Happy Tuesday Confident Lady,
This week we had an awesome guest on the podcast, Amber Lilyestrom who spoke about overcoming the fear of "not feeling worthy enough for the dream". Today I want to briefly dive into this lie with you, as I know so many of us have felt this way at one point or another. I am going to specifically talk about my experience with Worthiness--specifically how I've learned to detach my worthiness from my accolades.
I have shared openly that year one in this business I was very fortunate in being able to create over 6-figures. Let me tell you this did NOT come easy for me and I’ve shared countless times the amount of sacrifice I had to make in order to reach it. But it’s something that I am proud of not only because of the actual income, but because of the IMPACT it allowed me to make. I had dozens of paying clients, but a good part of my time entailed creating free written content, videos, trainings, hosting meetups and 1:1 sessions. What this income also allowed me to do was amp up my giving bigtime to charities, organizations and churches. All good stuff! Money amplifies the individual. People who give BIG with little will give BIG with a lot.
Following the model I used to hit this goal year one, I was easily on the path to bringing in multiple six figures year two, but I decided against it. And by model I mean focussing on high visibility, content creation and creation of free resources. YES, generosity leads to sales. As I like to say, open hands to give are always open to receive. Year two in business I chose to walk away from 70 hour work weeks to welcome becoming a mother, staying home with my beautiful babygirl and sending her to childcare only two days per week--going from 70 hour work weeks to 10-16 hour work weeks. I knew this meant doubling my income wasn't going to happen, because I was CHOOSING to spend my time differently. Going from working around the clock 24/7 to some weeks getting a measly 10 hours of work in was a HUGE shift. And guess what? It was ok! My worthiness was not dependent on the money that I brought in. I was able to keep my daughter home with me the first almost 6-months of her life to learn how to become a mother and nurture my babygirl. This was PRICELESS.
For many of you, reading this may give you anxiety thinking about how life transitions could shake up your business, but I am here to tell you if you can keep your mindset in check you can ENJOY THE RIDE, rather than FIGHT it. So what’s worked for me? I am going to share a few tips on how I stay confident in the decisions I make:
Telling myself this is a choice and getting really CONFIDENT in this decision. I went from working all day every day, to only a couple days. And I constantly tell myself "I am choosing to do this" because mamahood is my now priority. Maybe you are making a choice to travel or help take care of a loved one. Get confident in your decision and constantly remind yourself, you are CHOOSING this.
Remind myself DAILY, this is ONLY a season. Yes, some seasons may be longer than others, but the seasons will inevitably change. Year one was a season of foundational building + hustling, while year two was about creating that work/life/family balance, and year three was about slowing down + simplifying in order to speed up. This season I am in today looks completely different from the slow life we had even last spring and THAT IS OK!
And when I say balance, balance doesn't mean work, life and family all get 33.3% of me at all times. It means that some weeks work might get 97% while other weeks it might get only 1%. Balance is what works for you at the moment. There is no such thing as an even distribution of all aspects in life because “life happens”. Which brings us to the next...
Life happens! Leave room for the unexpected. You can’t live life and business on a strict schedule, it is bound to get disrupted. Set your goals high, but understand there may be detours along the way. I can't tell you how many times I had set aside time for writing or recording podcasts and my babygirl came down with something. I've learned to get really good at rolling with the punches and rearranging things when necessary.
Lastly, I tell myself each and every day that there is ALWAYS more time. Sometimes it takes stepping completely away in order to recharge or refocus. And if this happens, allow yourself to be fully immersed in it. Don’t feel like you need to be one foot in one foot out to hold onto the past. Just step completely away if you need to. Days where I feel I haven't done much in my business I remember how one strong year of hustle brought HUGE results in terms of visibility + results. So if I choose to scale back on it right now and work significantly less, there will ALWAYS be more time ahead to amp up if that’s what God’s plan is for me. I remember reading the Magnolia Story by Chip + Joanna Gaines and hearing her story of walking away from her business to be home with her kids. She felt this was a call on her life for a season and knew if she listened to that call, God would arrange the rest. Well, look at her today and the empire she has built! You can listen to her speak about it around minute two of THIS clip. This part of the book was a confirmation for me that I was in the right direction and if Joanna could do it, so could I!
What BIG decisions do you need to make at the moment? Are you at a crossroads and deep down just KNOW that one way is the RIGHT way, although it might not really make sense? I want you to hold onto that vision, give yourself permission to explore it a littler more, do a pros/cons analysis, ask yourself “what’s the worst that could happen if you follow that vision” and then work on building your confidence to follow through on this decision.
Once you do this, you will 100% need to continually work on your confidence to maintain that vision. This is something I work on each and every day OR ELSE, the worthiness lie may start to creep back in and takeover. Is this something you can relate to? Something you need some extra support around? If so shoot me an email at kate@katecrocco.com and tell me where you currently are and where you want to see yourself in X amount of time.
If you want to hear more of my morning discussion, make sure to head on over to my YouTube channel to check out the video I did on this topic as well!
And catch Amber's episode all on this topic over on the Podcast HERE!!!
Blessings + Abundance,
XO Kate
