Overcoming fear in business and life to embrace your freedom

Dec 26, 2023 | Self-growth

Embrace freedom by overcoming fear in your business and life.

Overcoming fear is a way to start changing your life for good.

Fear can paralyze us.

In business as in life, fear can make our lives messy.

It’s like an invisible thread that infiltrates our thoughts, decisions, and aspirations.  But, when we face our fears and muster up the courage to deal with them, something cool happens— we become free!

We all have fears, whether it is elevators, public speaking, or spiders.

 

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In the book – “Feel the fear and do it anyway” by Susan Jeffers, she talks about:

 

The Five Truths about Fear:

 

1. Fear is a natural part of life.

2. The only way to overcoming fear is to go out and do the things you are afraid of.

3. To feel better about yourself you need to take risks and stretch beyond your comfort zone.

4. Everyone feels fear when facing the unknown, but successful people learn to handle it.

5. Pushing through fear is less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness.

 

Overcoming fear is not a conquest; it is a journey toward discovery and self-growth.

Imagine yourself as a five-year-old – you have a magic cape, and on the other side of your fears is a treasure chest full of amazing things! Overcoming our fears is like wearing that cape and opening the treasure chest.

Have you found the key to unlocking hidden capabilities, fostering resilience, and embracing a life rich with opportunities?

 

Here are some of the skills I learned to overcome some of my fears:

  • Trust yourself – trust that you can make good decisions and find what you need to make that happen.
  • Take ownership of your life – rather than reacting to events, you are the one who should take charge.
  • Learning – if you fear that you don’t think you know enough, take the steps to learn that thing to overcome fear.
  • Believe – you must believe in your heart that this can be done.

Nobody can do it for you.  This is for you.

Overcoming fear isn’t just about winning battles; it’s a way to discover yourself and grow as a person. Use the path as a stepping stone.  You will feel stronger and more confident, not just in one thing but in everything you do.

 

Benefits of overcoming fear

 

Increased confidence – When you overcome your fears you gain a sense of accomplishment and belief in their abilities.

This confidence often extends beyond the specific fear, positively impacting various parts of your life.

Building emotional resilience – when we confront our fears, we are starting to build our emotional resilience.   We learn how to cope with discomfort, uncertainty, and adversity.

Developing resilience – means we can be better equipped to handle life’s ups and down. Makes us more adaptable and can foster a positive mindset.

Expanded Comfort Zone – when confronting fear, you must step outside your comfort zone to confront that fear.   An expanded comfort zone opens the door for more opportunities and experiences leading to personal growth.

Improved mental and physical health – fear and anxiety do take a toll on our mental and physical health.  When you overcome fear, you can reduce your stress levels and are on the way to breaking the cycle of negative thought patterns.   It will take time so be patient with yourself.

Increased opportunities for success – once we can open, see the fear, and take steps to overcome it, we find that we have more clarity.  More clarity, more opportunities for success.

Step by step, you can overcome your fears.   It will take patience and resilience.  For each step, make sure you celebrate each milestone, not matter how small they are.

 

Perseverance: how important is it in your entrepreneurial journey

Oct 4, 2023 | Self-growth

Perseverance: the act of not giving up. Sticking to a course of action, belief, or purpose. Not giving up on your dreams and hopes to create a business that someday could become successful. Anyone can start a business but how many stick with it?

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ABS stats in Australia state that in 2021 there were 2,402,254 businesses trading. There was a 3.8% growth, with a 15.8% entry rate and 12.0% exit rate. Medium-sized companies experienced the biggest growth in the 2020/2021 period. Yet, non-employing businesses dropped by 2.2%.

Many of us have a dream to start our own business, make lots of money and enjoy life to the fullest. Nice thoughts, but most of us don’t get to realize our dreams. Because we want it to be easy. Build a website, write a few blogs, and let it run on automatic pilot. That’s why perseverance in any business is essential. Understanding the importance of this trait sets you apart from the competition.

Almost all entrepreneurs make mistakes or face obstacles that may derail their business. If you can pick yourself up, more than once and learn from your mistakes, then you are on the right track for success.

What role does perseverance play in entrepreneurship?

Life will throw you curve balls. You need to realize that if you don’t get up again and again then your business may not do well.

“Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th.” Julie Andrews Edwards

It’s about being savvy, consistent, and sticking to your goals. We try, we fail, and we get lucky. We try new things something sticks, and we have learned from our mistakes.

The Entrepreneurial Journey

If you are starting out, you will running a one-person business is a no brainer. It’s easy enough to do if you are tech savvy and can lessen the workload by using digital apps.

