I will share some ways your mind might be tricking you when it comes to being visible in your business and what you can do about it.
In NLP we talk about cognitive distortions, and even if you’ve done all of the self-development work in the world and your bookshelves are bursting at the seams with personal development books (Oh, is that just my bookshelves then?!) it’s likely that you’ll still end up distorting reality in some way.
When I talk about reality I often wonder whether there is even such a thing. We all have our own interpretations of what’s happened/happening. Okay, okay, I’m going too deep here, let me stay focused, haha!
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So what are cognitive distortions?
They are essentially thinking that is distorted, not true. You may notice yourself in some of these distortions. I’ve shared 5 examples of how it might play out with your visibility and how you can work through them.
- MIND READING
This is all about making negative assumptions, we are reading the mind of the other person, making up a story of what it could mean.
What You Might Say “I posted X so they’ll think …. “ (X could be a social media post, blog post etc.)
Challenge It How do you know? We assume people think certain things about us, and often that assumption is that it’s bad. Ask yourself, “What if they love what I’ve written?”, “What if they really needed to hear that particular message today?”
- ALL OR NOTHING THINKING
Black and white thinking – there’s no flexibility
What You Might Say “I didn’t complete my blog post so it was a complete waste of time” “They didn’t sign up so I’m rubbish at sales”
Challenge It This is all about what you are making it mean. Harsh but true! So, you didn’t complete my blog post. So what! Will the world end because your blog post didn’t go out? Unlikely! Ask yourself, “What got in the way?”, “Were there other pressing priorities?”. Tell yourself that you’ve made some progress, so it’s not a complete waste of time, and then challenge yourself to complete the rest of the post by a certain deadline.
For the sales one, ask yourself what other reasons there could be for people not signing up, i.e.
- Was my message strong enough?
- Did I have the right offering?
- What about timings? Did I do sufficient things leading up to the offer of buying something? etc.
There will be many areas that you can test and tweak around your sales. By using the non-sales as an invitation to explore you can open up loads of opportunities to improve. Like anything in business, things need tweaking and adapting over time.
- OVER GENERALISATION
This is where you tell yourself, you ‘always’ do something, or you ‘never’ do something
What You Might Say “I’m always scared to do anything on visibility” “I always have a lack of confidence when it comes to… “ “I never get likes on any posts that I write”
Challenge It
Ask yourself, “What am I scared of specifically?” It might be that Facebook Lives are a particular area of visibility that you find uncomfortable.
- Drill down into the specifics of the fear. What specific element about Facebook Lives are you scared of?
- What specifically makes you feel uncomfortable?
- Is it not knowing how to do the technical side, what to say, what to wear, how to label the video, how to come across in the right way?
As you unpack this you’ll find you have more to work with, and can create a little plan to improve your skills
- DWELLING
This is where you spend time ruminating on things that went wrong instead of what’s gone right.
What You Might Say “That launch was awful, I never get clients coming in when I do launches” “I did that video and it was awful, I messed up my wording, kept ‘umm’ing all the time. I hated it”
The launch one is actually one of my personal go-to’s. I’ve had great experiences with launches and not so great experiences, yet this one likes to trip me up on a regular basis!
Challenge It Ask yourself, “Was the launch completely awful?”, “What lessons could I take away from it that would help me do a better launch next time?”, “What other ways could I bring people onto my programme, without doing the heavy launch business model?” (I’ll be writing a post on that one at some point!)
The video – Ask yourself, “What happened that made me mess up my wording?”, “What can I learn from this that will help me do a better video next time?” Often when we mess up on video, we’ve had distractions, someone has come online live that’s completely thrown us, and/or we might not have prepared as well as we could, or maybe even it just wasn’t the day to go live – maybe that day was the day you were tired or not at your best energy wise. There will always be a lesson you can learn from it to help to improve going forwards.
- FORTUNE TELLING
Have you got your crystal ball out and you’re trying to foretell what’s going to happen in the future in your biz? Well stop it already! You’re making negative predictions without evidence/facts (Oh and don’t tell me that you have past evidence – that is just what it is – in the past – so that isn’t a measure of how things can go instead!)
What You Might Say “My webinar is going to go badly.” “Nobody will sign up for my challenge”
Challenge It Simply ask yourself, “How do I know?” Seriously, how can you possibly know how it will go? It could be rocking for all you know. Keep challenging yourself and remember past is not always an indicator of the future.
So there you have it – 5 simple ways to work out where you might be creating distortions in your biz.
Share below which one you think you might do, and what you’re going to do instead.
PS. You don’t need to be a Queen on your own. If you want 1:1 support, check out my Straighten Your Crown Sessions.
