WW 186: The Entrepreneurial Rollercoaster: How to Pull Yourself Out of a Rut - Solo Show

Today we’re talking about the entrepreneurial rollercoaster. It may not be the sales tactics and super tangible tips that I normally share on the show, but it’s important to discuss the internal struggles we go through as business owners too. So today I’m sharing about the ebbs and flows of this rollercoaster, and some of the things I do to get myself out of a rut. Loving this episode? Take a screenshot and share it on Instagram! Tag me so I can send you some love (@Tess_Wicks)

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A Quick Recap from this episode

Today we’re going to discuss the entrepreneurial roller coaster.

We’ve all seen the day in the life of an entrepreneur meme - one minute you’re super excited about the day and what you’ll be working on, the next minute you realize it’s a bit harder or more time-consuming than you thought. An hour or two later you figure out the problem and feel on top of the world, and then you crumble into a whirl of negative emotions about whether anybody really even wants what you’ve just spent so much time working on…and the journey continues.

This is what we call the entrepreneurial roller coaster, and the unfortunate truth is… this is a ride that will never end for you.

It happens on a daily basis, a weekly basis, a monthly basis, a yearly basis, and even seasonal bases in the life of an entrepreneur.

Not because you will NEVER figure out how to be an entrepreneur and things will always be hard to do. But because after you’ve conquered one level, the next level will present its own set of problems and challenges.

Those challenges might be tangible and tactical things that you just can’t quite figure out, but more likely than not, they are internal mindset challenges of you questioning your decisions, whether you can lead more people, take on a different level of responsibility, manage more money, put more trust in others, and the list goes on.

So buckle in, my fellow money coaching entrepreneurs, because this is a ride that never ends. BUT in this episode, I’m going to share some of the things that work for me when I find myself in a rut, and what I do to pull myself out. The ride may not end, but there are tools and SO many lessons you will learn that will make the ride much more bearable.

First Thing To Keep In Mind: The External Wins and Losses Hold Little Weight

Let me clear one thing up, although you’ll face technical, tangible, and tactical obstacles, like your internet going out in the middle of a webinar or a client that ends up ghosting you, these things will never be the reason for you to give up on building your business. Similarly, you’ll hit external highs like getting your first client or finally hitting a $10k month, and I can guarantee you (although, I know this is going to be hard to believe until you achieve it) that these external wins will never be strong enough for you to be 100% content.

Because at the end of the day, it’s never the external circumstances that make us internally motivated to keep going or throw in the towel. It’s the meaning we add to these circumstances that lead to our demise or fulfillment.

What I’m saying here is that you get to choose how you want to ride this roller coaster because your mind chooses how it wants to apply meaning to any given situation.

Let me paint a picture for you with the following 2 examples:

Example 1:

Let’s start with the rain. If you’re like me, there are days where you hate the rain and days where you really appreciate the rain. The circumstance of a rainy day is the fact that doesn’t change, but what you make it mean for that particular day can lead to you being happy or upset about the fact that it’s raining. Usually, this is a result of having expectations of how you want to spend your day. Or maybe it’s just based on how you want to feel that day, and you let the circumstance fit into the meaning you want to give it. We do this so often… give meaning to external circumstances just to further validate how we want to feel that day or about something.

Example 2:

You launch your money coaching program and in 2 months you get your first 5 clients. You’re elated! You get to work 1:1 with 5 ideal clients and help them completely change their lives. You’re making money and doing what you love!

Fast forward 2 years and you’re used to 20 clients signing up during a launch period. You launch, and in 2 months you get 5 clients into your program.

How do you think you’d feel in this situation? Probably gutted. Feeling like a failure. Flooded with doubt and questioning what you did “wrong”.

The reality is that the situation is the exact same… you get to work 1:1 with 5 new ideal clients and work with them to help them completely change their lives. You’re making money, possibly even more than you did 2 years ago with this same number because you likely have raised your prices due to your increased expertise and the demand on your work. Yet, your feelings are completely different.

Because you’ve applied context to the situation. Your expectations have changed over the 2 years causing you to add meaning to the results. And you’ve made it mean something bad about yourself.

So if you want to pull yourself out of a rut, I want you to identify what is the thing that’s making you feel this way… get the facts and then separate the meaning from the facts.

Example 1: It’s a crappy day today versus It’s a rainy day today.

crappy is a meaning we place on the day because of the weather.
rainy is just naming the type of weather.

Example 2: I’m a bad entrepreneur for failing at my launch versus I signed up 5 clients during my launch instead of my goal of signing up 20 clients.

