In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about the four mindset blocks that are slowing down the growth of your business.
Whether you’re aware of it or not, chances are your business is being impacted by these mindset blocks!
If you feel like there’s an invisible force that might be stopping you from getting the results that you feel like you should be achieving with the level of activity and attention that you’re giving your business, then this is going to be a really juicy episode for you.
I’m also going to be sharing with you how you can get one of my most amazing courses to help you combine both mindset and marketing strategy for 80% OFF.
This offer is time-limited so make sure you get it before the 20th of February! All details can be found at the end of this podcast episode.
Let’s dive in and start talking about those four pesky mindset blocks!
They say that one of the most powerful personal development journeys that you can go on is starting your own business.
I must say that when I first started my business, I thought I was completely open to making millions of dollars and there were no reasons why I would stop myself from being successful. However, I now know that this statement that it is a huge personal development journey is TOTALLY TRUE.
Think about it: when you go into having your own business and working for yourself, YOU are the person that you have to answer to, YOU are in charge of how productive you are.
No one is keeping you accountable other than yourself.
You are required to make all the decisions. You don’t have someone to fall back on.
That’s why:
- I think it’s really powerful to have both a strategy mentor and some mindset support (especially when you first start your business)
- It’s important to understand and recognise that mindset and strategy go together hand-in-hand when it comes to growing your business and getting those results
In today’s episode, I want to talk about the four key mindset blocks that I see consistently come up in relation to having your own business.
There are unlimited mindset blocks out there, but I see these four come up the most consistently.
Before I dive into the details of each of those mindset blocks… what is a mindset block?
A mindset block is anything where you aren’t necessarily behaving the way that you want to or getting the results that you want to, and it can show up in a number of different ways.
It might be that you know what to do, but you just don’t do it.
There’s either something in the mindset or the energy around not feeling safe to do it, or there’s something coming up for you.
It’s like when you tell yourself that you’re going to go for a walk every day because you know it’s good for you, and yet you still don’t do it.
Or it may be that you know if you take your vitamins every day that you’re going to feel so much healthier. You may even have a strategy on how you’re going to remind yourself each day, but then you start ignoring those reminders and just don’t do it.
In business, this shows up as well.
You know what to do in your business – you know you should be consistent with your content, you know you should get a podcast out every week – but for some reason, you’re just not doing it.
It may even be that you do the action, but you don’t finish it – you don’t do it completely.
If you were to actually finish it off, you know that it would get you really good results, but there’s just something inside you that is stopping you from finishing it off.
Another way that mindset blocks might show up is when you do the action, but it doesn’t work. You feel like you’ve done everything and that you should have received a certain level of results, yet it still isn’t showing up.
You’ve done the action, but the action hasn’t gotten you the results that you feel it should have.
Another type of mindset block would be where you struggle to start something. You’ve been saying for six years that you’re going to write a book, yet you still haven’t written a word down. Or you say you have been trying to be consistent with something, but you really struggle to stay consistent.
Ultimately, mindset blocks are where it feels like you are battling yourself in some way.
It feels like you’re:
- Not doing things that you should be doing
- Doing them but you’re somehow holding yourself back from the results, or
- Not finishing them or you’re not consistent
It really feels like there’s this battle that’s going on internally. That is what’s stopping you from getting results. That is what’s stopping you from achieving your goals.
The four mindset blocks that I see come up most consistently for womxn in business are:
- Visibility blocks
- Action blocks
- Results blocks
- Money blocks
These four blocks are the ones that I see come up most consistently, and they’re the ones that we can really link directly to our business results as well.
They’re often the easiest to identify and recognise, and they’re the ones that you can practise clearing the most effectively.
Let’s break down exactly how these mindset blocks can show up in your business!
1. Visibility blocks
This shows up as not wanting to be seen.
For example, you want to post something, but you also deep down DON’T want to post something. You want to go viral, but you also DON’T want to go viral.
It may be conscious, or it may be subconscious.
You might at the surface level feel like you want to be famous, but at the subconscious level, your little 10-year-old self is scared because she tripped up and embarrassed herself as the lead in a play and now she doesn’t want to be seen.
There’s usually an experience or something that’s happened before that has told you that it’s not safe to experience that.
Visibility is a big one – not wanting to be seen whatsoever.
But this can also show up as not wanting to be seen trying something.
This definitely came up for me when I first started my business. I just wanted to start posting on social media and have a successful business, and I didn’t want anyone to see me try something and have it not work (especially my ex-partners, ex-boss or ex-workmates).
