Caitlin Bacher:
If you’re feeling stuck in life and business, it might not be the things that you are doing that is keeping you stuck, it might actually be the things that you are believing.
Let’s get into it.
My name is Caitlin Bacher, founder and CEO of Scale With Success®, and I’m on a mission to help course creators all over the world grow their business in a way that is profitable and scalable. We are sharing, revealing conversations about what it really takes to scale an online course business to millions of dollars per year. Join us here to discover the tough decisions we’ve had to make, the biggest failures we’ve had to bounce back from, and the learnings that emerged every step of the way. We are so grateful that we have the chance to share it all with you right here on Scale With Success®: The Podcast Built for Course Creators™. Let’s get started.
Today, we are talking all about limiting beliefs, specifically limiting beliefs that really keep you stuck in business.
And over the years that I’ve spent coaching online course creators and helping them turn their online course into a six or seven figure business, I have seen a pattern in the kind of limiting belief that comes up.
So I’ve identified 7 of the most popular limiting beliefs that I’ve seen, and I wanted to chat a little about them today and kind of shed some light on them.
And as you’re listening, I want you to think about where this limiting belief is showing up for you.
Now, I would also love it if you’re listening to this podcast, take a little photo of yourself, share it on Instagram, make sure to tag me, Caitlin Bacher. I can share it to my stories and we can get this podcast in front of as many people as possible.
So here we go.
Seven limiting beliefs you must overcome to lead a successful business.
Limiting belief #1 is: “I should be able to figure this out all by myself.”
Wow!
Can you imagine that?
I mean, when we really think about it, when we think about everything that goes into starting, growing, and scaling a business, the idea that we think that that is something that we should be able to figure out alone sounds ridiculous.
It sounds ridiculous when we say it out loud, but this belief is ingrained in a lot of us from a very early age where we’re taught not to ask for help.
We’re taught to be independent, to pull ourselves up from our bootstraps and be strong, be independent, all these kinds of messages.
And there’s a good side and a bad side to hearing messages like that.
Yes, you should be independent. Yes, you should try your best, all of that.
But on the flip side, you also need to ask for help.
And doing something big in life, you were never meant to accomplish these big goals all by yourself.
And telling yourself that you should be able to figure it all out by yourself implies that if you ask for help, if you seek to enroll in a course or a group coaching program or a mastermind or mentorship or any of that, that somehow that makes you less of an entrepreneur because you are not figuring it out all by yourself.
Well, I’m here to tell you that trying to figure it out all by yourself is the worst thing that you can do for your business.
It is not just impossible, but it’s incredibly costly.
It costs you extra time and extra money because you are making mistakes without a roadmap.
You’re in the dark.
And that can be really dangerous, and it can also be really stressful.
I remember one of the things that I really struggled with when I first started my business is I felt like when I would look around and see people that were successful, I didn’t hear them talk about how they were investing in coaches and courses and programs.
I just assumed that they weren’t.
And then I started thinking, well, what am I doing?
I just assumed they were able to get all these results by themselves.
Why can’t I get results by myself? Why am I going so slowly? Why am I not even going slowly, why am I just plain stuck?
The reality is that as my business has grown and as I’ve even come to be friends with some of those people that I really looked up to at the very beginning, I’ve come to discover that they invest a heavy amount of time, money, energy into expanding their skills and really learning new things and getting advice from people who have been where they’re going so that they can get there faster.
I remember when I first started to invest in myself, I kind of felt a little bit, honestly, a little bit guilty about it.
And that takes me to my 2nd limiting belief, and that is: “I don’t deserve to invest in my business.”
So I remember distinctly when I made my first investment in business, when I hired my first coach, I was embarrassed.
I’m just going to be honest, I was really embarrassed.
I remember it was like, I felt this almost shame about it because I was investing a lot.
I was investing in one-on-one coaches, I was buying courses, I was doing a lot.
And when I stopped to think about the overall amount that I was investing, it was a lot more than the income that I was actually taking home, that I was profiting.
