Hi there, wellness entrepreneur. Welcome back!
For today’s episode, we’re going to talk about improve your emotional intelligence as a wellness entrepreneur, and this isn’t always talked about in the world of business. Sure, there’s a lot of talk about mindset, positive outlook, higher-level learning, reframing, and all that sort of thing. But it’s normal to have a bad day as an entrepreneur, and that’s not what it’s often talked about – how your feelings come up. And sometimes they propel you forward in your business, sometimes they’re just there.
And sometimes, how you feel as an entrepreneur actually holds you back. And that could be feelings stemming from what’s going on in your personal life or what’s going on in your business. It’s also realizing that regardless of what you’re feeling, you actually have some choices on how you want to handle it when you come to work in your business. And you have choices on how you want to handle it in your personal world, too.
How Do You Want To Handle Negative Feelings In Your Wellness Business
Today we’re going to talk about how you want to handle it when you come into your business. And this got me thinking because, in my free Facebook group, I posted a question. So if you’re not in that free Facebook group, you can search Grow Your Wellness business or just head to the show notes, and the link will be there.
I asked the question, “Do you think your feelings hold you back in your business? Why or why not?” And I got a lot of people responding yes and not knowing what to do about it. There were thoughts, like, definitely a lot about fear, not being good enough, impostor syndrome, fear of rejection, wondering if they did something okay, if they did something wrong, what was the vibe they were sending, fear of failure, all the different emotions adding to uncertainty in your business.
And so, if you feel any of this, first of all, I want to acknowledge that you are not alone. This is very normal and very common. It’s just not often talked about in the business world or has specific steps on how to work with it. And really, what sets me apart as a business coach is the work I bring from being a healer and a practitioner in the wellness industry for 20 years, and being a facilitator of change work for people, I bring that work into my business coaching world, and I’ll give you some simple steps that you can do right here on the blog.
And in fact, you can head to blogs and podcasts in the past where I talk about root chakra work specifically as an entrepreneur, and how your root chakra, if it’s aligned or not, it complements this work of how you’re feeling and fear of failure and a feeling of safety, for example, of showing up and being visible and marketing your business.
I also have several blogs and podcast episodes on becoming aware of when you feel stress in your body, your stress triggers, and some of your stress responses because some of that feed into the emotions and what you’re feeling day-to-day. Some of it is also driven by thoughts that are just based upon your past history, your past experiences, what you learned growing up. It’s all a combination that leads to the moment when you show up to your visit to go to market or to go to have a consult or lead a webinar or not lead a webinar. It all comes together, leading to specific actions that you take or don’t take. It’s all this work going on unconsciously, behind the scenes.
Heal your root chakra to create more safety in your wellness business here; https://igniteurwellness.com/root-chakra-meditation-for-the-wellness-practitioner/
Growing as An Entrepreneur is Not A One and Done Thing
And here’s the other part not often talked about is, let’s say you decide to do this work of addressing the fears that you have around marketing or Impostor Syndrome, or what’s happening when you’re selling on consultation calls, and you solve them. And that work improves just because it comes back down the road, maybe in a similar format, or maybe as you scale and grow your business, it changes, and you have different feelings of Impostor Syndrome or different feelings of perfectionism or people pleasing.
It doesn’t mean anything’s gone wrong. The work that you did in the past to evolve yourself, it’s still justified, it’s still validated, you still evolved. What happens is as you grow as an entrepreneur, as your business grows as an entrepreneur, you have to continue the work. It’s definitely not a one and done thing. This work becomes an evolution and ongoing journey through your path as an entrepreneur. And that’s what made makes entrepreneurship so special is that you get to grow as a person.
As Long As You Focus On your Clients, Your Negative Feelings Won’t Matter
When you grow as an entrepreneur, it is a little bit different than being an employee. As an employee, you still will grow, but as an entrepreneur, and especially if you’re the face of your business and do a lot for your business, especially as a solopreneur in the beginning phases, there is a lot of self-growth and it can be uncomfortable at times. But that does not hold you back as a practitioner.
