Being stuck is normal. Staying stuck isn’t optional. A small business coach can help.
It’s easy to assume everyone has it together and you’re the only person feeling stuck. Which is why I think it’s important to start off by saying it’s COMPLETELY normal to have bouts of ‘stuckness’. (It happens to us all, myself included,. I’ll share more on that in a moment.)
I can 100% appreciate how challenging it is when you’re in the throes of feeling stuck. It’s lonely, overwhelming, confusing and it messes with your confidence. But here’s the good news. Being stuck is temporary and in today’s blog I’m going to share with you my own experience of what helped me get unstuck and move forward.
Before we dive into that, let’s first explore what being stuck might look like.
Congratulations, you’re stuck.
You have a bunch of ideas you KNOW would grow your business and yet, you struggle to take action.
Your business is experiencing growing pains. You know you need to do things differently in order to take it to the next level, except, you’re not sure what to do. So you do nothing.
You want to post on social media and despite a page full of content ideas you can’t seem to get it done and scheduled.
Perhaps you don’t know what to do next. Your offer isn’t landing with your ideal client and things are harder than expected.
You’re in a rut. You have outdated services and pricing and you’re not sure where to start to revise them.
You’re deep in the stop-start-stop-start cycle. You second guess everything. And every time you go to take action you stop.
You have a bunch of unfinished projects that you would love to complete. However no matter what you do, you can’t seem to get it done.
You’re not loving the direction your business has taken and you’re unsure what’s needed to get realigned.
Even though you want things to change you can’t land on a set goal. This leaves you feeling like you’re spinning in circles.
Or, maybe you’ve lost the passion and joy for your business and you’re unsure how to get it back.
Does any of that resonate?
Being stuck… is… awful….
How do I know?
I went through a period recently of being stuck. It was terrible. It was as if I was trapped, with no way out. My wheels were spinning. I couldn’t commit to my goals and despite having a plan I struggled to execute it. It spilled over into other aspects of my life and I was left tired and disconnected.
Now, remember what I said at the very beginning of this blog? Being stuck is temporary and it happens to everyone at a point in time.
And whilst this was something I experienced, I managed to move through it to ultimately take back control of my business. And so, I thought I would share with you the three things (that’s right - THREE) that helped me through it!
Let’s dive in….
What to do when you’re feeling stuck in your business (and how a small business coach helped me).
| ACCOUNTABILITY
The catalyst for my shift was preparing for a session with my own small business coach. Knowing I had to show up for her and my desire to get the most out of our session together meant I took responsibility for where I was at.
By simply being accountable it forced me to stop, get real and identify what was really going on for me.
| GET CLEAR
I needed to get clear on what was holding me back and reconnect to what I actually wanted. I did this by being brutally honest with myself as I worked through the following self-coaching questions:
What is the underlying emotion / feeling / belief that has me stuck and preventing me from moving forward?
(Firstly, this allows you to ‘normalise’ what you are going through which helps release the shame. It also creates space for you to be really honest with where you are at because you can’t solve a problem unless you know what the actual problem is.)
What is it that I really want to achieve within my business?
(Forget the details for now. This is simply about establishing what you want to go for. It’s impossible to take action if you don’t know what you want.)
Why do I want this for my business?
(I’m a big believer in understanding the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of any goal. I’ve also referred to this as the ‘emotional and material why’.)
Once I was clear on what had me stuck and clarified my goal, I knew I needed to make hay and take action quickly.
| TAKE ACTION
OK, so this is all about taking one small action. The biggest mistake you can make at this point is to try and ‘do it all’. Instead focus on taking one step at a time. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, ‘you eat an elephant one bite at a time’. This is just that. Set yourself a task or two, and as each door opens, work your way to the next.
Over to you now…
Whilst these three steps are simple, the process still requires effort. The truth is you need to ‘want’ to get unstuck. And you need to do the work to get unstuck.
Good luck.
Kristy
P.S. I have a new (small) group program launching next week that has been especially designed to help business owners get unstuck, take action and build momentum. If this sounds like something you’re interested in, or you’re just keen on getting a small business coach, subscribe to the mailing list to get all the details first!