Being in business for yourself is not for the faint of heart. Those people who try to sell you the “easy way” to 6 or 7 figures are just flat out dishonest.

Of course, we are really attracted by that language. We all want, wish, hope, that it’s going to be easy and fun. As human beings, we love magical thinking! The truth is, it takes guts, persistence, courage, and a large dose of ongoing personal growth to make it as an entrepreneur, especially if you’re creating a transformational business. And, ultimately, that’s good news. (And some if it IS easy and fun.)

You try things. Some work, and some just fail. Most don’t work the way you planned. You have days of delight, excitement, feeling on purpose, feeling on fire. You have days when you don’t want to get out of bed.

On the road to success lie a lot of potholes. Some of them are large enough to drive a truck into. I know because I’ve been in them.

Fortunately, I’ve had mentors, colleagues and friends to support me in getting out and continuing to move forward. It’s a continual learning process. You have to be able to say, well, that didn’t work. What’s the lesson? What else is possible? What’s next?

Recover, re-frame, re-imagine, reinvent, re-energize.

Oh, and the other part is – being an entrepreneur is going to bring up every last bit of your stuff – right in your face, and if you don’t do the inner work, you won’t succeed. I’ve really learned A LOT in those potholes.

I’ve been on a lifelong personal growth and spiritual exploration journey. In my 20’s, I used to think that at some point, I’d be done, and I could just live. Hah! I’ve had to realize that there is always more for me to learn about being the best me I can be.

Sometimes old stuff comes up that I thought I worked through years ago, and it can feel like I’m going in circles. I’ve learned to see that even though the same old stuff seems to be up, it’s actually at a different level. I’m on a spiral, not a circle. There’s a new layer of learning presenting itself. Time to take a deep breath and embrace it.

Being an entrepreneur has brought up my stuff around money (big time), around marketing and selling (it’s not nice, nice girls don’t toot their own horns), around being SEEN as my true self (scary), around my self worth (I’m not good enough, I need another degree or another certification), squishy boundaries (letting client sessions go over time, not holding clients to contracts) and my tendency to get stuck in discouragement. I do eventually move through it – persistence is one of my strengths – but I can lose momentum by not getting out of the discouragement pothole soon enough.

My lifelong personal growth work has been INVALUABLE in business, and I’ve had to really step up my game. My inner work is just as important, and sometimes even more important, than the nuts and bolts of the business work. If I weren’t doing the inner work, I wouldn’t be where I am, and I won’t get where I still want to go. Nor would I have the awesome tools I now have to move my clients forward on their journeys.

This brings up a really great thing – as a coach, everything I learn gets applied in my work with clients! (Awesome bonus.)

So, being an entrepreneur, being in business for yourself, is a transformational journey. In order to get to the next level in business, we have to BE different. In addition to learning new skills, we have to change our mindsets, uplevel our money stories, shift our sense of what is possible, shift old beliefs about how much and what kinds of things we can do, grow our confidence and our sense of self worth. We have to grow ourselves to grow our businesses.

And it’s a hero’s/heroine’s journey. It takes guts and courage to keep going and to figure out how to get out of those huge potholes when we fall in (as we inevitably will), and to do it all with integrity in a way that feels true to our authentic selves.

Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be a solo journey. We women often have the mindset that we should be able to everything by ourselves. That’s a mindset you’ve got to shift, or you’re going to burn out. Getting support from mentors, coaches, guides, team members and friends is essential. They have ladders to get us out of potholes, and can help us navigate around them. They even have maps to show us the shortest route to our goals, which is usually a route we don’t see.

Your transformational business journey includes:

• committing to your personal growth as deeply as to your business growth
• learning to accept support
• actively seeking out and proactively using support (I’m not talking about reading books. We can get some great information out of books, but in general, we need live, personal, interactive support to implement what we learn. You actually know this.)
• re-framing the potholes as learning opportunities that give you more tools to use with your clients
• choosing mentors, guides and coaches who can help you with the personal growth pieces of your journey as well as the business parts
• finding the joy and fun in the entire transformational journey of becoming a whole, authentic, fully expressed, successful human being.

To your successful, joyful, growing journey through the potholes –

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What are your thoughts on todays article? Did you have any a-ha moments? I’d love it if you’d share them with me in the comments section below.

Ways I can support your further:
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