You do not have to be perfect in your own world or in your feelings. You don’t have to be inspired and hopeful and joyful and happy every day or prior to every event, sales call, consultation, or session to be an effective change worker. You can show up as you are and as long as you keep your client the focus, as long as you keep feelings of curiosity, of what’s going on in your client’s world where they are the focus for that hour, or however long your sessions are, or if you teach classes, the group of students in front of you, as long as they’re the focus, then it really doesn’t matter how you feel right before that time.
Because if you’re focusing on the person in front of you, making sure that you’re aiming to get that change that they want, what they want to feel or their goals or in their body or their dreams and aspirations, whatever you do as a practitioner to help others, if you’re always keeping that first and foremost, then it’s almost like putting your emotions on the table. Not that you’re ignoring them, but you just shift your focus for a time, and then when your sessions are over, and your classes are done, then you have choices on how you want to handle your emotions and what you want to feel.
Read this blog to reduce your stress: https://igniteurwellness.com/how-to-reduce-stress-and-find-flow-and-ease-in-your-wellness-business/
What You Can Do To Handle Your Emotions
I’ll give you some examples of what you can do. So for me, personally, I always acknowledge what I’m feeling. If I’m having an off day because maybe things are happening in my personal world, or maybe I just show up to my business, and I’m feeling a little impostor syndrome myself because I’m launching a new workshop and I’m not sure if it’ll fill up or not, I address how I’m feeling, and then I get curious. I’ll ask myself why – Why do I feel this way? What’s really going on? And I’ll do a brain dump around that.
And usually, with that brain dump, there’s some work to do there. These are skills and tools I teach my clients in the Awakened Business Coaching Container. I can do something I call a belief scale to shift my belief around something. Or I can look at the evidence I’ve created where it proves that some of the thoughts I’m thinking are just a story and not necessarily true. And sometimes that can help to shift the energy for myself.
And also, I ask myself if I have a lot of fear, if I have a lot of stress or anxiety around a particular situation. I ask myself, I close my eyes, I do a few long, deep breaths, and get into a meditative state. And I reach out to my unconscious or subconscious, and I ask myself, “What’s the positive intention behind the fear, behind the impostor syndrome, behind the anxiety?” And a lot of answers typically come up for that because these emotions that we’re feeling are there for our highest good. They may be there to protect us, to help keep us safe, to show that we are worthy. There are so many reasons as to why those emotions show up.
The Alternative Way You Can Get The Same Result Without Feeling Negative Emotions
And at the same time, there might be an alternative way that you can get that same result, but not through all the stress or feelings of perfectionism or procrastination or people pleasing whatever your favor of any of that is, or always having you play small and keeping feelings of impostor syndrome.
First and foremost, there might be an alternative method to keeping you safe than any of those undesired states. And if that’s true, what is it? What is it for yourself? This is literally the work I do in sessions with my people. I will guide them through a meditative state so they can come in touch with their unconscious emotions of what they are currently feeling and why and what they want to feel and why.
And often, there is a middle ground where both of those deeper levels connect, and they can even be the same. And when that is brought into your awareness, then either the path of what the next step, the simplest next step that you can take is, or it just relaxes and diffuses the whole situation.
So these are three choices that you can take at the moment or if you’re becoming aware of how you’re feeling and maybe it’s not, and you are aware that it’s holding you back. So it’s an undesired state of feeling emotions, and it’s causing you to take undesired actions. Or maybe you’re just showing up to your day as a wellness entrepreneur in a bit of a funk. Maybe you’re feeling down or frustrated because of something happening in your personal life.
If you have a tendency to worry a lot be sure to read this blog: https://igniteurwellness.com/how-to-deal-with-worrying-as-an-entrepreneur/
The First Way: Acknowledge What You’re Feeling and Hold the Space for That
The first thing is you can acknowledge how you’re feeling regardless of why. Just notice the sensations in your body. Take a few minutes, 30 seconds, 60 seconds, two to three minutes, and really pinpoint exactly where you’re feeling it. Maybe it’s in your heart. Maybe it’s in your chest. Maybe if you feel like your face is weighed down or your shoulders are tight and tense.
This allows you to become more intimate with yourself and to become more aware of when your body feels this certain way. It’s because you’re feeling this emotion, which may be because of certain thoughts you’re thinking or maybe because your nervous system is triggered in a certain way. And the more you acknowledge and become familiar with how you’re feeling, it also helps it to become less scary, because you might even realize that you have the ability to turn up the thermostat. So you can intensify those emotions if they were more of a desired state that you wanted to feel, or you can even turn down those emotions.