I didn’t want people to see me try something and have it not work, I just wanted it to look effortless.
This can show up a lot with people who work in the health and wellbeing space.
They don’t want people to see their struggle or to see them trying, they just want to make it look like everything comes really easily to them.
This, again, can be conscious or subconscious.
It might be that you don’t want to be seen by certain people.
You’re totally happy for most people to see you, but you don’t want your mum or your cousin or that best friend that you kind of had as a frenemy in highschool to see you.
You want to be seen, but you’re trying to put limits on certain people seeing you, and that can show up as a visibility block. This ends up really limiting your visibility, limiting the reach that you get, or limiting your consistency in showing up to be seen because of this conscious or subconscious resistance.
It might be that you don’t want to be seen failing – fear of public failure and embarrassment is what’s holding you back.
On the other end of the spectrum, it could also just be that you don’t want people to see you succeeding.
I know this definitely came up for me when my Facebook community really started to thrive. We got lots of members coming in and my business was starting to take off, and I didn’t want other people to feel uncomfortable with how successful I was.
I didn’t want people to see how much money I was making, because I thought it would make them feel bad.
This wasn’t at the surface level.
At the surface level, I thought that people seeing my success would inspire them and they’d want to jump into the community and allow that rising tide to lift all ships. But underneath that surface, there was a little bit of a fear that people might see my success and talk about me behind my back. Or they might see my success and feel yucky because they’re not as successful as I am, and I didn’t want people to see that.
Sometimes I didn’t want my family to see me succeeding because I didn’t know if that would mean that I would have to pay for dinner all the time.
It’s these weird little things that pop up for you without you necessarily thinking them at a conscious level consistently. There may just be a sign or a hint that maybe there are some visibility blocks there because you’re resisting the action of getting visible or you do the things to get visible but the results don’t come.
It’s almost like you’re posting on social media and you’re doing everything right, but you feel like you’re wearing this invisibility cloak and you don’t know why.
Visibility blocks are a big one, and I see that come up for a lot of womxn in business especially.
2. Action blocks
This can often show up as perfectionism.
For example, not wanting to release your course, podcast, freebie, etc. because it’s not perfect or it’s not QUITE ready.
Actually, this is a sign of an action block. We know that 20% of your effort gets you 80% of your results.
Near enough is allowed to be good enough for you to get out there and start making money from it.
The amazing Denise Duffield-Thomas talks about a 7 Money Blocks audio that she had on her website that she didn’t really like but she put up anyway. She knew it needed to be re-recorded and for a long time she was so close to taking it down because it wasn’t perfect and it wasn’t quite ready, but she still kept it up there.
Over the course of two years, that completely imperfect free recording made her $400,000 in sales.
Even though she didn’t think it was good enough and she didn’t think it was quite ready yet, people were still finding it really helpful. And sure, maybe the sound wasn’t as good as it could have been, and maybe it had something in there that she wanted to clarify or say differently, but it still did a good job and it still made her money.
I love that story so much because there are so many people who are holding on to things that could grow their reach, grow their mailing list, or grow their income, and they aren’t sharing it with the world because they feel like it’s not quite ready yet.
That’s definitely an action block – holding back from releasing it to the world.
That’s the action that you need to be taking.
If you are holding onto things and feeling like they need to be perfect or feeling like they’re not quite ready yet, that can be a sign of an action block.
Another one in action blocks is needing more qualifications. I see this one ALL THE TIME.
People come to me a lot when they’re thinking about joining the Take Off program, and they tell me that they want to join, but think they’ll just get another qualification first or get the next level certificate before they join.
You don’t need more qualifications. People don’t care what level you are (in most cases), they just want to know if you can help them or not.
I’m really grateful for the mentors over the years in my business who have told me NOT to get a certain qualification yet, and to just try showing up and serving people first.
If you decide you want the qualification later, you can do it later. But you don’t need it in order to be successful.
We’re putting something in between us and the action that we know is going to be our most powerful action.
A qualification is a really tricky one because, in a lot of cases, people are overqualified, but in some cases, you do need to get a qualification. I’m not saying that no qualification is valuable. But if you keep finding things you need to be qualified in before you’re allowed to be successful, before you’re allowed to start your business, or before you’re allowed to start helping people, then it can absolutely be an action block because you’re putting a block in between you and the powerful action that you know is your next step.
Another example of action blocks is when you know what to do but you don’t do it, and where you are facing that procrastination and that resistance to taking action.
Action blocks can show up as staying busy but not doing the important things.