In the long term, that actually served me really well because while I made an initial sacrifice of profit at the beginning, then I was able to learn things much quicker, have a proven path to follow and get from A to Z much, much faster and much more profitably than if I was just figuring out everything on my own.
So long term, it was actually a good decision, in my opinion.
But at the time, I felt so much guilt and shame around it.
And I think the reason why a lot of entrepreneurs really struggle with this idea of investing in their business and feeling like in order to invest in their business, they need to be “deserving” of that.
And you are not your business.
So your business requires financial investment no matter what, whether or not you feel like you are a deserving person or deserving of making that choice to invest in your business, the business doesn’t care.
The business just needs money to grow.
So the way that I think about it is if we have a plant, I have flowers in my office and other plants outside, I don’t stop and think every day, “Do these flowers really deserve the water that I’m about to give them? Do these plants deserve sunlight or soil to grow? Hmm, I don’t know if they really deserve it, so I’m just going to not do that.”
Of course, we don’t do that.
I think that a lot of times people get too attached to their business, and I get it because it’s something that you’re really passionate about and you’re very emotionally invested in, but you are not your business.
So if you are waiting until you feel like you deserve to invest in your business because of X, Y, or Z, which are just random things that you make up, like, “Well, I’m not going to invest in my business until I’m at this point, until I have this many subscribers, until I’m making this much money, until I have this many partners.”
It doesn’t make sense.
If you’re waiting until you “feel deserving”, you are starving your business.
So while you sit there and wait to make a financial investment in your business until you feel deserving, your business is over here on the side, shriveling down into nothing.
And so that belief that “I don’t deserve to invest in my business” is ending up costing you a lot of money.
Because if you were investing in your business, then your business would be growing and thriving and making you money over time. And so by withholding that, you’re actually starving your business.
The 3rd limiting belief that I see a lot of times pop up for, especially newer entrepreneurs.
So we have a group coaching program where we teach people how to turn their online course into a 6 or 7 figure business, and the main sales mechanisms that we teach is automated webinars.
And sometimes people come into the program and they think that they are literally going to make a million dollars overnight.
That does not happen for most people.
If it did happen, it’s because you had a lot of other skills, a lot of experiences that other people might not know about before you came to that.
Now, I remember when I first opened up enrollment for my very, very first program that I ever sold, I probably at the time made around $3,000, but I was thrilled at making $3,000!
I wasn’t telling myself like, “I’m going to be a six figure entrepreneur overnight or whatever.”
I was like, “Holy moly, this is crazy. I just created a product that I can sell again and again and again. I just released it and it actually has already made me $3,000.”
I was really excited about that.
That excitement fueled me.
It fueled my momentum, it fueled my motivation so that I continued to take actions that allowed me to grow my business further.
I was like, “$3,000, that’s awesome.”
Went live the next day, went live a couple times the next day, went live a few times the next day after that.
And I just kept going because I kept seeing these results start to build and build and build.
I think it’s great to set big long term goals for yourself.
Like, “Hey, I want to be able to make sure that my online course earns six figures in annual revenue or seven figures in annual revenue.”
And that’s totally fine, but you have to be willing to put in the work in order to get there.
It doesn’t happen just because you create your course and all of a sudden money falls upon you.
I think a lot of times we, I don’t know, it’s like we struggle with that.
So I grew up way out in the country. There was all dirt roads, nothing was paved, and our neighbors were few and far between.
I remember when I was a little girl, I read stories about all these kids having a lemonade stand and I was like, “Oh my, this is brilliant, a lemonade stand. Of course, it’s hot outside, who doesn’t want, you know lemonade?”
And I’m reading these stories and I’m looking at these kids and they’re selling all kinds of lemonade.
And so I was like, “I’m going to start my own lemonade stand.”
So I went outside, I had a jug of lemonade and some cups and a little table and a chair, had a sign, and I was waiting for people to come.
Well, we lived out in the middle of nowhere.
There was no traffic. I had put no effort into advertising. I just built it and then I just sat there.
