Stepping up is scary. What do I mean by stepping up? Taking your business to that next level, whether the next level is literally to start your business, moving from pro-bono work to paid work or upping your prices, increasing visibility to name just a few. I’m going to share with you 3 things that stepping up has taught me in my business.
In the past month, I have co-ordinated and hosted my own Telesummit, launched my podcast show and submitted 3 chapters for a co-authored book for publishing. It’s been a mind-blowing month, definitely surpassing anything I’ve done in the past on my business. Have I been scared? Absolutely! For the Telesummit, I had no idea whether it would work or not, whether we could pull it out of the bag in time and whether people would even like what we wanted to share. The podcasts were painful as I hate the way I speak so lots of inner gremlins to work with there. I’ve decided I’m just letting it go – my voice is part of who I am. Writing some chapters for a book – eek! I write blog posts but will anybody really want to read what I put out there?! Did that stop me? No, I want to build my business and to do that I need to keep pushing forward, and so do you.
1. It’s not as scary as you think! If you’re running your own business then you need to expect that you’re going to be continuously pushing through your comfort zones, taking action consistently. If you just take it one step at a time you only have to worry about that one next thing on the list. We can create these huge scary stories around what might happen when we’re brave, but in reality it’s never really that bad. If you are worried about it then do the worst-case scenario on it – What’s the worst that could happen? And then the next worst and the next… You’ll find that it all gets very silly after a while and makes you realise that it’s actually worth giving it a shot – you never know it might even work!
2. Surrounding yourself with the right support is vital – If you’re going to take those scary steps then surround yourself with support, people who ‘get’ you, who believe in you and who will encourage you, plus hold you accountable to keep moving forward. Whether it’s a coach, a best friend or a partner doesn’t matter. You just want someone kicking your butt and shaking their cheerleader poms poms for you. It makes a LOT of difference. When you have the support you feel you can move mountains. As I stepped up I surrounded myself with an amazing group of women, aka the Rock Your Biz Telesummit girls and I’ve taken lots of big steps as a result.
3. Your confidence grows exponentially – as you take those big, brave steps you start to notice that you aren’t quite so scared of other things that you’d have found daunting before. You get a courage and bravery about you that makes you unstoppable. I’m not saying that will last forever. As you know I think you have to top up confidence as some days it’s there and other days it’s gone off on a frolic of its own, but what you can do when you have a wobbly day is remind yourself of what you have achieved as you’ve moved yourself up a level. That can give you the confidence you need to move forward.
What would be a step up for you? Note the use of the words ‘step up’, not ‘steep mountain climb’! Write down one small brave step that you could take, set a deadline, get support and then go out there and make it happen. Let me know in the comments below what your step up will be.
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