So, we can probably all agree on one thing: being an entrepreneur is a huge mind trip, full of all the highs and allllll the lows.
Exhausting, huh?
It’s like one day you feel on top of the world, ready to make moves, and proud of yourself in every way — and then you get to the next day, when you feel overwhelmed and overworked and not quite good enough.
Boy, do I get it — and I’d bet you do, too.
As I’ve worked to grow and scale Art of Her into a thriving personal branding photography business *and* a place for fellow entrepreneurs and photographers to learn, I’ve learned a lot about myself. And, one of the biggest things I’ve learned is that, most of the time, limiting beliefs are what tend to keep me from those top-of-the-world kind of days.
The key to staying more in the top-of-world-zone connects right to that, too — i.e., connects right into those limiting beliefs, or the beliefs we unconsciously hold that are holding us back.
Let’s understand something about limiting beliefs, though.
When it comes to limiting beliefs, I think it’s incredibly important to understand that everyone has them — and everyone has really had them since childhood. It starts from the things that hold us back as little ones (like being too hesitant to climb on the monkey bars because they seem too high off the ground), and it continues into school and adulthood and business and everything in between.
And there’s nothing wrong with that.
The only thing wrong with limiting beliefs is letting them actually, well… limit us. And, when we can uncover and understand the limiting beliefs that we *do* have, we can be conscious of them and then avoid that.
3 Limiting Beliefs That May Be Holding You Back
In my own business and as a mentor to fellow photographers and entrepreneurs, I’ve realized that most of us tend to bounce between the same 3 limiting beliefs, over and over again — and they’re the kind of limiting beliefs that know exactly how to hold us and our businesses back:
“I’m not good enough to charge more.”
One of the most common (and important to get over) limiting beliefs I’ve ever heard, seen, and experienced all comes down to money and to charging what you’re worth. As an entrepreneur, I can almost guarantee that you should be charging more — and, if you might not need to charge more right now, I can almost guarantee that you have found yourself in that situation in the past.
See, it’s really easy to think that you can’t charge more because you’re not experienced enough, or good enough, or old enough… and, my friends, you absolutely have to stop thinking this way. When you’re an entrepreneur — whether you’re service-based or product-based or something else — the prices you charge are so, so much more than an arbitrary number you slap up on the screen. Instead, they align with your value and your dreams, and they matter. And, when you can’t trust yourself and the value you bring to the table enough to charge a rate that makes sense for you, you’re holding yourself back in every way. But, when you can trust yourself and the value you bring to the table enough to charge those rates, you’ll attract clients that get it — I can almost guarantee that.
“Everyone else is better than me.”
I’m not sure that there’s a person alive who’s never worried that someone else is better at life (or business, or relationships, or exercising, or literally anything else) than they are. It’s human nature. But, that feeling — that everyone else is better than you — is just that. It’s a feeling… and a limiting one, too.
See, your job as an entrepreneur is to grow your business *and* to grow yourself — and when you really hone in on that, those kinds of limiting beliefs really do start to fade away. So, here’s your job: throw yourself into being better in small, intentional ways that really do matter. Take a course, find a mentor, practice, and do whatever it takes to know that you’re doing as much as you can do… because that’s, really, all that any of us can actually do anyways.
“I’m behind.”
If you’ve ever worried that you were behind — and then used that same feeling as an excuse to wait and stop and worry — then I have something really, really important to remind you: you’re doing something that the grand majority of people on this earth can not and will not ever do. You’re chasing your dreams, you’re doing something really scary, and you’re doing it on your terms and your time.
You simply *cannot* do anything better than that — so stop thinking about being steps behind anyone else, and look ahead. That’s all you can do to scale and grow an effective business, and it’s exactly how you find joy in the journey.
—
Before I leave you, here’s a reminder: there’s genuinely, genuinely nothing more exciting and beautiful and rewarding than chasing your dreams and embracing them on the entrepreneurial journey. But, the entrepreneurial journey often goes hand in hand with limiting beliefs and fear, too — and that’s just part of it.
Just don’t let them stop you, okay? You’re too good for that.
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Thank you Jess,
If ever there was a word in season for ‘an old coach’ it was this. Yes I get it with other people, even point it out to them. BUT when it comes to myself & my photography business, you were totally spot on and I thank you!
I have some work to do 🙂
xk