I could have gone to a gas station and started talking about my lemonade stand.
I could have gone to my neighbors and invited them over to my lemonade stand, but I didn’t do any of that.
I just sat there. I just created a lemonade stand and sat there.
My dad, he felt bad for me.
And so then he came out and he bought one or two cups of lemonade.
And I was like, “Oh, I’m just getting started.” I remember.
But that was actually a powerful lesson for me because it taught me that just because you create something, doesn’t mean that everyone’s going to come banging on your door trying to buy it.
You actually have to put effort into getting the word out there, whether that is by doing a couple live streams, by posting some short videos every day on Instagram or Facebook or TikTok or whatever it is, by making a weekly podcast.
You need to do these things to get your message out there.
Now for those of you that are like, “Oh man, but I’ve been doing that and I want to get away from organic content.”
That’s totally fine. You can systemize that and keep that going and then start to leverage paid traffic.
But my point is that you have to do something, and it’s probably not going to happen right away because it’s going to take some trial and error.
It’s going to take some time, even if you have a plan, a coach, a mentor.
Nobody’s perfect and you’re still going to make mistakes along the way, and that’s okay.
That’s normal.
That just means you are a human being. It doesn’t mean that you’re doing anything wrong.
So the 4th limiting belief that I hear a lot of entrepreneurs say is: “I should be further along than I am by now”.
“I should be further ahead by now.”
And when we think about it’s like – who says?
Who is telling you that you should be farther along?
And who gets to decide where you should be and where you are now?
Is it you?
Because if it is, that’s not the best thing because you literally don’t know everything that it takes to get from where you are now to where you want to be.
So if you are just making up these completely imaginary benchmarks for yourself to hit and really beating yourself up for not meeting those benchmarks when maybe they weren’t even the right benchmarks for you to hit at that time – it creates a lot of extra stress on yourself.
Again, when I was first starting my business and every step along the way that first year – and believe me, everything is not sunshine and roses.
I remember the second year I was thinking this a lot, but my first year of business, I never felt like there was anywhere that I should be.
So no matter what I was making in that first year of business, I was just completely amazed that anyone was actually investing in my expertise and the value that I could bring. I thought that was completely awesome.
Now, the second year, that’s when my brain started to kind of play tricks on me.
That’s when I started looking around and I became more aware of what others were doing and what others were achieving.
I think that year I made $200K. I remember I was just so hard on myself.
It was my second year in business, $200K is great for any year and it’s definitely great for your second year in business. And I was like, “This should have been $500K.”.
Why should it have been? Because I just made it up.
Nobody told me. There is no actual thing.
It was just something that I had in my head.
And so instead of celebrating that success, I was beating myself up for it.
And then everything started to feel really heavy.
Instead of that feeling my first year when every little win that I had, I would celebrate and feel excited and that would fuel my motivation and momentum to move forward.
Instead of that, I was just beating myself up all the time and telling myself that what I was doing wasn’t good enough, that I wasn’t achieving enough.
And as I was doing that, the actions that I was taking became less and less effective over time because I was just being so hard on myself.
So telling yourself that you should be further ahead by now is a big mistake and it’s really holding you back.
The reality is that once you start celebrating where you are right now, that’s going to start fueling your progress.
I know that sounds a little bit counterintuitive because you’re like, “How do I accept and celebrate where I am now while still holding space for that vision of where I want to be?”
That, my friend, is one of the challenges of being an entrepreneur.
Not everyone was really built for being an entrepreneur, and that’s totally fine.
Those kind of games that our mind plays with us are real.
The 4th limiting belief that I hear a lot of people really struggle with
And this one sounds funny when I say it, I’m actually going to say it twice because when I say it the first time, you’re going to be like, “What?”
So I’m going to say it twice.
The limiting belief is, “I am uncomfortable leaving my comfort zone, which means I’m doing something wrong.”
I’m going to say it again:
“I am uncomfortable leaving my comfort zone, which means I’m doing something wrong.”
Now, let’s think for a minute.