“bad” and “failing” is meaning you’ve applied to yourself as an entrepreneur and how your launch went. These initiate a downward spiral. In fact, you probably would be thinking about failing at the launch and then decide to say that means you’re a bad entrepreneur. This goes to show how one negative thought about a circumstance can lead you down a slippery slope of even more negative thoughts, which always lead to negative feelings.
signing 5 clients during the launch and contrasting that with your goal of signing 20 clients is all fact. There’s no meaning to this until you choose to make that mean something good or bad.

Knowing this, that we apply meaning to external circumstances… whenever I find myself in a rut, or what I like to call “a puddle of doubt” I first make myself stop, back up, and separate the facts from the meaning I’m putting to the facts.

So separate the facts from the meanings you put to the facts. If you need to problem-solve with paper, make a 2-columned table on a piece of paper and right “Facts” on one end and “Meaning” on the other.

The next thing I do is always pull in perspective and celebrate all my wins, no matter how small. So often, we’re moving so fast in building our businesses that we don’t celebrate our wins and we don’t take a moment to look at how far we’ve come. Without this perspective, we can become fixated only on the next goal, and this is a perfect recipe for constantly feeling unfulfilled, unhappy, and like a failure.

On one hand, this is the exact reason your first client or first 10k month feel great in the moment and then have fleeting feelings. Because you might celebrate at the time (though some entrepreneurs I know forget to do this) but then move straight on to the next thing. On one hand this is a good thing, because this is human nature - to always be growing, striving for the next level, and evolving. But it can also manifest in a bad way. So make sure to keep that balance.

Here’s how I do it:

First, I celebrate every win and use an anchoring technique to anchor into my abundance. Anchoring is an NLP technique to create a physical anchor attached to one of your senses to bring up a memory that will put you in a different state than the one you are currently in.

Many people have olfactory and auditory anchors… like a song that brings you back to your first middle school dance, or a smell that reminds you of a crush from high school.

These anchors weren’t created purposefully, but through time and repetition. And you can do the same for other memories and feelings - like the feeling of abundance and gratitude, which is a memory I’ve attached and created through a physical touch anchor. So whenever I make a sale, or my clients make sales, or when I reach the goals I’ve set for myself, I stack that feeling onto my abundance anchor.

Whenever I’m feeling down about something, in my own puddle of doubt, I can activate my abundance anchor to pull me out of that rut.

Next, in addition to activating my anchor when I’m in a rut, I’ll also take a moment to review how far I’ve come in the last year or the last 6 months. I list all the wins I’ve accomplished that, at one point, I never thought I’d be able to do. And I remember something with origins in space exploration and computer technology... that we will often overestimate what we can accomplish in a year and underestimate what we can accomplish in 5 or 10 years.

In a way, I’ve trained my partner to help me do this since he’s the person I typically go to with these puddle of doubt complaints. He’s been great about helping me put things into perspective and sort of snapping me out of it.

This can be another pen and paper exercise - timeline out all your accomplishments and all the ways you’ve impressed yourself in the past. You made it this far, you can continue.

Once I’ve impressed myself, I’ll go through one more exercise, that again, can have a journaling component. We all know that hindsight is 20/20 and some of those things you reflected on for how you’ve impressed yourself probably also had their own trials and tribulations that you’ve learned from.

So now, I want you to take yourself into the future. (In the Wealthy Coach Blueprint, we call this tapping into your Future You or your You 2.0). As that person 2 years from now or 5 years from now, look back to where you are now and write to yourself. Remember that there’s no such thing as failure (no matter how much you feel like a failure today), there’s only feedback. What did you learn from this experience? And now that hindsight is 20/20, how does your Future You really feel about this experience? Are they sweating the small stuff? Or thankful for this period because it brought you closer to your goals?

So, to recap:

Separate the facts and circumstances from the meaning you’re adding to them.
Create an anchor, if you have access to NLP tools, to anchor in a positive state you can activate, specifically when you’re feeling down.
Impress yourself by reviewing your small and big wins, to date.
Write a letter to yourself today, from your Future You.

The tricky part is... our mind is STRONG, it’s hard-wired to protect us from our fears and keep us safe from threat, whether it’s a real threat or one we’ve imagined, so if you’re on the path to building your own money coaching business, and you’re noticing there’s a lot of negative emotions and doubtful thoughts creeping up, you aren’t a failure, and you can pretty simply turn things around if you can take control of your mind.

The more you can expect that this roller coaster is just part of the journey, the better you’ll get at managing your emotions by managing your thoughts about the results and circumstances happening in your life, specifically as it relates to your business.

You got this!

And if you want to avoid one small piece of doubt on the entrepreneurial rollercoaster by knowing how to price and sell your services, then grab the Online Coach’s Pricing Workbook below!