy, I’m still a little nasally congested, I’m definitely not 100%. I did hold myself from making this blog yesterday. It was in my schedule to write this blog but I still don’t feel well enough to give good quality content to you and I was able to recognize that and instead of plowing forward like I normally would, I rescheduled for today.
And you know what I did instead? I went up to the house, just got into bed, and rested for a few hours longer. And that was perfect because then I woke up today feeling more rested and my brain was more on fire.
I had to do this consciously – checking in with myself regarding both in-person sessions, of course. I had to cancel all of those but my online sessions I had to figure out. I was making sure that I’m not just doing a session because it’s in the schedule, making sure that I can hold the container of space and be of sound mind and body to care for my people and listen well, and provide insights, and be the coach who they paid.
So, that’s when I feel that way instead of just showing up to show up thinking that is what’s going to create my safety. But to do this, I had to let go of the rigid confines of my schedule. I had to find more flow in my business.
When Does Schedule Become Stressful?
So sometimes, a schedule can feel stressful because there is no structure and it’s all flow. And sometimes a schedule can feel stressful because it’s too rigid. And only you can define what that middle ground between flow and structure works for you. This does take time and trial and error. I do help entrepreneurs with this. You can listen to Mary’s podcast episode – a couple of episodes back where she talks about this – as well as Lin’s episode where she highlights finding balance as a mom, and as an entrepreneur. But for right now, start to define it for yourself. You can listen here.
What would an ideal schedule look like? Realizing that when you’re saying yes to one thing, you’re also saying no to something else. So I’ll bring it to the present moment for myself yesterday. Had I said yes to making this blog and recording the podcast, that would have been saying no to healing and rest for myself, which, okay, recording a podcast takes about an hour but that’s not healing and rest for an hour and it actually compounds because when I went up to the house to rest, I realized how much I really did need that rest. And I ended up resting for three to four hours, which allowed me to feel more energetic, and back into my intellectual powers, I guess you could say, today. Had I not done that, I would have still feel exhausted, more tired and truthfully sick today. So, I would have been healing slowly.
So maybe, it’s saying and learning what to say yes to in terms of other tasks in your business, or even act in your business. It’s learning your limits. For example, just yesterday, I had someone reach out to me to do a possible interview for their podcast, which is a great opportunity. I always love those. But they said first, I had to schedule a call to learn more about the podcast and I asked for details first, because if I had said yes to that 30-minute call, that would have been saying no to 30 minutes of productive work that I had in my schedule, especially now because I’ve had to take time off to heal. So, I want to be very strategic and what I’m saying yes to. So, I replied back asking, “Okay, I understand, we’ll do a call to inquire more. But first, can you send me details about your podcast, to make sure I’m possibly a good fit, before I spend 30 minutes on a phone call?” And they replied back with a DM saying that there was too much to explain in a message and yada, yada, and it just raised a red flag to me because I’ve had a podcast now for over two years, I did Facebook live interviews for over two years, and so, I know that you can schedule appropriate fits for interviews, without doing a call first, and just sharing basic details of the podcast and the format. So truthfully, that was a red flag and I haven’t scheduled that call yet. And probably I will when my schedule frees up a little bit more, and I have a little bit more time.
So, it isn’t a black or white situation, yes or no – you can decide. No now, but yes later. And the last thing I’m going to say about schedule right now is knowing that money does not equal your time investment or your time investment doesn’t equate to how much money you bring in. What does is the value you’re putting out in the world, your belief and your confidence in your value.
However, I know it’s easy to get bought into the time-for-money trade, especially if you do one-to-one, but it’s just not true. I do one-to-ones now and I have other programs, but I’m focusing on my one-to-one only, it’s the only program that you can purchase with me. So, I know it’s possible to make more money without having crazy schedule and overworking and for sure, don’t have to get bought into time for money trade, being the only way to make more money.
For now, if you do want help with your schedule, then just sign up for a free consult call as a way to connect with me. We’ll go over what’s not working in your schedule and figure out what will so you can create the clients and the revenue that you truly desire that will fulfill both your business and the lifestyle you desire.
2. The Quickest Way To Really Create The Success You Desire Is Notice When Your Mind Goes Into Doubt
Now here is the three-step process that I shared above. This is useful and I learned this in my own mastermind, the 200K mastermind with Stacey Boehman. This is my own spin on the process through my own experience because truthfully, I had a really difficult time feeling emotions and recognizing the thoughts causing the emotions. Everything was so ingrained and intertwined in my nervous system that everything always lead to a very extreme stress response. And now, I’ve finally gotten to the point that I can pull them apart thread by thread, and really work through this. So, if you feel stuck here, just be patient, it does get easier.
So, we’re going to work through doubt. But let me give you the overflow of the process. And this is not step one, step two, step three. This is A, B, or C, where you choose one. It’s knowing the right fit in the moment, and only you can decide. So that increases the trust and the belief that you have with yourself. It’s really a compounding work that leads to more dramatic results – positive results – in your business and in your life over time.