Identifying your passion

Make sure you find a niche that aligns with your interests, expertise, and values. It’s important to find a niche that you know and are passionate about. If it’s something you love, it will keep motivation high. To be successful, identify and leverage your strengths. Develop products or services that are in line with market demands.

Research the platforms that you plan to post your content to gauge the type of content that is popular. Follow the people who are doing well so you can learn from those who are successful on the platform. This may also provide information to define your target audience.

Initial challenges

Some challenges for Solopreneurs and entrepreneurs are financial constraints and limited resources. Create a business plan. No matter how detailed you are you need to plan how you will run the business until money comes in. Create a realistic budget to work within to start. Adapt as you grow.

You will need to be resourceful with promoting your company. You can get a lot more done by automating a lot of your processes. This may take some time to set up if you are not organized from the get-go. We are all used to working with apps to make our lives easier. Running a business is no different, it’s on a bigger scale.

The role of perseverance

You may start a business and it fails. You need to be tenacious and keep going. If you give up, how will you know if you could have been a success? We all think that things happen straight away. That singer that became an overnight success. What we find out later is that singer had been trying for 5 or 10 years. It takes time and patience.

Facing the obstacles head on

There are going to be times where you feel lonely, and you lose confidence. Remember to keep in close contact with friends and family. You need that support mechanism to stop you from experiencing self-doubt. Find a mentor or coach who can keep you motivated.

Work with the expertise you have. Seek out platforms that provide information to resolve obstacles you are facing. There are so many blogs and podcasts that can help if you have time. You may need to, so you don’t burn out.

Remember to ask for help if you need it. Maintain your support network by setting up a weekly coffee date with friends. You can bounce ideas off them or even get back that sense of belonging. Sometimes when we are not doing well and feel alone we need to get back to reality for a little while.

Stay committed to your vision but realize you need a work-life balance to get there.

Learning from failure

We all fail at something in our lives. It might be at school, at a job or in your own business. Yet, if we don’t learn something when it does happen, we are holding ourselves back. Failure impacts your goal commitment. It may even result in the “what the hell effect”. This could cause erratic behavior.

Have you ever been in a situation where you have been trying to lose weight or get fit and you are getting nowhere? So, you eat a tub of ice cream or cancel a gym membership. But that doesn’t make it better it makes it worse.

One technique is to learn from somebody else’s failures. The aim here is to avoid doing what the role model has done. Or, take yourself out of the equation, talk about the failure from a 3rd person perspective. E.g., Why did John fail?

Self-care for work/life balance

Because most of us in our own business or even at work we are juggling so many things we need to stop and ‘smell the roses’. Take some time to focus on you.

Some ways to do this include:

– Personal ‘you’ time as an everyday routine.
– Make sleep a big priority.
– Eat right.
– Remember to relax and unwind.
– Workout as often as you can. Make it a part of your workday.
– Say no when you feel you must.

Learning from successful role models

If JK Rowling hadn’t been persistent she would not have been the success she is today. When she first wrote the first Harry Potter book in 1995, it got by 12 different publishers. One of the publishers even told her to ‘get a day job.’

“Failure is so important. We speak about success all the time. It is the ability to resist failure or use failure that often leads to greater success. I’ve met people who don’t want to try for fear of failing”. – JK Rowling

Steve Jobs achieved success early on in his career. But at the age of 30, the Apple Board of Directors decided to take the business in another direction. He got fired from the company he created. Jobs did go back to his former company. Because Apple purchased NeXT (a software company and Pixar), founded by Jobs. The rest is history that we can all learn from.

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life. And the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.” – Steve Jobs.

Perseverance and tenacity are key elements of their respective successes.

Conclusion

To summarize, here are the points discussed in this blog:

The entrepreneurial journey:

– Identify your passion.
– Initial challenges.
– The role of perseverance

Facing the obstacles head on:

– Learning from failure.
– Self-care for work/life balance.
– Learning from role models.

A big hi-five to those Solopreneurs or entrepreneurs who start and stick with their dream. Are you ready to get started this weekend?

This is how I can help right now.

  1. Download the FREE Brand Starter Guide.
  2. Join my newsletter – resources and action tips to help you get your brand up and running.
 

5 challenges to overcome when delving into becoming a solopreneur

Sep 27, 2023 | Self-growth

Becoming a solopreneur can be challenging but it’s not impossible. So, you’ve decided to start a business, congratulations. Do you have an idea of where to start?

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So, what is a solopreneur?

A solopreneur is a self-employed professional who works for themselves with no employees. The person could be a blogger, consultant, e-commerce store owner, hairdresser, or plumber.

The trend of becoming a solopreneur is more accessible with low-cost digital tools. During Covid, many people worked from home. And they realised that starting a digital business may be easier than they thought.

