I recently signed up a client who I’ve been telling for a long while (prior to being my client) how huge her earning potential is. Despite this tremendous potential she barely makes it from month to month on her current earnings.
Eventually I couldn’t help but ask her why she wasn’t tapping into this potential. She told me she wasn’t very good at marketing herself. Fantastic! I said simply because I’m brilliant at coaching people to do that. But I could sense her challenge went a little deeper than this “inability to effectively self-market” so I asked her why she felt she wasn’t good at marketing herself-
“I’ve lost trust in people,” she answered.
I found this really sad because she is so incredible with people!
I then asked her why this was- Turns out she’d suffered a traumatic relationship that had left her reeling. While it happened years ago it’s affecting her today and ultimately her business potential (among other things).
I told her I was willing to work with her and by the time she was done with me she’d have to beg people to stop throwing money at her! (Yeah I’m that good). But on a serious note I told her the first thing she had to do was start changing what she thought of herself and what she told herself about her.
I shared, with her, my belief that her lack of confidence in people reflected a lack of confidence in her own self. A cycle that may have begun longer than she may have realized. And one she had unfortunately accepted and made her reality.
I know exactly how this happens simply because I’ve gone through it. Even when I’d realized that I was doing it and decided to get myself out of jaundiced thinking and thus pathetic actions I continued to sell myself short. Why? Because my own truth was that I didn’t (really) believe I deserved better.
Deserving better doesn’t just mean earning more money, it means nurturing your well being whatever that may mean for you. In business it may mean working in an environment that appreciates you and inspires you to grow. It may mean pursuing your dreams, however wild they may seem for the mere fact that even just the pursuit of the dream will make you happy. It means having the courage to say “You know what! I bloody well deserve better!” And starting the (sometimes tough) journey of getting out of a rut that treats you less than.
Every new moment in the days we are given presents us with opportunities to climb and do better.
For me a new year magnifies this “another chance” in our lives. A chance to bury the horrible relationships (personal or business) that once sucked us dry and find new ways to nurture our well being.
The doing better begins with changing the conversations we have with ourselves about ourselves.