A comfort zone, by definition, is where you feel comfortable.
It’s where you feel comfortable.
So if you are leaving that comfort zone, you are going to leave the comfort and step into feeling uncomfortable, feeling discomfort, and that is the whole point of leaving your comfort zone.
But sometimes our brain plays tricks on us, and as we’re leaving our comfort zone, the second we start to feel even the slightest bit of discomfort, our brain is like, “Oh, danger, danger.”
Now, are we in actual danger? No, we are not in real danger, but our brain is telling us that because our brain wants to keep us safe and cozy in our little comfort zone.
Now, the good news is that you can acclimate to that next level.
Your comfort zone can always be expanding.
So that initial discomfort will pass if you stay there and you are able to process your feelings, not be hard on yourself, not beat yourself up, and really be present to what you’re going through and what you’re experiencing.
If you’re able to do that, then your stress levels are going to start to come down and then you’re going to get more comfortable in this new, bigger space that you can occupy, in this new bigger comfort zone.
Then of course, if you want to get to the next level, you’re going to have to do it again!
But that’s the difference between having a growth mindset where you know that you can always be expanding and a fixed mindset, whereas, “Nope, I’m going to stay right here.”
And well, I don’t want to do that. Whether you want to do that or not is up to you.
But I definitely do not want to live a life where I am not really tapping into what is possible for me.
So anytime you are doing something new, one thing that you can do is expect for the resistance to come, is expect for the discomfort to come so that when you actually experience it, it feels a little bit less scary because you’re telling yourself, “Oh, oh, there’s that resistance I knew I was going to feel.”
Or, “There’s that discomfort I was going to feel.”
Like, “Okay, here it comes, like I’m good with this, like I can process it.”
And the cool thing is that over time you’re going to begin to expect those feelings more and more, so they do become a little bit less scary.
But when you’re first starting to really step out of your comfort zone as a business owner, then it really does feel weird.
It’s like, “Huh!” It’s like a whole new world and you feel exposed and you’re like, “What’s going on here?”
But it does get better over time.
The 5th limiting belief that you need to overcome in order to lead a successful business is: “I base my self-worth on my achievements.”
“I base my self-worth on my achievements.”
This is incredibly dangerous.
It’s dangerous for your mental health and it’s dangerous for the survival of your business.
You are not your business. Your worth is not attached to your business.
Your worth is not attached to what you achieve and what you don’t achieve.
Whether you know it or not, there are things at any given moment that you are achieving and that you are not achieving.
And so when you tell yourself, “Oh, today was a great day because I achieved this or that.” you’re saying that just because that’s what you are choosing to focus on.
You’re choosing to focus on that achievement and you’re not focusing on all the things you didn’t achieve.
But then on another day, you might choose to focus on all the things that you didn’t achieve and ignore all the things that you are achieving.
So it makes no sense to base your self-worth on what you are or aren’t achieving because both are always present.
There’s always things that you’re not achieving and things that you are achieving.
So your self-worth comes from you.
And this is something that I think a lot of people… Like if you’re listening now and if you’re like me, if you’re someone who really enjoys setting goals for themselves, and if you are someone who has always been achievement oriented, you always like looking for that next big thing to tackle or overcome, I get it. I’m wired that way too.
However, it’s possible to be someone who loves achieving and also someone who loves yourself, whether or not you are achieving.
Once you make that differentiation, once you really start to separate your own value as a human being from whatever your business is or isn’t doing, you’re going to be a lot happier and your business is probably going to be a lot healthier.
Things can become really toxic if you’re feeling overly attached to your business.
I know it’s hard because we are very passionate as entrepreneurs and we have so much emotionally and financially invested in our businesses and we want them to succeed, but there is a fine line between being passionate and being attached.
And it’s okay to feel excited about your business and excited to grow it and feel passionate about the mission that you are trying to accomplish while also seeing yourself as a whole human being who is deserving of love and acceptance and all of that sort of thing.
So really, really important to separate those two.
