If you struggle with people-pleasing in your personal life, it’s almost certain you also struggle with it in your business. No shade, as a recovering people-pleaser myself, this is a struggle I deeply relate to.

The thing is, a lot of people don’t recognize when this is happening. Here’s a hint: the way you talk to yourself when approaching business strategy.

If you find yourself regularly saying any of the following to yourself, it’s time to check in with whether you’re building the business of your dreams or replicating the toxic work structures you thought you were opting out from when you went into business for yourself.

🙃How can I make more money?

🙃How can I stop getting so burnt out when I take on really challenging, uncomfortable, & draining projects?

🙃How can I stop procrastinating?

🙃How can I say “yes” to all of these requests?

🙃How can I make myself market through the discomfort

This type of question signals to me that you are overriding the part of yourself that knows better. That wants boundaries to protect what’s important to you and your well-being.

Now try these rephrased questions on for size:

🌴What do I want to do to make more money?

🌴Do I want to raise the price and limit how many challenging projects I accept at a time? Do I want to take such challenging projects on at all?

🌴Am I procrastinating because this task is fundamentally unaligned with my values and/or what I actually want to do?

🌴Do I want a way to say “no” to requests that push me over my capacity?

🌴Why don’t I want to market right now? What would need to change in order for me to want to show up in my marketing? Is rest what I really need to do before marketing?

Did your shoulders just drop & your jaw unclench like mine just did?

After being your Marketing Confidence Cheerleader for 3 years, I have a theory that so many of our entrepreneurial “problems” boil down to us trying to force ourselves to do things that are fundamentally out of alignment with our values, our wellbeing, and our true desires.

Let’s break it down.

Can ≠ Have To

At least once a Marketing Confidence Cheerleading session, a client will mention something they “have” to do that’s causing them discomfort.

When I pause them and gently ask, “why do you have to?” they often look startled. Our “have to” stories often betray unconscious beliefs that made sense for us at one point, but are now quite outdated. Once aware of them, we get to choose whether we want to keep believing in them!

You can do a lot of things. But you don’t have to be available to do all of them. You have done a lot of things. But you don’t have to keep doing them.

Can ≠ Obligated

I’m saying this like it’s simple, but emotionally, this can be quite a challenge.

Just yesterday, I was talking with a client who is one of the only providers of a very important service for a very vulnerable population. Her phone hasn’t stopped ringing in years. There is a huge demand and the other options are bleak for these people.

But I could hear in her voice how much continuing to provide this service was taking out of her. How much it was costing her mental health, how much time it was taking, and how much energy it was taking away from building the business doing the kind of work she actually wanted to provide.

I reminded her of my first rule of accessibility: it has to be available to access at all. Which means: if you get too burnt out or too mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, or financially drained to keep offering your work at all- it is accessible to exactly no one.

“But I care so much about them and it’s so fucked up that there aren’t many other places they can go!” she insisted.

And yes, it is fucked up. And it’s tragic. But burning yourself into the ground isn’t the only or even the best way to help. I reminded her she gets to choose how she shows up. For instance, she could decide to only take cushy projects that leave her with a lot of financial resources and spare time and make sizable donations instead. She could only take on 1 such project a year so that she has the energetic & emotional resources to serve the shit out of it.

I can tell you from experience that when you work from obligation alone, you wind up burnt out and resentful a lot more of the time.

Can ≠ Want 

Finally, knowing that you are capable of doing something is NOT the same thing as actually wanting to do it.

I CAN do SEO, but I don’t wanna. I CAN do social media management, but I don’t wanna. I CAN write a mean proposal for your department’s next big marketing spend, but I don’t wanna. Let me tell you, my business got a lot more profitable and I got a lot happier and got to keep a lot more of my energy when I stopped offering to do this stuff in my business.

Now, there is the nuance of not wanting to do a task that you know will get you closer to a larger goal that you really do want. Marketing is actually that thing for a lot of people. They don’t want to show up and talk about their offer, but they want to sell the offer.

The trick here is to be willing to self-reflect so you can discern whether you don’t want to do it at all or you are willing to do it in service of a larger goal you really do want.

If it’s the latter, I encourage you to get creative about how you approach your larger goal. Is there a more fun way you can achieve it? Often, we have false “have tos” in our unconscious conception of how we get to reach a big goal.

Let me tell you: there are 6 & 7-figure entrepreneurs that don’t work full-time every week. That aren’t on social media at all. That sell unconventional offers.

How would it feel to truly build your business on what you want to do?

Changing Your Orientation From “What Can I Do?” To “What Do I Want To Do?” Is a Gamechanger For Your Business

I’m on my own CEO journey of implementing this ethos. Here’s what I can report back so far.

I’m so much more likely to show up when it’s in alignment with what I actually want to do.

And what I want changes. I’ve been quiet in my marketing lately because my top priorities have been to rest and serve my existing clients really, really well.

I’m learning that when I don’t want to show up in my marketing, it’s usually because I’m craving rest and spaciousness more than I’m wanting to hit financial goals at the moment. And I’m learning that when I give myself the rest I crave, my work motivation always comes back 10-fold. As does my clarity, enthusiasm, and creativity.

Then I get to take much more effective actions towards my goals anyway.

And those actions get me the sales and aligned clients I want so much faster and with less effort than hustling and grinding just because I think I’m supposed to and I “can.”

I’m not going back, people. And you don’t have to either.

Want support and encouragement as you build the business of your dreams? You’re invited to The Squad ​​🎉- a crew of excellently eccentric entrepreneurs cheering each other on to new heights as we do the impossible in real-time. We’ve got an Open House on June 17th, come check out what we’re all about for free.