Episode 22 | Is Your Story Preventing Your Success?

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Welcome to the Boss It Podcast. My name is Sophia Noreen and I took an Etsy startup and launched it in big box retailers within 12 months. As a creative with an entrepreneurial drive, I left my full time career in healthcare to find better harmony between career, family and self care. We believe you can have it all. Yes, you can launch and run a successful scalable business while maintaining harmony in all aspects of your life. We believe we can learn from each other and draw on many experiences to create the best life possible. During each episode, we will share proven life hacks that will keep you on top and striving every day. There should be no hesitation. Make a plan. Take action. We are here for you. This episode of the Boss It Podcast is brought to you by the Full Focus Planner. Guys, trust me, it's super difficult to run a business, plus have yourself organized with everyday life. Trust me. I know. We have found that the Full Focus Planner is the best planner to help me and it's the best planner that will help you stay focused every day. What I love most about this planner is that this, it does a really good job of breaking down your quarterly goals. And then it helps translate them into weekly goals and daily goals. Head over to the link in our show notes to check out this fantastic planning tool. All right, guys, let's get started. Hello, everyone. Welcome to another amazing episode of the Boss It podcast. My name is Sophia Noreen, and I'm going to be your host for today. And today I want to talk about two topics and they're going to basically merge together .And you'll see why I've put these two topics together in one episode, primarily because they both intersect with each other very nicely. So the first topic is going to be your story and the story you tell yourself to give yourself an out. To give yourself an excuse, not to push yourself to the next level. And then the next topic is going to be about uncertainty. I could have made two separate episodes for both of these topics, but I want to put them together because they both intersect. Basically what happens is individuals have a story, right? You have created a story in your mind about yourself. You've created a story about why you're not able to accomplish certain things. You've created a story that you have you know it's an excuse in a way, like you've hit your upper limit and you're like, this is my story. And this is a reason why it can't proceed forward. And then the next topic, uncertainty, it's a big topic. And the reason why we need to talk about it is because we're living in a time where many things are uncertain. This episode is being recorded in the middle of COVID. The pandemic and in North America and across Europe and many other countries around the world are experiencing extreme lockdown measures. We're recording this episode in the middle of January 2021, and there's a lot of uncertainty. And people do need that certainty. People do relish in knowing exactly what's coming up next. The unknown is a very dangerous place for people. And as a human need, certainty is extremely important. As an individual, you have needs. And one of the needs is certainty and another need is uncertainty like variety in your life. So for example, you can't just live the same day over and over again. It becomes like Groundhog Day; if you've seen that movie. It becomes really monotonous and you need a sense of variety. But what you also need is certainty, and you need to know exactly when certain things are happening, when you're able to meet all of your needs in regards to shelter and food and your lifestyle. And that is a big deal. So people basically shy away from going towards their goal because they are unsure or they're not certain that they will actually achieve that goal. They have a lower threshold of uncertainty. Now I know it seems a little bit confusing, but I wanted to do this on a really high level, give you an overview of what certainty was and what uncertainty or variety is. And then also your story. These are big concepts. It's a very big topic. But if you are one of those individuals that really want to go to the next level, you are putting goals out there for 2021, and you want to reach them. Or you're one of those individuals that is just stuck and you're not sure what's going on. This is one of the topics that you need to cover and with professional growth or personal growth, these are things that you would walk through as exercises. And I have a special surprise that I'm going to reveal at the end of this podcast about a new initiative we are launching in the coming month. So stay tuned to the very end and you'll learn a little bit more about that. But basically the topics we're going to cover today, we're going to continue talking about in this special new initiative. So stay tuned for that at the end. Basically, we're going to talk about your story first. I want you to think about a goal that you have in mind that you may not be going for because of your story. Now, a common one that I heard as a physiotherapist is I would like to do this type of exercise, or I would like to lose this amount of weight, but I'm injured and I have pains and aches here and there, and therefore I cannot proceed towards that goal. That is their story as the individual who has a goal or aspiration wanting to become healthier. But now their story is "I can't do that because my back hurts". "I can't do that because I've hurt my shoulder". And then the story goes on and on. It's good to acknowledge the story. I don't want to say that that's not an appropriate story. it's true. Your story is true. You may have back pain. You may have a shoulder injury, or you may be just too tired and you can't get yourself motivated enough to go for that walk because we all know what to do. Like weight loss and healthy eating and exercise. This is not a new concept, but here we are still talking about how people need to get healthier. Sometimes