“He is his own worst enemy.”
How often have we heard that?
I am using “He” generically meaning he or she as has been done I believe since people first started grunting in syllables and scratching on rocks with charcoal. He / She is sometimes necessary for clarity, in which case I will use it. Switching between He or She, His or Hers in alternate sentences or paragraphs is to me, contrived, pandering to political correctness and distracting to the reader. Would I feel differently if I was female? Perhaps, but I cannot attempt to answer that. Some old conventions are worth changing, but this is not one of them, far more important threats against women need attention.
Having got that out of the way – and please comment below if you disagree with me – here’s the background.
Yesterday, I listened to a very good webinar by Bob Regnerus, a marketing consultant who specialises in helping professionals, coaches and consultants improve their marketing and increase revenues. I have no commercial relationship with him, I mention him because I believe he is genuine and provides good value to his clients.
The topic for the webinar was “Solve your lead flow problems for good”.
This is not a blog post about finding leads or new clients. But some of the most important reasons for professionals and entrepreneurs struggling to find new clients or customers to build their businesses are the same reasons we hold ourselves back in other areas of our lives. Many of these reasons were mentioned in the webinar, three of the big ones were:
- Lack of confidence in our abilities or skills.
- Lack of a unique identity.
- Unable to see our own value
Why are so many of us unable to see our own value?
Why do we often find it easier to promote someone else’s products and services than our own?
Why do many entrepreneurs continually look for new tools, technology or programmes to find clients instead of getting the basics right?
Part of it is the way many of us have been brought up, believing in modesty about personal ability, it is not right to boast about our successes. Part is a lack of confidence, an unwillingness to test our abilities in the marketplace. In business or personal coaching and consulting services, it can be difficult to measure success for a client in the short-term. Measurable and significant results can take weeks or months. Unlike those service industries where success or failure is immediately apparent. When a mechanic works on a car that will not run and gets it working, success and value to the customer are immediately apparent.
It is a serious problem for people starting out on the path of self employment as an entrepreneur or professional. Suddenly the social safety net of working with a group of people is gone. If working from home, we have hours of solitude that are ideal breeding grounds for our fears. We are not accountable to a boss, it is too easy to be distracted.
Most of us have more than enough information, tools, and programmes. We have or can easily find on the internet, a bagful of tactics but still we do not take enough action. Yes I have been as guilty as most new entrepreneurs at times.
Once the material reasons for lack of progress have been overcome, the major hurdles are our own limiting beliefs:
- I am not——–enough
- I cannot do——-
We all have a range of words to fill in the blanks. I am sure you can come up with your own favourites.
This earlier post covered this subject in more detail, What’s really holding you back, it has links to other posts on the same topic.
There are effective ways to overcome limiting beliefs, you can find experts on-line and off to test their ideas. Some are good some not so much, be discerning.
One resource I came across today is Mentor’s Harbor I am not associated with it in any way, but there is a ton of good, free information on there, both to read and recorded audio.
Our biggest challenge is to convince ourselves that we are uniquely qualified to deliver our service to people who need it, let our own brilliance shine, then just get out there and do it.
What limiting beliefs are holding you back?