Point A Is Knowing If You Should Redirect Your Mind
So, for example, you are thinking, “I just don’t know if I can sign a client this week,” “I don’t know where my next client is going to come from right now,” and that creates the feeling of doubt. So, is it appropriate for you when you think that thought to redirect it to something more helpful and healthy? Something like, “My ideal client is already following with me and planning to work with me,” “My ideal client just landed on my social media page and is scheduling a consult call right now when I’m busy with another client or doing something else in my business,” – there’s a world of thoughts that you can choose from that create different feelings, other doubts. So that is one option. A is redirect.
Point B Is Process
Sometimes, doubt is just intertwined with another model, or is a reflection or embedded itself in another model. So, if you think of why you’re feeling doubt, it actually might lead to reason number five of this blog: fear.
In this case, if there’s many emotions intertwined, and beliefs intertwined, or if there are feelings that are lingering from past situations and experiences, micro and macro traumas, maybe what’s really needed is some processing time, some healing time. And that could mean working with a practitioner to unwind it. It could mean going to a yoga class and flowing and sweating it out. It could mean a restorative posture time, just to be. It could be meditation, it could be watching Netflix with your kids, any of these things, to just feel and process. That is another option.
Point C Is To Allow The Emotion To Be There
So, allowing doubt to be there. It doesn’t have to be redirect or process. It can be allowing it, and then taking action anyway. So what does that mean? It means not resisting the doubt. It means not pushing it away, or sweeping it under the rug thinking that you’re a weaker entrepreneur because you feel the doubt. It’s actually embodying the doubt, feeling it in your body, and then saying, “Okay, you can be here, I acknowledge you, but I’m going to be the driver of the car.” And I can also start to feel the possibility of certainty. I can also start to feel the possibility of belief in success – belief in what’s possible for me.
The key here to know which option to choose is also noticing if you are resisting, blocking, or pushing, because there is a difference between allowing doubt and still taking action from belief versus trying to stamp over that feeling and taking action anyways.
For me, personally, I’ve gotten to the point where most of the time in my business, doubt is just not helpful so I do redirect. But there was a long time where I had to acknowledge the doubt and allow it to come up so I could recognize and acknowledge all the thoughts and beliefs causing the doubt because if I had never acknowledged all the thoughts and the beliefs causing the doubt, I could never work through that. So I had to create that awareness first of the thoughts and beliefs causing the doubt and also the next reason: fear. So that required me journaling on it, bringing it to the mastermind, bringing it to coaching calls, working with my own spiritual mentor, really spending time here and allowing the doubt to be here, but also know that it wouldn’t hold me back. And it’s true, because I’ve really created more clients and revenues the past six months with more ease, fun, and flow than ever before.
So now when doubt comes to my mind, I just know it’s an old pattern. My brain is just trying to keep me safe so I acknowledge it, and I’m able to redirect, find a new thought, tap into my anchor beliefs that create a new feeling, and then I take action from there because now I know that doubt just consumes my time and energy and causes me to freeze and I don’t get as productive or valuable work done. But for you, it’s the trick to catch yourself in the moment when you’re feeling an emotion like doubt – doubt really is just an example – and know which of the three options to choose.
3. Fear, Maybe Even Terror, Or More Urgent And Intense Nervous System Response
It’s when you make your business and producing income a life-or-death scenario. I know. I’ve been there. I’ve had thoughts about when investing in my next mastermind, that actually and this mastermind, the 200k, and even previous rounds of coaching that I’ve done with other mentors and coaches, they’ve all reduced results in my business in my life.
But especially, let’s talk about the most recent example and scenario when I went to invest in my second round to the 200k mastermind, my brain wanted to throw a tantrum. The thoughts I was having was that it was a risky business decision, I was going to risk putting my family out on the street even though I had dramatic success in the first round, even though I could tangibly see the increase in my finances, the quality of work that I was putting out, just in so many ways, I had tangible measures of how much that mastermind had affected me, my brain and nervous system still wanted to throw a tantrum, telling me that it was an unsafe decision.
Through coaching, I was able to work through that fear and recognize these thoughts as thought errors. I also noticed that if I made a decision out of fear, how that would not serve my business, my family, and instead, learn how to process those emotions and make a decision while still allowing the fear to be there. But now, I’m on the other side and I’m so grateful that I stuck with it, I made the decision to re-apply and I got accepted into my second round and as this first round comes to a close, and we’re preparing for the second round, I’m so grateful I’m in this group.
Another example is the workshops I teach every four to six weeks. Even though I’ve been teaching workshops now for a decade or so, maybe longer, I still get fear about promoting and teaching them. I still have thoughts like, “Will you hate it? What if no one sign up? What if I don’t teach valuable content? What if you don’t think my content is valuable?” I’m human. And your length of experience doesn’t dictate whether old patterns emerge or not. Sometimes, you’re able to clean them up, and they don’t re-appear. But sometimes, if they’re ingrained like mine where they keep popping up their head, and it comes back to that process, those three choices you have available of noticing if you need to redirect, if the feeling needs to be processed through, or can you allow the feeling to be there and take action anyway.