it's not acknowledging what needs to be done, but understanding what the story is that is preventing you from moving forward. Another very common goal that is expressed is I want to start a business. "I want to leave my job and I want to go do my own initiative". But the story is" I can't do that because I have bills to pay". "I can't do that because I need money to run my business and I don't have any money to start my business". Those are very understandably stories that need to be acknowledged because they're true. If you need to make money to run your household and you have responsibilities, we're not going to tell you to go quit your job willy nilly and just go ahead and start your passion project without any proof of concept and without any backup plan. That's not responsible. And that would not be something that you should do. And the same with jumping into a project that needs funding, and then you don't have funding. You may not be able to start your passion project because you don't have the capital. That's a reasonable story. You could also have stories that are coming from your past, and this is also a very common occurrence. Especially for individuals who may have had family obstacles growing up. If you guys go back and listen to episode 20 with Loretta, she talks about her upbringing and how it may have impacted her today and how she processes and how she actually moves forward. But what she did is she's used her story and she's used those obstacles that she saw as a young child. She saw her mother going through these obstacles and she now is using that as her motivation to do more. And so you may have a story from your past that you are holding onto because it is allowing you to be more certain about not proceeding forward with that goal. You'd be proceeding into that unknown, and you're hitting your threshold for that uncertain environment. So you're using that story. And you're holding onto that story. So that way you don't need to proceed into that unknown. And so now you can see how those two topics really intersect your story, holding you in a safe place in a certain place, not allowing you to proceed forward with that goal or that action. And that is why we need to work on these two aspects together. Now, I want to make this an actionable podcasts or video. If you're watching the video, I want you to grab a pencil or pen and I want to make this as actionable as possible. I want you to go and write down one of your goals. One of the things that you've been wanting to do for a long time and. After writing down your goal, I want you to write down story that you've told yourself that is holding yourself back from even actioning that goal. We've talked about goal-setting in past episodes. We went from episode 16, all the way to episode 19, and we spoke about goal setting and being as productive as possible. And we talked about the different domains. if you've listened to those episodes and you still have not taken action, not a problem. It could be actually something deeper that is holding yourself back. And again, it could be the story that you've told yourself, which is fine. We're not going to say the story is not correct. We're not going to say to you that it's not true because it could be true. But we need to acknowledge the story and we need to see if it's something that's holding you back because you're afraid of moving into a space of uncertainty. And it's okay to have that hesitation to step into uncertainty. That's not the problem. The problem is that if your internal voice is telling you that you want to accomplish that goal, we have to acknowledge that, too. Because if you don't go ahead and acknowledge that internal voice, you will be left dissatisfied. You will be thinking to yourself years later "Well, I didn't do that and I'm just upset." We don't want to be regretful. We want to be as clear and conscientious of our goals and our actions as possible because we can only control ourselves We can only control our own mood, our own actions and our own thoughts. So what I want you guys to do is sit down either do it now, after watching or listening to this podcast, I want you to sit down and give yourself a good 15 to 20 minutes and write down your goal and write down your story that is preventing you from moving forward in that goal and really make a conscious effort at this activity. This is the first step for many individuals to acknowledge that they're holding themselves back by the story they've told themselves. And again, the story could be true. I'm not saying it's not, but there might be aspects of your story that have been not fabricated, but extrapolated or even exaggerated because it's keeping you in that safe space, that certain space. And it's not allowing you to move forward into the unknown or the uncertain world. So go ahead and take your time right after this podcast. Pull-out a notebook. Or if you're more of a digital individual and you like to put everything on Google docs, go ahead and type it out. Just make sure you get your thoughts out there. I want you to put it down your story and your goal. What is the story that you're telling yourself that's preventing you from moving forward? All right. The next thing I want you to look at is after your story is completed, I want you to look at it and see, is there things that you can still be resourceful with. So for example, the story about leaving your nine to five job or leaving your stable job and then proceeding into the unknown world of business or entrepreneurship, that is a true story if you are providing for your family. And again, we're not going to sit there and tell you, just do it because that would be irresponsible, especially if you are the main breadwinner and other people are relying on you. But if you're not in that situation or if you're the type of individual that can scale back your job to a part-time job, or you're the type of individual that can stay up late at night to accomplish your goals, then those are areas that you need to look at as opportunity. So you