Have you ever taken FOREVER and a day to learn something?
And when you do, you think: “Ugh – why did this take me so long? It’s so important and SO OBVIOUS!”
I’ve been fortunate in my career coaching business, The Revolutionary Club, to get recognized by Forbes, grow my community into the 10’s of thousands, and reach millions of people through my writing and coaching. It’s been a pretty wild ride (I have the crazy hair to prove it :)).
During my time building my business, I placed an emphasis on learning. I found I not only loved coaching, but I also loooooved being an entrepreneur and I soaked up all the information I could find.
And sometimes as a part of that process of learning, I’d think to myself “Oh, I can do that [insert random thing] so much better than this person who’s teaching it. I SHOULD IMMEDIATELY DO THAT.”
This is where I should note that I also suffer from shiny object syndrome :).
So, even though I’ve been in business for a few years, and have built a multi-six figure coaching practice, it wasn’t until this year that I finally got it.
“It” being the fact that doing things because I want to feel smart, or see someone else doing it, is not a recipe for success. Doing things that feel right is.
So simple and so obvious, right? *face palm*
Here’s what it looks like in practice:
Last month in August I bucked the trend that says everyone is on vacation and did three different launches to my career community.
Each of these launches has succeeded past my initial target goal. Two of them blew past my target, and one of them hit the nail exactly on the head of what I had hoped to accomplish.
The success of those launches should haven’t surprised me, but they did. When I dig into the numbers and the results of each launch I kept coming back to one thing: Each one of them felt good and right.
And it’s obvious both now (and in the past) that I do better when I trust myself and only do what feels RIGHT to me.
“Feeling right” led me to create a new networking program and charge people only what they could afford to pay. And guess what? I more than doubled my target sales goal!
“Feeling right” led me to reactivate an old program I had retired, so I could talk to folks one-on-one and reconnect with their struggles and be hands-on with their progress. I sold so many of them that I end every day with a strong need to lie down. But it’s been SO worth it.
When I do something because I see someone else doing it, or because I want to prove myself it almost always crashes and burns. You’ve got too much anxiety – and it’s not the fluttery fun kind, but the keeps-you-up-at-night-stressed-kind, or you feel like you are pushing too hard, or the only reason you are doing something is for ego-related reasons. That’s the example of NOT feeling right. And, I wish I could say I’ve always heeded it, but I haven’t. The truth is that I’ve had MANY a *cough* epic lesson in my business past, and I don’t want you to fall into the same trap.
Mostly, I’m writing because as you grow in your business and learn – take the best of what you’ve learned and only use it if it FEELS RIGHT to you. There’s a calmness or certainty in your gut. It feels good as you do the work, or something in you says: “yes” as you plot out that next move in your business.
This is so important.
Remember, in a coaching business what you are truly selling is yourself. YOU are your best product so you need to be on board.
So this is me asking you to check in with yourself and your gut the next time you get ready to create something new or you find yourself on a path that isn’t quite what you expected. Does it feel right? And if it doesn’t – walk away.
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Christie Mims is a professional Career Coach, founder of the Forbes Top 100 Website The Revolutionary Club, and lover of anything covered in chocolate. Her other big love? Business building! (Because world domination is fun). She’s been paid to speak, write, and help other coaches build their businesses (and make thousands) – because more than anything else, she wants you to have work you love. In her opinion, owning a successful coaching business is a dream more people should be able make a reality.
Want her chocolate-covered help to solve your coaching business issues? Check out her magical coaching mentoring and her sparkly website right over here. CLICK. (It’s waaaay more fun than feeling stuck in your business).