It's not easy being my own boss, but it's made me grow so much in a short period of time! Here's 15 gifs and lessons learned from my year of running a full time coaching business!
1. I am not a sleazy salesperson.
Being a business owner, I have to put myself and my services out to my community. It means posting about my coaching services, reaching out to friends and family for research, and when it’s right offering my coaching services to them. I had to let go of the mentality of thinking that I’m a sleazy salesperson and tapping into the core of who I am. I know the transformations that coaching has had on my clients and I genuinely want to help others tap into their highest self. I’m going to continue to share my learnings, services, and products with pride and let people know I am here for them.
2. Business is 80% mental and 20% action.
The biggest hurdle I have had to overcome is my own mental blockers from taking action. It’s giving fear a choice of f***ing off or joining me in a dance to make some magic happen. When my mental game is on point, my actions follow with ease.
3. Solopreneurship is hard.
I’ve found that I thrive in teams. It’s more fun and there is so much more power in two brains vs one! This is why I consistently seek community and collaboration with fellow entrepreneurs and coaches.
4. Don’t stop. Keep going.
There were more than a handful of times where I questioned whether coaching was the right path for me. I’d get disappointed by a missed opportunity to coach someone, I’d cry over the loss, and then had to wipe away the tears and just keep trekking. I know that there are more people I am here to serve and when that person is ready for coaching, they’ll reach out.
5. There is no true divide between business and my personal life.
What’s happening in my personal life seeps into my business… what’s happening in my business seeps into my personal life. Once I accepted this, I started to truly find my flow.
6. My self worth is not tied to how many clients I have and how much money I’ve earned.
This is a big one. At some point, I would beat myself up over not having enough clients and not earning enough money. I equated the success of my business to my own self worth. If business was bad, I was bad. If business was great, I was great. This is a slippery slope to self loathing. Whenever I tied my self worth to anything outside of BEING, it only brought pain. Once I realized I AM ALWAYS ENOUGH regardless of my success, it gave me a sense of confidence and security that everything will be ok.
7. Healthy habits are NOT optional, they ARE necessary.
When running your own business, it’s important to reduce as much friction in your day to day as possible. This means decreasing the amount of decision making per day. Healthy habits help with that because you begin to do them without having to think about it, which reduces decision fatigue. For example, once I created a morning routine that was right for me, I was able to have even more productive and happier days. I didn’t have to think about when I would journal and meditate. I would do it all in the morning, leaving my brain more power to make smarter decisions throughout the day.
8. Focus… focus… focus.
I have a lot of interest and my mind is always filled with 1 million plus ideas! Although these ideas may be golden, I had to learn to focus on one main service at a time and grow and master that service. For me, I had a hard time focusing solely on 1:1 coaching and instead, spread my energy between group coaching, creating my online course, and workshops. I ended up spreading my attention and my energy and did not progress as much as I wanted in any of them, until I truly started to focus on one of them.
9. Ask for help & guidance from people who have done it already.
Why try to figure it out on my own, when there are so many people who have done it before me? I reached out to a lot of people for mentorship, coaching, and guidance on how to best approach my business and applied what was in alignment with my vision and values.
10. Taking a break will not hurt your momentum.
Hell yes, it can be tiring to be a business owner. I thought that if I could power through on my struggle bus, my business would thrive. The opposite happened. When I powered through, I was much more easily frustrated and lacked clarity. When I took a break and then came back to challenge I was facing, I was much more creative in finding a solution and I was able to do it with a smile.
11. Investing in myself is an investment in my business, services, and clients.
I was so hesitant to spend money on myself when I first started my coaching business and in my first year of business I’ve spent more than $25,000 on coaching programs, books, online courses, coaching, and personal development conferences. I realized the more I invested in my own growth, the more I am able to give to my clients.
12. Practice what I coach.
My coaching is only as powerful as how I incorporate my own teachings in my life. Some of these lessons include forgiving myself for my mistakes, loving my full self completely, living out my values, changing my energy states from low to high, being courageous enough to leave a romantic relationship and entering a new one, and asking for help along the way.
13. Everything is figureoutable.
I love this saying from Marie Forleo. There are always going to be challenges in life and business. Without them, there wouldn’t be growth. No matter how small or big the problem is, there is always a solution. It’s important to note that the solution may not be what you expect or want it to be though.
14. Don’t take other people’s lack of response personally.
I’ve had multiple moments when I sent over a coaching client contract and didn’t get a response back. This is after we completed at least one discovery call and they verbally committed to joining the coaching program. I’ve found that their lack of commitment had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with the challenges that are happening in their life.
15. If I’m not enjoying the journey, something has to change.
More than likely that something has to do with my own mindset and not necessarily changing the path that I’m on. I’ve wanted to quit coaching multiple times, but when I take the time to remember MY WHY I instantly get back to the work because I remember my purpose- I’m here to help people get unstuck, fall in love with themselves, and be limitless so that they can manifest the life they want. So here’s to one year of staying on this path and to another year of impact!
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Thanks for reading and hope you were able to learn from the lessons I shared!
If you are interested in discovering what coaching looks like, sign up for one of the free 20 breakthrough coaching sessions I'm offering to give back in celebration of 1 year of my coaching business! Click on the flyer below, to schedule your session. GO AHEAD... you know you wanna! 😘
Love and Light Always ❤️✨,
Your Coach Cat
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