have your story and then you're going to have areas that you can be more resourceful with. So we can be resourceful with time. You can find different time in your day. We've talked about this in previous episodes. You are acknowledging that you are working full-time, but you're going to work a couple hours each night after potentially, if you have children, after you put them to bed. Or rather than watching two hours of TV, you're going to go ahead and work on your goal. So you've gotten back your time. That is being resourceful. So you now need to look at your story You need to acknowledge that you're story exists. But what you also have to do is be as resourceful as possible. And if for example, it's money, that's holding you back, is there a different way that you can approach the project without using capital? Is there a way that you can potentially do some of the work without hiring out other people? Now? I wouldn't always suggest this option for everyone because your time is also valuable and you do need to account for your own in valuable time. But what I'm saying is if capital is what is restricting you and that's your story, we have to be resourceful and we now need to see other options. What are the options are available? Another story that you are not working out, or you're not going for your daily walks is because lack of energy. What other times of day would work for you, so you could go on that daily walk or if you're having aches and pains. That's a story. That's great. But have you gone and spoken to your physician or your physiotherapists and they can help you alleviate your pain? So then you can start moving. Those are part of your story, and yes, we're acknowledging that it's true, but now you need to move forward and you need to take it to the next level. You need to acknowledge that it's true and then become resourceful and say, how are we going to be able to tackle the story so I can move on and see how I can still proceed to my goal even though I have that story in my history or in my present. The last example that I had used was stories from your past. And so story from my past that I'll share with you is that my grandmother and I lived together when I was going through undergrad through school. And if you've had the opportunity to go through an undergraduate program, I went to a university that was quite rigorous. So I was probably studying for about 60 hours a week, at least between that and going to classes. And I had the added responsibility of managing household and my grandmother who had fallen ill during that time. So now we had the added responsibility of taking her to a physician's appointments, doctor's appointments, specialist visits, and all that. Reflecting back, I could have said to myself, because I spent extra time taking care of my grandmother, it may have prevented me from having the opportunity to study more. It may have prevented me from having the opportunity to take on extracurriculars. Whatever; I could use that as my story. I can use that in my story to say, I wasn't able to do X, Y, and Z programming because I was taking care of my grandmother and that could be a valid point. We don't know because we're not going to go back in time and change the situation to see what other opportunities would have come about. It could be the exact same outcome. We don't know. The story is there though for me to take on and hold onto and say, I cannot proceed forward with this goal because, 20 years ago, or 15 years ago, I was in this situation. And now that story's there, so I can't move forward because, the time has passed. That was the time when I should have done all that". That could be the story. I can acknowledge that, and I can be true to myself. But having that experience; taking care of my grandmother gave me the opportunity to see other things that I would have not seen if I had not gone through that experience. So for example, with my grandmother, I was able to experience what physiotherapy was. I was able to understand what Parkinson's was. I was also able to understand how this medical system works and how it's a little bit broken, to be honest in Canada. And I was able to see a perspective of somebody getting older. She aged in front of me. And so for 10 years of my life, before I ventured out of the hospital, I went and studied physiotherapy. I went specifically into geriatric medicine, which is medicine for the elderly. And I also learned about dementia; how that really can change your trajectory of your life and how families need to future plan. And it's not just your patient, it's about everybody involved in the family. And because I had that firsthand experience with my grandmother, I had the ability to apply that knowledge in my future, I was able to get the first job because I had that experience. I had the ability of speaking more in depth and applying my knowledge and being empathetic to families who may be experiencing something very similar. My point is just because that story from your past is potentially lingering in your present and you're using that as your story to prevent you from going forward with your goal setting or your action planning, that story could be used to give you a point of reference, it could be used to help solidify some experience that can help you move forward with your goal today. And again, if you have not listened to a Lauretta story, you can go back and listen to her story, in episode 20. It really does shed some light that everyone's going to have a story from their past, and that could be something you're holding onto to prevent you from going forward in the future. Okay. So this episode is super, super heavy. I know that everyone is going to go ahead and write down their story, write down their goal and see what is the problem? What is preventing you? So ask yourself these questions. Is it a tangible limitation such as money or time? How then can you be as resourceful as possible and work around those limitations so that you can still work forward towards your goal? And you can do small