Here’s the key takeaway to help you decide which direction to go. Most of the time when it comes to fear, it’s your nervous system’s way of trying to keep you, “safe,” and it might not be warranted, you truthfully might not be in danger. And also recognizing that if you indulge in this fear, if you act from this fear, you actually have a higher likelihood of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of making what you actually fear happen – making it a reality.
The way to not make it a reality is to do the uncomfortable thing of acknowledging it, and then deciding not to indulge in it by choosing to redirect, allowing it to be there, but also taking action and creating other motions at the same time or processing it through.
And that is the work, my friend. And the more you do this, you will begin to trust yourself and your own intuition more. In fact, that’s the work I’ve been doing with my spiritual mentor, Belinda, in conjunction with the mastermind, while she’s completely separate from the mastermind. But that as well as biofeedback from the brain with Ilya, I think these three things done at the same time for me is going to change my life – it already has. And I can see such a big difference. You can’t do one without the other, which leads me to why not trusting yourself causes more stress.
4. Lack Of Trust In Yourself
So this can seem a bit esoteric, or how do you know? How do you recognize it? An example is when you have a thought or belief or a feeling even, about doing something one way, but then you end up doing it another way.
So let’s make it a more practical example, back to my COVID situation here. Yesterday, if I didn’t trust myself, if I didn’t believe in my capabilities, and I did believe that I’m outside of the money for time trade, then I wouldn’t have rested as much yesterday, I would have recorded podcast yesterday. It would have ended up in a stressful situation, because I would have been forcing and shooting, trying to record a podcast while feeling not the greatest, which ended up leading to more exhaustion. I know because I’ve been there. That’s a stressful, anxiety-provoking situation. Instead, because I trusted myself, I rested, and I felt so much better, I felt more energy today – more like myself today – and I woke up and I knew I’m like, “Okay, today, I can get back to some things, I’m feeling good, I’m feeling better.” And that further increases the trust with myself, instead of increasing stress. You see the difference?
Another example is thinking that you should have a niche. So, you’re not posting on social media, you’re not showing up, you’re not talking to people about what you’re doing and instead, you’re focusing all your energy on trying to force your business into a box that it’s not quite ready to fit yet. Let it go. Just trust yourself. Listen to the previous episode on branding, and it will help a lot with this.
Just know that you don’t have to show up a certain way to your business to be successful. And the right way, is your way. And it all starts with trusting yourself – that can help to alleviate a ton of stress. Or, if you do feel stressed, help you to get through it with a little bit more ease and flow.
This now leads me to the last reason.
5. You Feel Stressed Because You Don’t Know Where Clients Are Coming From
Again, you probably thought I would have put this first because it’s high on the list of why everyone’s stressful. But this truthfully, clients not coming in or worrying where they’re going to come from, or if you’re going to have enough, and all the things, is really just a manifestation of all of the above. It’s the result of all of the above.
So, let’s plug it into a model. For those of you that are familiar with the model from The Life Coach School, you might choose to write this down. For those of you who don’t know the model, hang with me and just let it wash over you. So, the neutral circumstance here is your business. Everyone knows that or you know that you have a business. What varies are the thoughts.
So, let’s say you have a thought, “I don’t know where my next client is coming from,” and that produces the feeling of anxiety or worry or stress or some kind of combination of the above. Because of this feeling and thought, you end up taking these actions, you’re resistant to feeling those feelings – you just stampede over them and you take action from the anxiety, you take action from fear, you overwork, you hustle. That leads to compromising your schedule and your boundaries and it also leads you to exhaustion.
Another action is not trusting yourself. Not being true to your goals. Not being true to yourself, your band, your vision. Not showing up at all. Another action, not believing in your program, not believing in your offer. Another action, doubting your capabilities.
The list can go on and on, you can add your own. What actions do you take or not take from the thought of stressing where your next client is going to come from? The result of all that is no new clients. So you see a lot of the reasons above of not trusting yourself, working over fear instead of allowing or processing, not managing your schedule well due to stress and anxiety, and ignoring doubt, can all show up in your action line, leading to the result of no new clients.
So one way to work with this, you know it, you guessed it: a redirect. Choose a new thought you know exactly where your client is coming from. Your ideal client is already following you. You’re just one post, one sentence, one email, from compelling your ideal client to want to work with you. There’s so many to choose from what feelings and you can start there – authority, certainty, calm, grounded, confidence, curiosity. Again, that will lead to a new set of actions and new results where clients are coming in.
Conclusion
So there you have it. You can focus on the worry, the anxiety, the doubt of if you are going to succeed, if you are going to have reliable and consistent clients coming in. Or you can focus on what you can change, what you do have control over and that is caring for you. Trusting yourself. Becoming aware of your thoughts, your feelings, and then deciding if you should redirect, process, or allow and take action.
Of course, if you want help with this individually, now’s the time. Reach out, I’m here for you, you can just book a call to connect more with me. I’ll see you next week. Bye for now!
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