Let’s talk today about the inner mean girl that we all have. That inner bully, that horrible old inner critic. Now it’s something that all of us have inside of us. And it can stop us from doing so many things.

If we don’t get on top our inner mean girl, we’ll be stuck forever

We’ll never grow the business that we want to grow, or we’ll grow really slowly, which means that we won’t make the money that we want to make, we won’t have the impact that we want to have. And we certainly won’t be able to have the freedom that we want to have. And if the worst comes to the worst, we actually might give up.

So what can we do to get over this horrible niggling negative voice that slows us down so much, that self sabotages us? Especially when we are faced with an amazing opportunity that we kind of need to jump on and we know it would be so good, if only we could get over that inner mean girl voice. Well, I’ve got a few things that I want to talk to you about today, about that very thing, because I know it affects so many of us. So, pin your ears back, get your pens and papers out, because I’m going to give you a few strategies to get over it.

Your inner mean girl is actually looking after you…

Now, the super interesting thing about our inner critic, or that kind of inner negative voice, that negative self talk, that self sabotaging voice that we have is that although it says the worst kind of things (and you’ll know what yours are – things like “you’re not good enough”, “you’re not ready”, “everyone else is already doing it, why will yours be any better?”) that mean voice actually has a higher purpose for you. And it is your job to figure out what its highest possible positive intention could be for you.

This is a really tricky question to answer if you’ve never been asked that before, and most of you will have never been asked this question before! So if you were to understand what is the highest possible positive intention of that inner critic, what would it be?

I want you to have a go of answering it yourself. But some of the things that come out for me when I ask myself this kind of question is that it will protect me, it will protect me from rejection. It will protect me from not being able to deliver the way that I want to deliver, the transformation that I want to be able to deliver. If I never put my course out there’ll never be a possibility that I won’t be able to deliver for my clients because I wouldn’t have any clients!

The downside of the positive intention

And that’s the downside of this positive intention. It will keep you stuck exactly where you are now, or you’ll go backwards. So, write down for yourself, what is the highest possible positive intention of this self sabotaging inner critic voice that you’ve got.

The second thing that I want to tell you is a bit of a truth bomb really. The reality is that, that when you’re growing a business or when you’re in business, you probably never going to get rid of that inner critic/self sabotaging voice that you’ve got. And the reality is that we need to be out of our comfort zone, actually most of the time. If you’re not experiencing discomfort, and you’re not having constant conversations with your inner imposter, you’re probably not growing your business either.

Comfort zone or growth zone?

You’ve probably all seen that the graphic with the circles showing the comfort zone, fear zone, learning zone and growth zone?

It’s when you are way out of your comfort zone that the learning happens, and when you’re way, way out of your comfort zone, that is when the growth happens. So I need you to know that if things aren’t feeling easy, you’re probably in the right place. There will be resistance and there will be fear and there will be imposter syndrome and all that kind of stuff.

But I’m going to give you a really simple strategy to start to get over that kind of thing. You will find that your inner critic is the loudest just before you make a breakthrough. It’s such a truth. I’ve experienced it for myself and I’m sure lots of you have as well.

So, when you become aware of your positive intention, you will start to be able to be more logical about it. So once I got aware of my inner fears around launching Be Bold in Business, the first time – so my two fears were one, that nobody would sign up, that was, that was a fear of failure, that nobody would sign up, and my other fear was fear of success. What if loads of people signed up and I couldn’t deliver for them! So once I understood what was really holding me back, I was able then to take action.

Okay, so if no one signs up, well I won’t have to run it and I’ll just go back to the drawing board. If one or two people sign up what will I do? Okay, I’ll still run it, I’ll get feedback from them. And also I knew that there were certain things that I had to put in place to make sure that I got more than two people signing up! The fear about over delivering was simple. It was so simple! George, just put a cap on the number of people that can sign up! Problem solved. I’d been worrying about something that I didn’t need to worry about at all, as it as it turned out, but until I could identify the fear, I couldn’t start to do anything about it. So, start being logical about what your inner critic is throwing into your face.

The super simple strategy to stop self-sabotaging

And then the super simple strategy to get out of your brain space, out of all of this self talk, is to just start to take action. When you are immersed in the work that you love and I know most of you, pretty much all of you I reckon, are super passionate about the work that you do. You can get immersed in the process as well. It’s not just about the goals, it’s not just about the gains, about the money, about the transformation. It’s about the process as well. So get immersed in the process.

Just take ONE tiny action towards the thing that you’re really scared of doing. Once your brain focuses on doing something positive, there’ll be much less room for all of those negative thoughts to swirl around. Okay? Much less room.

So, as soon as you want to start taking control of those thoughts, start to focus on doing something constructive something positive alright. And if it’s more about “what do I do next?” and being unsure of the direction of your business. Then what I can offer you is to just serve the person in front of you and serve them hard, because that will give you insights, that will give you confidence, that will give you content for social media. It might give you testimonials and so on. So just start to serve the person in front of you right now.

The whole reason that I’m doing this video is because somebody in The CEO Club asked a question about it. And I thought I can serve her really hard, by doing a really great explanation of self sabotage and some ways to get over it.

But also I can share it with you guys too. So, I’m not just serving her but I’m serving you all as well. So win win for me and win for you hopefully as well.

We have the power over where we focus our attention

The truth of the matter is that at any time we have complete choice over what we focus our attention on. We can either focus our attention on those negative niggly inner critic voices, or we can focus our attention on doing something constructive and positive towards our goal. The first tiny tiny step.

So the real question is “which one will you choose?”, will you choose to stay trapped in your self sabotaging behaviour, or will you choose to take the first tiny step towards achieving what you really, really want to achieve.

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P.S. Whenever you’re ready… here are 4 ways I can help you grow your business:

1. Grab a free copy of my ebook

It’s a quick list of 50 ways to find your next 5 clients sorted into easy/medium/intense plus a template email for you to swipe and send to your own networks, as well as a few questions to help you decide where to focus your efforts for best results – Click here

2. Join the Entrepreneurial Hearts Facebook Group and connect with other women who are ready to make a bigger impact too

It’s our Facebook community where smart women learn to conquer their mindset wobbles and make a bigger impact and more profit. — Click Here

3. Join Be Bold in Business and be a Case Study

I’m putting together a new Be Bold in Business case study group this month… stay tuned for details. If you’d like to work with me to go from procrastination to profit… just send me a message with the words “Be Bold”. — Click Here

4. Work with me privately

If you’d like to work directly with me to take you from going around to circle to having a rinse and repeat strategy that just works… just send me a message and with the word “Private”… tell me a little about your business and what you’d like to work on together, and I’ll get you all the details! — Click Here