increments, small steps, and again, if you need help with goal setting, you can go back and listen to episode 16 to 19 in and around there, we have a whole series on productivity. Is it something that is a mind set limitation? Is it something that "I'm not able to do this because I'm not smart enough" or "I'm not able to do that because I'm not pretty enough". Very common thought I imagine nowadays with social media is that I don't look good on video. And so I'm not going to get in front of the video and speak my mind because I don't like the way I look. That's a mindset shift that you need to make for yourself because that's your own belief about you. Somebody may think you look amazing, and even if you do look good or don't look good, who cares? You're there to express your voice to the world. So just get in front of the camera, the more you do it, the easier it gets. So it could be a mindset thing. So ask yourself is your story on mindset limitation. And then the last story theme I would suggest to really dive deep on is your story something from your past that you're holding on to, because you're afraid of proceeding forward into the unknown. Are you afraid to take that next big step and you're using your story to safeguard you? And again, that goes back to understanding your need for certainty or your need for uncertainty or variety. And those are two common needs that you will have to experience at some level. So everybody has a different threshold for each. Some people really need certainty. They really need to be in that solid job. They don't like to have a commission-based job. They don't want to deal with any of those unknowns. Some people love variety. They love uncertainty. They are able to take those risks and that's fine. Everyone's at a different level. In our household, my husband is very certain. He needs a high level of certainty and big risks are too big for him to bet on. Whereas my threshold for uncertainty is higher. I can take risks. Of course they're calculated, I do take risks more than he does. Your need for variety. And your need for certainty are both things that you need to acknowledge. The reason why we're talking about it today is because if you do not acknowledge your story and you do not acknowledge that it could be holding you back. And if you do not acknowledge that you have needs for certainty and for variety, you could be getting into a situation where you're going to get stuck or dissatisfied with where you are in your life trajectory. I know that Tony Robbins says that if you have not accomplished certain goals by a certain age, according to the blueprint you had set for yourself in your formative years, in your younger years, then you will be dissatisfied. If you had set goals and you have not accomplished them according to your own roadmap or your own mental roadmap. And I did air quotes, if you are listening to this podcast, is you're going to be dissatisfied. There's not much more to say along those lines, like everyone has his mental map or roadmap of where they're wanting to go. And if you have not gotten there, of course, you're going to be dissatisfied. So if your goals are lining up with something that you have planned for yourself, and you have not accomplished it, or you had a vision of yourself and you're not appearing to be in that vision. So for example, a lot of people talk about body image and how they expected themselves to look a certain way after they had gone through a series of weight loss challenges, or they've gone through their fitness journey and they don't look a certain way, that's not lining up with their roadmap of how they envision themselves at a certain age. That is something you have to acknowledge because, that could be the reason why you're feeling stuck. You need to see if you are not lining up your life journey with your mental map of what you thought your life would be. And the reason I'm bringing up that you shouldn't look at your mental map as well. We'll go into the mental map or the roadmap of where you thought you should be in another podcast, because that's a pretty big concept, but that could also be a part of your story without acknowledging that you thought you were going to be at a certain spot in life or meeting certain goals in life, but you didn't and you're feeling stuck. So you need to acknowledge that as well. And by looking at why you feel stuck or you're feeling dissatisfied is a great way of starting the conversation. If you're like, I just don't feel right. I feel dissatisfied. I don't feel motivated. There's nothing sparking my interest and my current circumstance". So you need to tie back to potentially the roadmap or the mental map you had created for yourself when you were younger. And I'll give you another quick example from my life. I didn't expect to actually get married until I was 27, but I got married much earlier. And so people would be like "isn't that's not a good thing"? But not always. Because you might not have been able to accomplish some of the things you wanted to accomplish or do or experience between the ages of whenever you got from my situation, whenever I got married at 23 to 27; those four years, maybe I had a mental map of wanting to do something else. I think my mental map of myself was that I would go away for school. But I didn't do that, which is fine. That's not part of my story. And I do not hold on to that story to prevent myself moving forward in other areas of my life. But I want you to use that as well. When you're going through your exercise that maybe you're dissatisfied, or maybe you feel stuck in certain areas of your life because your mental map is not lining up with. Where you thought you were going to be at this point. So again guys, like this is a huge exercise is a huge personal reflection on where you can go and where you want to go. And it all starts from within. We do have external factors that may be preventing us from moving forward. But remember it's from within, right? There's always a way you have to be resourceful. You can be