Am I really gonna do this in the middle of a launch? Am I really gonna stop and just pivot my business around?
I think I am, but these thoughts in my head, who might to do this? Can I do this? Will anybody laugh at me?
It was really intense. Let me take you back to this moment. It was last month actually. I was in the middle of a launch for a course, one about sustainability. And in the middle of this launch, It didn't feel right. And I asked myself, is it an issue that I just stop in the middle of this launch (mind you no had had bought this course yet).
And I stopped, right in the middle of it, because I just wasn't feeling it. I had so many thoughts that were holding me back. You could call these thoughts imposter syndrome ;)
"Who am I to do this? Can I do this? Am I good enough?"
And I just, I want to tell you how I deal with those thoughts when they come up and I know I have to pivot, do something else, take a chance. But it is a hard decisions to make.
Four days before I took this decision, I talked to my, one of my business, buddies and, we had a talk about our target audience and how to make it more specific. Go for a little bit more niche.
I don't think my original target audience was specific enough actually, which is why it's hard to make a really good course or product. And I realized I wanted to do this for entrepreneurs.
I want to focus on entrepreneurs because I like the mindset. I like to be around those kind of people. So I think I'm gonna have to change. It didn't feel right in my body when I thought about continuing the way I had, my body froze, a heavy feeling in my stomach. And when I think about changing it... well I felt butterflies, a bit of anxiety, a gut feeling: I have to do this.
What if I make a course for introvert entrepreneurs? What if I make a course that is gonna help people understand why they are different than the other 70% of the world? introverts are 30% of the worlds population, is the estimation.
The day I actually took the decision I thought:
"fuck, am I gonna do this? Am I really, really gonna just stop launching, in the middle of my launch?"
"Will anybody notice? Will anybody notice what I'm doing? Probably not. Maybe not. Nah. I can just, I can just delete everything. It will be fine."
And that's what it did. I deleted it. I deleted the sales page. I deactivated the payment page. I very silently. Didn't mention it anymore. Until I shared my story here on this blog
Then the imposter syndrome came around : "Who am I to do this? " "Who am I to do something for introverts?"
"How am I gonna do this? How the hell am I gonna pull this off? I have this goal. I want to make one online course in the first quarter of the year, and we have one week left, so that's got to be interesting."
The first thing I did was texting my business buddies. Can somebody talk right now? And they were both busy... Who else can I talk to? Hmm my boyfriend was the second option. We talked about my problem and my new idea, making something for introvert entrepreneurs, and that I felt scared. I absolutely felt really scared to make this change to.
There were two, imposter syndrome like, thoughts in my mind. "How the hell am I gonna pull this off?" And "what will people think?"Let's dive into the last one, "what will people think?"
The secret to this one is: I don't care what other people think. This is my business. I love my business. I love growing as a person. I love exploring all the possibilities that are there in entrepreneur land. And I love it. I love to take charge of my own day, make sure that I learn everything, that I do, everything and that I share my knowledge with you guys.
If people think you're stupid or if people think, well, no, "that's not gonna happen", or "you're never gonna be successful" this is my life. It's my business. This is how I wanna do it, and I believe I can. Henry Ford once said, and it's repeated very often by a lot of people.
"Whether you think you can or you can't, you're right."
And I choose to believe I can. There's no other way. I believe I can. Other people have done it before me so I can do this too. I think it what matters most is what I think, what do I think about me?
I believe in trying. If you don't try, you will never know. I tried and I got to know, this is not the way I want to go. If you don't, try that target audience. If you don't try and figure out how to make a podcast or if you don't, try and share your first LinkedIn post or Instagram post or wherever on which social media you are. If you don't try, you can't learn.
You have to make mistakes in order to learn. You can know everything, that still doesn't mean you can actually do it. Those are two completely different things. I tried and I learned, this is not my target audience. I learned I want to do something else. I learned I want to do this for other people, and that's awesome.
And the second thought was, "how the hell am I gonna do this? How am I gonna pull this off?"
And I was talking to my boyfriend and he said: "you know, introvert entrepreneurs, right?"
I know quite a lot of introvert entrepreneurs. On the spot, I started with my markets target research and I texted all these people: "Can I interview you? Can I talk to you this week?"
I had planned to record a course and I wasn't going to do that. So I had all the time in the world to talk with these people. And I did. I talked to five, six people that week, and I started to believe this is going to happen. This course is really gonna happen. It's not going to be finished in the first quarter of this year, which was what my goal was, but it is going to be finished like in the first week of April.
There was a fire lit somewhere inside me, and I went like a tornado after that: I made my course, recorded everything and I edited everything and I found a lot of people to test it to get feedback.
So whatever you want to do. If you're an introvert, if you're an entrepreneur or not, doesn't really matter. Anything you want to do, want to learn, just try.
Just go take the first step and don't listen to the voice in your head that's telling you. " No, I don't think I can." If you think that, you will never try, so you will never actually learn the skill. That's impossible. Or this other thoughts like, "what will other people think of me?"
It doesn't matter what other people will think. It matters what you think. That's the most important thing. What do you think? And everything you put out in the world, everything you try, you will meet resistance, you will. Like get reactions, like, should you do this? Giving you insight in their limiting beliefs when they ask something like "What if people share passwords?"
That's not worth my energy. I don't want to come from a place where I feel everything is lacking. I want to think in abundance. Like I would never do that with anybody sharing my password for a course. And even if I, even if I did. I probably had a good reason and well, I hope you learn something from it.
If anybody in my surroundings has an idea of put something out in this world, I'm always like, go for it. Go do this because it's awesome. You have this idea. It's amazing. I might do it differently sometimes. Usually, I don't even mention that. Sometimes I give a tip. I say, it's awesome! I love that you're going for this and can I give you one tip? And if some people say no, then I'm not gonna give my tip.
People are gonna ask you questions from their point of view. And I always ask myself, are you where I want to be? If not, I don't listen. If you're not where I want to be, I'm not gonna listen to you on that specific topic, right?
Because if I would listen and I would not do it, I won't launch this course, I will be fucking miserable if I do that, if I would listen to the safety and the security that I would need, and I, well, I did that before. I will be miserable in my day-to-day job, and that will be my life and be fucking miserable because I hate going to the office. I hate office politics, so no, I'm not going to listen.
I'm going to do what I want. It's way more important, than listening to the insecurities of other people, because that's usually where this advice comes from.
Please try something new.
Do you want to take the leap? Really deal with imposter syndrome, get rid of it and increase your confidence as entrepreneur? I can help you. I can have your back. I created a course that will help you to become confident about being visible, set the right boundaries in your business, so you can be the best entrepreneur you deserve to be.
4 hours of video material, simple NLP techniques to help you really implement the skills in your business and answers to all your questions.
Buy the online course here or get more information on this online course: #QuietBadass
Or start with downloading the eBook "how to get rid of overwhelm in 4 steps" to set yourself up 4 success
Do you have a friend who is struggling with imposter syndrome? Share this article with them to help them out!