And that itself can be mind-blowing, and that is difficult to do over the blog. But if there is an emotion maybe that you feel a little bit anxious about or a situation you feel a little bit anxious about, you can try that right now and bring it to your mind, your mind’s eye. Maybe you’re feeling a little anxious about your schedule for the week, or maybe you’re onboarding a new patient or client. Or maybe you really want to launch this online program into the world, and you’re feeling nervous about all that you have to do.
If you bring that into your mind’s eye and really notice where you’re feeling that emotion in your body and just acknowledge it for a moment and describe it to yourself, what does it really feel like? And you can see. Give it a number. If ten is the most intense emergency room discomfort ever, is it a six now, for example, can you turn it down to a four? And that may be possible, and that may be mind-blowing.
So that’s number one, just acknowledging it. And you can choose to allow the emotion to be there because it might be appropriate, especially if something’s going on in your personal life. It may be completely appropriate for you to feel sad or to grieve, or to feel disappointed or frustrated, or mad. And it’s knowing what you’re feeling and why that sometimes takes some of the edge and the scariness of it off.
The Second Way: Start To Process Through What You’re Feeling And If Appropriate, Shift The Energy
Another option you have is to begin to process through whatever you’re feeling and shift the energy. And there are many ways to do this. I teach a lot of my clients. They can tap through it. They can do a meditation, a visualization, they can journal. There are many different journaling techniques. You can lie in restorative poses. Maybe you need movement, like going for a walk or physical yoga. Anything that you can really do to just care for yourself and honor how you’re feeling, regardless of whatever it is that you are feeling.
And the work here doesn’t have to take a long time. Maybe you just tap for a few moments or take five to ten minutes to do a brain dump and journal, or get what’s in your head onto paper so you can work with it more objectively and create a plan. Or maybe you just take a few minutes to breathe and meditate on the desired emotion that you want to feel before going into a call or a consultation, for example, or writing a marketing post. It doesn’t have to take a lot of time.
But sometimes maybe it’s important to take a lot of time. Sometimes that’s one of the reasons why I love working with one of my coaches, is because for a whole hour each week, I will acknowledge what it is I’m feeling and I will learn different techniques to help process it through.
You want to be aware of what you’re feeling and understand that I’m not a therapist here, so use your best judgment to make sure that you do feel supported if you’re going to go into what you’re feeling and that you can process it all the way through and that you have the ability and the tools to shift your energy. Because you don’t want to get stuck in an undesired emotion or state either. So use your best judgment here and reach out for support, whether it’s me or a trauma coach or a trauma therapist if you’ve had trauma in your past, because it could be showing up in your business in ways that you don’t realize.
And here’s the other thing. As a practitioner, as an entrepreneur, you don’t have to be 100% holistic and healthy, and as I mentioned before, happy every single day to be effective as both a practitioner and in the business world. There are plenty of monetarily successful entrepreneurs working with plenty of clients, helping their clients to get results, and they have off days, and they’re going through hard times in their personal life. So just know that you don’t have to.
I say this also is you don’t have to be in 100% belief with the work that you’re doing all of the time to be effective, to sell out your programs, because it is always ongoing, and it’s learning how to support yourself as you grow and to learn what you need to help process through those uncomfortable emotions. How to shift your energy.
So I’ve taken the last few years to really learn what it is that I need for myself and to honor and notice what I feel before I go to market or before I go to pitch my offer program. At the end of a webinar or on consult calls, whatever I’m feeling or any of the work that I do when I’m showing up, marketing and selling in my business, or when I’m delivering, how to stay the expert energy and voice a hard truth to a client. Something that they may not want to hear or work that they need to do and they might not want to do, but it is the work that they need to hear. Working with several coaches and learning how to do this work myself so I can shift the energy.
I know what anxiety feels like in my body, and I’m more aware of what triggers me into anxious states or feelings of impostor syndrome and worthiness or what holds me back from feeling confident and certain. And I have tools now to shift my energy, and it’s ongoing because I’m still working with practitioners.
So just know, if this feels overwhelming now, just pick a place to start. Maybe it’s just messaging and reaching out to me, and I can help you get started. Or maybe it’s reaching out to a coach or a friend who you know and just commenting on what you’re feeling and figuring out what the simplest, next best step might be for yourself.