resourceful. You can change your mindset can change your limiting thoughts. You just have to dig deep and you have to find out what are the barriers that are preventing you from going to that next step? What are the mental limitations? What are the mindset shifts that you need to create? And then finally, what are the external factors that you can change or have influence over so that you can make them work for your current situation? So I promise I was going to give you a little bit of information regarding a great initiative that we are going to be kicking off in the month of February, 2021. If you're listening to this episode, after that, you can still go ahead and check out this amazing initiative. We're going to be starting the Boss It Unstoppable membership. And it's going to be a membership for individuals who really want to improve their self development and their professional development when it comes to business. Now, the reason we are starting this is because I've realized that many individuals are holding themselves back from going to the next level in business or entrepreneurship or personal development because of their limiting beliefs or things that are not as tangible. So for example, I could talk to you guys all day about promotion, right? How to promote your business, how to execute a plan for promotion, how to use influencer marketing. And we have talked about this stuff in the past, but one of the biggest concerns that people have is their own limiting psychology or their own limiting beliefs. And there's a saying that's very popular in the business realm is that if the leader has limited psychology or they believe they have limited potential, then that thought process goes throughout the entire organization or entire team. So even if you're a solopreneur or you're just starting out, if your psychology is limited, then you are going to infiltrate that throughout your entire business. And so Unstoppable is going to be focused on your professional development and your personal development. And we really acknowledged that those two components need to be worked on together. So not only are you going to work on yourself, you're going to work on your business at the same time. So enrollment is going to occur every other month. We all have enrollment six times a year. Once you enroll, you're enrolled for two months. So 60 days straight. During the two months, they're going to receive two courses that are going to help you work through very specific themes. The first enrollment is going to be focused on promotion, and your productivity and those two go hand-in-hand If you're not productive, you're not going to be able to do anything with your business. And promotion is extremely important for your business growth and for getting your name out there. Those are the type of topics we're going to work on throughout the year. And then enrollment will be every other month. So you can join again because the next two topics, themes are going to be different. So if you feel like the next two topics, themes are going to be able to move you to the next level, then you can definitely enroll for the next 60 days. Included are also going to be hyper-focused coaching sessions with myself or one of our specialists that are going to be in the team with us. And then finally, we're going to have weekly live session. So you guys can do a group coaching session with us together on particular themes. So a lot of opportunity for you guys to level-up, to step-up and to move forward with your goal setting and with your achievements throughout the year. So guys, if you are interested in something like this, if this speaks to you, if this is something that you want to look into, you can head over to bossitclub.com and you can click on the link and it'll give you all the information. All right. That is all we have planned for you guys today. Again, remember that you need to go ahead and write down your story. You need to acknowledge what the goal is that is being prevented because of the story. And then see if you can get resourceful and then get resourceful, try to pull out areas from your story that you can work around. So if it's money, try to work around the money, if it's time or work around the time. If it's something that you need to take care of from a physical or a health perspective, go see your physician or go see your physiotherapist. If it's something that is from your past, you need to really dig deep and see how that past experience is helping you potentially move forward. Change the story around. Change your mindset. See how you can take those limiting beliefs and then once you have shifted yourself, you can go ahead and try to goal set and prevent that story from moving you forward. This is not going to be the last time you're going to do an exercise like this. Story's always come in your way, thoughts, and beliefs always come up and we need to break down the beliefs so we can move forward with our goals and with what we really want to accomplish in life. Okay. That's all I got for you guys today. Remember if join Unstoppable, go ahead to bossitclub.com and you'll find all the information there. And if you have any questions at all, you can send us an email at [email protected]. Okay guys, remember make a plan and take action and yes, you can have it all. Bye for now. So my fellow bosses, did you enjoy that episode? Now is time for you to make a solid plan and take action. But first, remember to subscribe and follow the Boss It Podcast so you receive a notification whenever we drop an episode. Remember to leave us a review on iTunes. Take a screenshot of your review and share it on Instagram as a post or a story and tag us @BossItclub. If Instagram is not your thing, no worries. Email your screenshot to [email protected]. As a massive thank you, we will be sending you our Top 50 Tips for Starting and Scaling a Business. This list is exclusively for podcast reviewers. So don't miss out. Now remember bosses: make a plan and take action in all aspects of your life. Yes you can have it all.