Some people start building a side hustle business, while still working their 9-5. This is a good idea for a few reasons:

Primary Income.

Having a primary income is a big benefit to starting your side venture before you leave your day job. It makes you feel secure. And it gives you the money you need to get the business up and running. You can start a business with free tools. If the tool is a good fit for your business, you will have the money to buy a premium version.

Learning how to go all in.

When you are working for someone else it’s hard to imagine what it’s like to start and run your own business. By doing it ‘on the side’ it gives you a chance to find out what it takes.

Gain clarity about a side business.

Running a side business also helps you to gain clarity about running a business. It gives you time to figure out if the side business is a good fit and something you want to be doing all the time.

THE BENEFITS:

Control.

– As a solopreneur, you have complete control over the running of your business. You get to make the decisions and the direction you want the business to go in.

Flexibility.

– You are the decider of what hours you work, when, where – it’s up to you and no one else.

No need to share profits.

– You don’t have to share any profits you make from running the company. This may take some time so be mindful that the profits may not happen overnight.

Easy to get started.

– Running a business can be easier and less expensive than having partners or others in the business. The learning curve may be steep, but once you get started you can find the best tools to make your work life easier.

THE CHALLENGES:

Challenge 1: Managing Finances.

When you have no one to share the financial burden with, it can be difficult to manage your finances. You are accountable for the success or failure of your business.

Take a crash course in how to track your income and expenses by creating a budget. Look for ways to reduce costs. Be resourceful in investing in processes that will keep you on track or grow your company. There are many templates around that you can utilise for this purpose.

Consider crowdfunding. Pitch your ideas to a large pool of investors on the internet. If you choose this route do your research or talk to friends for suggestions, to find the best one for you.

Contact a professional if you still need help managing your business finances.

Challenge 2: Wearing many hats.

You will be responsible for everything that goes on in your business. The term ‘jack or jill or all trades’ becomes clear when you start your one-person business.

From bookkeeping to marketing to operations and customer service. There are videos about all these subjects, so prepare to learn a lot. If you wish to take the route of the many apps out there, you can try a free version and if you have the budget – go for it. You will grow and make mistakes along the way. Your hard work will pay off but don’t expect it to happen straight away.

Time management techniques to use are: Pomodoro technique, and eat that frog.

Time management and tracking apps are great time savers as well. It depends on your budget and way of working.

Challenge 3: Working alone.

Working alone can be hard. Most of us have gotten used to it during COVID. If you need to have more people around, spend some of working day in your local coffee shop. For a more social work environment you could also look at co-working spaces in your local area. They offer a better way to stay focused and productive. Don’t let feelings of isolation influence your motivation and mental health.

Challenge 4: Marketing and networking

One of the best ways to get started is to research and seek out the best way to get started with marketing. If you want to learn there are many courses on Udemy or Skillshare.

You could outsource to online creators such as Upwork or Fiverr.

If you are savvy at marketing, you could tackle the branding and marketing yourself. Create your brand strategy to define your target audience. Hubspot is a great go-to for tools and templates for those starting their own business.

Social media is a big part of getting brand exposure. Choose the platform where your target audience hangs out and get promoting. Be authentic, consistent, know your target audience and measure for best results.

Other ways to increase brand exposure are:

– Joining communities,
– Attending networking events
– Volunteering to give back to the community.

Challenge 5: Balancing your work-life boundaries.

Remember that you need to prioritise your work and stick to a schedule. If you are doing too much you could burn out. When this type of thing happens, you realise you can’t do everything. Take a look back to see what is working. And streamline your work-life boundaries.

Leverage available tools to keep you organised. I’ve tried calendar blocking before in the workplace. It is a time management technique where you break your workday into sections. You create a time slot for tasks on your ‘to do’ list. I found I needed to set an appointment with myself so I could get things done.

Automation is the key to lessen the number of tasks that seem to make their way on to your task list. Finally, learn to prioritise.

Quote: “Fear has a way of stopping us from becoming the person we want most to be. Find a way to overcome this fear and you can show the rest of the world how wonderful you are. You might even show yourself this too.”

Conclusion

To summarise, five big challenges of running a one-person business are:

Managing finances.
Wearing many hats.
Working alone.
Marketing and networking a new business. Balancing your work-life boundaries.

Be resilient and adaptable. You may face some setbacks but if you can weather these times, you will be able to move forward with your business. The difference between successful or unsuccessful people is being able to bounce back.

Ready to get started?

This is how I can help right now.

  1. Download the FREE Brand Starter Guide.
  2. Join my newsletter – resources and action tips to help you get your brand up and running.

 

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