I know for myself, if I’m not really specific about what my powerful actions are for the day, I can still easily keep myself busy, but that can be an action block because it’s putting a barrier between me and the important action – between me and the powerful action.
Anywhere that you are creating barriers between you and action, that’s likely to be an action block showing up.
That’s the second mindset block that I often see.
3. Results blocks
This is where you’re putting a block between you and actually reaping the rewards of your action.
This can show up as doing 95% of the thing, and then not finishing it.
I have a friend who has been writing a book for four years, and she just let me know the other day that for the last two years, all she’s needed to do was write the introduction and conclusion. Other than that, she had finished the entire book two years ago.
She has probably less than 5% of the book to go (only four or five pages) and she’s been stalling on it for two years.
That’s the results blocks.
There’s something about finishing it, getting the result, putting it out into the world and having people buy it that’s bringing up a block for her.
She’s put a barrier between her and getting those results.
It might also be where you do the work, but you don’t get the results.
I see this happen a lot when people are doing a launch and they’re doing all the work (they’re in Facebook groups, on other social media platforms, have email sequences set up, etc.), but on an energetic and subconscious level, they don’t want people to sign up or buy from them.
That energy and mindset DOES impact on some of your behaviours… very sneakily.
Energetically, you’re not putting out the energy of wanting to receive those results. Instead, you’re doing all the work and putting it out there, but your energy is pleading for that thing to not be bought or to not go well.
This could be because of a subconscious fear that you’re going to get too busy, or a subconscious fear that you’re not going to be able to deliver for people.
It’s often not conscious, and I want to be clear with that.
You might be thinking as I talk about these blocks that this definitely isn’t the case for you because you do finish and you do want clients.
But it’s not necessarily at the conscious level.
Some clues of having results blocks can be where it works for others, but not for you.
This happened in my last 5-Day Client Attraction Challenge when I told people about a SPEAR email (Short, Personal, Expect A Response).
There’s a certain structure to the way that you do a SPEAR email and send it out to a mailing list.
Inside my Take Off program, there were people who were so impressed with how well this email structure was working for them with the number of leads they were getting from it. The overall results were incredible for SO many people. But then there were some people who were very quiet at first, that started saying how they did the exact same thing and yet it wasn’t working for them even though it was working for everyone else.
This can be a results block.
There are of course some strategy things that we can do – we can tidy up the words, grow your list more and make sure we’re really nailing that engagement – but if you are still blocked from that result, it doesn’t matter how much we finish that email or how many people you send that email to, if you’ve decided it works for others and not for you, that’s the truth that you are going to experience.
If you’ve got these results blocks going on, you’re going to feel like it works for other people, but you just never get the same level of results as them.
Another results block is where if you hadn’t left it to the last minute, you would have done way better.
Examples of this could be where you’re applying for awards or grants, or you have to submit a guest article or create a webinar.
Whatever it might be, if you’ve left it to the last minute to the point where you know it’s not your best work, that is definitely a results block.
You’re finding ways to put a block between you and getting good results from it.
I’ve definitely had this happen a couple of times.
I’m generally really good at doing things just in time and still giving myself enough space to get it to be my best work, but there have definitely been a couple of times where I can see that I had been feeling uncomfortable about sharing a platform with a certain person or being seen in a certain way, so I left my presentation to the very last minute and I knew it wasn’t my best work.
That was a great clue for me that I had some results blocks showing up.
Another one can be where you DO get the result.
You decide that you want to bring in $5,000 one month, and you bring in that $5,000 but then you end up spending it all on things you weren’t planning on spending it on.
I know a lot of people who manifest an extra $500 in their income, and then the car breaks down and the bill is exactly $500.
It can also happen where they get 1,000 people onto their mailing list from a big launch, and then the tech glitches somehow and they lose everyone’s contact details (I know three people who that’s happened to).
It’s as though you got the result, but then you find a way to sabotage that result.
The other one is where you get the result, but you don’t appreciate it.
Woman celebrating success and overcoming money and mindset blocks
You know that you’ll feel so successful once you make four sales in a program, but then you get the four sales and feel like that’s not enough and you need to keep going. You don’t appreciate that achievement.
It can sometimes show up as not stopping and celebrating success as well.
You keep setting these goals for yourself, and whether you achieve them or not, you still experience the same kind of unfulfilled not-very-excited result.
That can definitely be a sign that there are results blocks going on.
That’s the third major mindset block that I see.