So again, to review some of these choices that you have, number one is just to acknowledge what you’re feeling and hold the space for that. Number two is to start to process through what you’re feeling and if appropriate, shift the energy.
Learn how to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset with this blog: https://igniteurwellness.com/entrepreneurial-mindset/
Third Way: Holding the Space for Both
And number three is holding the space for both. And by both I mean an undesired emotion or state and a desirable emotion and state. And often, I do this on days when I have bad days. Things might be going on in my personal world, or maybe I just wake up, and I’m feeling a lot of doubt or confusion on a day, and I have a webinar to lead or a workshop to lead or training and I’m teaching in front of a group of people, then I can hold the space for both.
Meaning I can still feel maybe a little bit of doubt and confusion in my body or maybe if something’s going on in my personal world, a little disappointment or sadness, maybe my husband and I didn’t have the best communication, and it’s leaking over into my business, I can still hold the space for that in my body. I can feel it a little bit in my heart. And also, I can hold the space for being confident and certain as an entrepreneur that I’m going to show up and record a podcast, for example, and deliver valuable work that will help at least one person in that moment.
I can hold the space of both. Both in my body and I can feel them both in my body. And that helps to relieve some of the tension. And I might not show up exactly as my perky self, but I’m able to deliver value and help someone else shift what they’re feeling in their body or create awareness or help them take that next step for themselves in their business.
And that’s truly what really matters because all of us, we’re humans, we’re not robots. And we have a wide set of emotions and vulnerabilities that we can feel in our body. And we’re going to experience a scale of that throughout our day and throughout our week. And we don’t want to resist it and push it to the side and show ourselves that we should be feeling a certain way, that we should be feeling confident every day. As an entrepreneur, that’s just not realistic or that you should feel 100% belief all the time in your offer. That’s just not realistic.
Conclusion
So just take a deep breath here. Let all that tension go. Honor how you’re feeling. Know that whatever you’re feeling, whatever your fears are, however you’re showing up, that you can still help people. You can still help people get results in your marketing and when you show up for your clients in a paying container.
And when you take a moment to just slow down and pause and really feel into what you’re feeling in your body by pausing right there at that moment and deciding, “Okay, what do I want to do? Do I want to acknowledge? Is it appropriate for me to be feeling this way? Can I allow it to linger? Am I in the space where I can process it through right now?”
Yes, it does take time. You do have to slow down and become more aware. But I promise you, when you do slow down, it is the work that speeds you up in the future in your business because you’ll become more aware of what you’re feeling and why. And so then you can become quicker at shifting the energy in your body.
I have clients now who at the beginning of our working together, they are learning more about the emotions that they’re feeling and how it impacts actions that they’re taking in their business or not taking in their business. And so we work through learning different tools and resources to process through the emotions or hold the space for certain emotions and learn how to become aware of undesired emotions that they’re feeling and why and what are desired emotions that they feel they want to feel instead and why and how they can shift the energy.
And I used to guide them through shifting the energy in a session right there at that moment. And now some of them are like, “Nope, I’ve got the desired state. Now I know what I want to feel and I can anchor it in. I have thought we don’t need to do a meditation or visualization. I got it. I know how to shift the energy.”
So it’s possible for you too. I just want to bring awareness to this because mental health is so important as an entrepreneur. And you want to take the time to care for yourself and support your mental health in whatever way that you need. It is work that will speed up the work that you do as an entrepreneur.
And not to say that your business has to go fast. Sometimes my business grows slow, and then sometimes, it grows fast. Regardless, I’m always growing. And in that way, my business is always evolving with me and flowing with me. So I never have to feel like I have to force it to do anything or fit into a certain mold or box. Because your feelings are going to be there. That’s part of the human experience. But your feelings don’t have to hold you back in your business.
There are tools and resources that can help you, I don’t know if to “manage” is the word, but manage them so you don’t feel like they are holding you back.
All right, there you have it. I will see you next week. Bye for now!
Download the free 5 Day Training – Get Clients Blueprint: https://igniteurwellness.com/get-health-coaching-clients/
Book a free call with Alison here: https://igniteurwellness.com/business-coach-for-health-coaches/
