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Podcast Show Notes
Boy, is that easier said than done. Especially when hard looks like missed sales goals, flopped ads, email unsubscribes, client return requests and alllll the things that get us down and out.
And no… all the cute Insta quotes in the world can’t pick us back up at times.
- “All great achievements require time and hard work.”
- “Good things don’t come easy.”
- “Create your own luck.”
It’s easy to give up
When we want things to be easy or at minimum handed a clear path to success… and we expect our actions to bring us closer to our goals… we are inevitably disappointed when things don’t go as planned.
But friends… business isn’t easy.
Reaching financial goals, building courses, increasing client leads… isn’t easy.
So when it’s NOT easy… our disappointment then can motivate us to give up too soon.
And the thing with giving up too soon is you never know. You never know whether you could have put in just another day of effort and done something incredible with your business.
Straight from my Ideal Client Avatars
I’ve personally pushed myself pretty hard over the past year because…
#1. I wanted to create a different future compared to the present I was living
#2. I knew I could do hard things
I knew to separate myself from my direct sales business and going out on my own to scale my personal brand marketing business wasn’t going to be easy.
Hard wasn’t going stop me
But I wasn’t going to let the HARD of today, or this month, or this year… stop me from reaching the happier of tomorrow.
I knew I had to start doing things that no one else was doing in order to take my business to a place where most businesses never get to.
Things like:
- running Facebook ads
- hiring a business coach
- investing in more education for myself
- starting a podcast, getting more comfortable on video
- learning new platforms
- collaborating with others
…all the things that frightened me, those are the HARD things I started doing more of.
The things that make you question every day… “how much longer can I hold on and push forward?”
But they were all things others couldn’t do for me.
And because of that – those are the things that started to define who I was.
Those hard things that you cry tears over and cuss at… make the difference between existing on this planet and living out your purpose to serve others.
Here’s what Science says about it
And if you don’t want to take my word… Science says to try the no pain, no gain approach to long-term happiness and fulfillment.
An article from Inc.com says,
“According to research published in the Journal of Happiness Studies, people who work hard at improving a skill or ability may experience stress in the moment — but experience greater happiness both on a daily basis and over the long term.
“No pain, no gain is the rule when it comes to gaining happiness from increasing our competence at something,” says Ryan Howell, assistant professor of psychology at San Francisco State University.
“People often give up their goals because they are stressful, but we found that there is a benefit at the end of the day from learning to do something well. And what’s striking is that you don’t have to reach your goal to see the benefits to your happiness and well-being.”
In short, mastering a new skill — or striving to accomplish a huge goal — will definitely mean more stress now… but it also means more happiness later. If you are willing to push through a bit of added stress in the short term, you can experience huge gains in happiness over the long term.
Which, research aside, makes sense. Learning anything new — trying anything new — is stressful. It’s uncomfortable. It’s hard.”
This was spot on for me
I was nodding my head in agreement with every word I read in that article because it’s so spot-on for me.
For example, I recently revised my digital offerings using an entirely new funnel and sales system. It was months of hard work to learn a new platform, redo my training videos, workbooks, and to build out a new sales page.
And even though I didn’t reach the sales goal I wanted I still felt very happy about learning something new and accomplishing all that I did.
Which, in this case, was building a sales page and funnel on an entirely new platform.
And don’t get me wrong yes I’m happy today in the hard… I don’t wait to reach goals to be happy.
But I know as I push through the hard… my happiness increases with so much pride in myself because I have the courage to keep going, keep learning, and trying new ways of doing things.
Why I empower not enable
I think this is why I’m so passionate about empowering people instead of enabling them.
When people can experience the hard, suffer the hard, wanna quit the hard, push through the hard, and eventually get through the hard…. They can then use their experience to help someone else through the same hard.
Hard is short term even though it lasts a year and feels like 10 years.
For instance, in my new Content Connection Playbook mini-course, I teach you how to discover the fortune that lies hidden in your personal brand. Using this approach to brand-discovery you can turn your brand influence into content that creates deeper connections with your audience.
So when my clients come to me and they don’t know what to post – I want to empower them to do the discovery on themselves instead of me handing them some fill-in-the-blank caption template and a cute photo and say “go post this.”
I want to empower them to use their voice, their experiences and their story to connect with their audience… not offer them some low-value content that may get a few likes but will not make their brand more profitable.
And I stand strong in that way of teaching business owners on how to build profitable brands.
Make your business more profitable, faster! Just $27!
Find the courage to do the hard
So if you choose to do the hard today – and you look back on the hard year you just went though – you are going to be thankful you stuck it out and used that time to work instead of binge Netflix.
So as I close out this episode I want you to dig deep and find the courage to do the hard things in life. The things no one else is doing. The things that frighten you. The things others can’t do for you.
And remember, courage doesn’t always roar out loud.
Sometimes courage is simply the quiet voice at the very end of the evening, whispering, “I will try again tomorrow.”
Another episode you may enjoy is “EP 15: WHY YOU ARE NOT A FRAUD FOR CHANGING YOUR MIND“
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