The final, the 7th limiting belief that a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with as they are trying to lead a successful business is this idea that we should avoid making the wrong decisions.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, you’re like, “Hello? Of course, I want to avoid making a wrong decision. Like, everyone wants to make right decisions, right?”
But if you are consciously avoiding making wrong decisions, that means that you are also avoiding failure.
You are avoiding mistakes. And in that case, you are avoiding growth.
You cannot grow your business unless you are actively making mistakes, unless you are actively making decisions, good decisions, bad decisions, it doesn’t matter.
And if you continue to separate decisions into good decisions and bad decisions, then you’re going to find yourself in a place where you’re in indecision.
You start to put so much pressure on yourself because you’re telling yourself, “Well, if I make a bad decision in my business, that means I’m not worthy of having a business, or that means I’m not deserving of having a business, or it means that I’m just silly and everyone was right when they told me that I would never succeed.”
All of those kinds of things.
And if you remove that value judgment of making good decisions and wrong decisions, and instead just focus on making right for you decisions, it lessens the pressure.
It makes everything feel like you have a pressure cooker and you’re lifting up the top of the pot, and so things can start to breathe.
There is no such thing, in my opinion, as a wrong decision if you are always learning from your mistakes.
Now, if you make a wrong, whatever that means, decision and you just beat yourself up for it, you can’t let it go, you start taking it out on others, you’re blaming everyone like, okay, that’s not good.
And some entrepreneurs definitely go down that path.
And if you are going down that path, the good news is that you can right yourself if you instead start focusing your attention on the lessons that you have learned.
And if you have this kind of growth mindset where you’re constantly thinking of what you are learning from every situation that you’re in, whether you see it as a good situation or a bad situation or whatever, then you’re going to, over time, build confidence in your ability to make decisions, good or bad.
You’re going to start to build confidence in yourself and trust yourself that, “Hey, I’m capable of making a decision right now. And whether it’s the good decision or a bad decision, I know I’m going to be able to make the most of it. I know that I’m going to come out on the other side.”
And if you’re feeling like you are in this place right now where you’re just in indecision about something in your business, I really invite you to think about whether this is actually a category 5 level decision.
You know how hurricanes have like category level 1, that’s like not really destructive.
And then category level 5 is like, wow, it’s like life or death.
Sometimes you are bringing that category 5 level energy to a category 1 level decision.
Most decisions that we’re putting this kind of pressure on ourselves to make are actually not life or death.
Hiring the wrong person. What happens if you hire the wrong person? Is that a category 5? Is that life or death? No.
So what happens if you know need to make a hire in your company and instead of making a decision about who to hire and stop putting so much pressure on yourself about whether it’s the best person or the worst person or whatever, you just need to make the decision to figure it out.
And you’re never going to figure it out if you’re in this place of indecision.
And when you’re in indecision, your business is stuck, nothing is growing.
And being in indecision is actually one of the riskiest places that you can be as a business owner.
You’re better off making the wrong decision, learning from it, and moving forward than holding yourself back, staying in indecision, and being stuck and not being able to get where you want to go.
➡️➡️➡️ So send me a DM on Instagram, which of these limiting beliefs resonated the most with you?
Is it:
- “I should be able to figure this all out by myself.”
- “If I don’t get the results I want now, I never will.”
- “I should be further ahead by now.”
- “I don’t deserve to invest in my business.”
- “If I am uncomfortable leaving my comfort zone, something is wrong.”
- “I base my self-worth on my achievements.”
- “I should avoid making the wrong decision.”
Thank you so much for listening, and I’ll see you next time on Scale With Success®: The Podcast.
Are you struggling to scale your online course business to your first six or even seven figures?
- You hate launching, but right now it’s the only way your course actually makes money.
- You can’t sleep through the night without waking up in a cold sweat, worrying about all the things you think you should be doing.
- All the sales and marketing strategies that used to work for you are completely failing. Maybe you’re feeling stuck, stressed, and confused about how to get things back on track.
- You wonder how in the world so many other course creators are able to generate predictable revenue month after month?!
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