4. Money blocks
Money blocks can show up as visibility blocks, action blocks or results blocks, but I talk about them separately because I think the way you do money is the way you do everything.
Our relationship with money needs a lot of healing – especially for womxn, Black, Indigenous and Womxn of Colour, and where we’ve experienced challenges with money in the past.
Money blocks are a block all unto themselves, and they show up and overlap some of the other blocks as well.
Some good signs that it’s specifically a money related block are where you can manifest value and prizes, but not cash.
This is definitely a journey I’ve been through.
If I wanted to do a course, I could manifest winning that course for free. If I wanted to get some fancy new shoes or go on a special holiday, I can manifest that.
I have won holidays that I wanted to go on, I’ve won clothes that I lusted after, and I can win free sessions with pretty much anyone (I’m so good at getting those free sessions).
There was a time where I could be bringing in $6,000 worth of wins in a month, but really low cash.
What came up for me was that there was this fear that if I have cash, I’ll spend it wrong, waste it or I’ll get done for tax.
That can be a really big money block. There are some very specific strategies that you can use to move from manifesting value to manifesting more money without being ungrateful for the value.
You don’t want to shut down your winning streak, but there are times where you do want to manifest the money and actually pay for it yourself.
I have a little conversation with the universe when I’m feeling that way.
I tell the universe that I’m really good at managing money right now, and I’m ready to be responsible for that money and experience that feeling of bringing in the money and buying the thing, not just winning it.
That is done through the lens of gratitude, not through the lens of annoyance because I’m never sent that money.
You don’t want to shut down the manifesting of the things that you want, but there is a time where you do want to bring in that cash.
That can be a big money block.
It might also show up where you resist asking for money or you resist collecting money, so you don’t invoice people or you invoice them late or you invoice them, but you don’t follow up when it’s not paid.
You don’t have systems to make sure that you are collecting money from people.
Go and have a look at the last 30 posts on your Facebook page – how many of them actually asked for the sale?
A lot of womxn in particular really struggle with asking for money.
When you get to the money part of a sales conversation, you:
- Get a giant rash
- Avoid talking about it
- Skip over it
- Notice your voice gets really high pitched and uncomfortable
All of that is a sign that you’ve got a discomfort with money and there are some money blocks there.
It might be that you don’t like discussing money, finances or money goals.
Again, particularly for womxn, this can be a learned and trained behaviour. Often we view talking about our money goals as unseemly and wrong. But men talk about their money all the time, it’s just that we have been told that it’s not our place.
There’s a lot of unlearning that we do need to do.
It also can be a sign that we’re uncomfortable in the presence of money. But we don’t want to feel that way if we’re trying to manifest money in our businesses and make those sales!
You might also find you talk people out of buying from you.
I did this a lot in my first few months of business. I consistently talked people out of buying from me just by talking too much.
It might be that you over-deliver because you don’t feel like you’re really worth your rates. So when people buy from you, instead of working with them for an hour, you work with them for four hours.
What it’s saying is that there’s an energetic mismatch here.
It might be over-delivery, it might be your beliefs about rich people and the cost of being rich.
It could be that you feel like you’d rather:
- Be happy than rich (you can actually be both)
- Have a great relationship than be rich (you can actually have both)
- Be close with your kids than be rich (you don’t want to spoil your kids so you don’t want to be rich)
Those beliefs about what rich people are and the cost of being rich can definitely show up as big money blocks.
Even the way we talk about money is a dead giveaway.
Just notice your language about money. Stop saying things like filthy rich or cold hard cash.
Sometimes it can be a real clue that there are many blocks there.
Another big one can be struggling to increase your prices, or never increasing your prices at all.
Those are the four biggest mindset blocks that I see, and all the ways that they can show up.
I would love to hear from you about which of these mindset blocks may have resonated – which ones are you grappling with at the moment?
Come on over to the Heart-Centred, Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook community, use #podcastaha, let me know you’ve been reading episode 256 of the podcast, and tell us which mindset blocks are showing up for you and how. Let’s continue the conversation over there!
Also, feel free to tag me on Instagram. Take a screenshot of you reading or watching this podcast episode, share it on Instagram and tell me which mindset blocks are showing up for you the most!
I’m going to be creating more podcast episodes on how to address the mindset blocks from both a strategy and a mindset perspective, so I’d love to know exactly what you want to dive deeper into.
As promised, if you would like to go deeper into releasing those blocks by combining marketing strategy with mindset techniques, I have a fabulous opportunity for you.
*All links have been updated to the regular price*
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Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the Heart-Centred Business Podcast.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
