Welcome to the Masterful Coach podcast with Molly Claire, where coaches learn Skill Mastery, Business Mastery, and Life Mastery at a whole new level. If you're ready to create a meaningful coaching business that makes a difference, you're in the right place; and now your host, master coach instructor, Molly Claire. Hey, coaches, welcome to this episode, we are going to be talking about how to get out of that rut you may be in in your business. Sometimes we are in a rut, and we know it and we feel it all around us, and other times, we can have areas in our business where we're in a bit of a rut, and we don't even realize it until it becomes a bigger rut. So wherever you are in your business, my hope is that you will have some good takeaways from this to keep you moving forward and in flow in your business and feeling excited about it. Because I am such a believer that that is really important, I wanted to talk about this as we're moving into the New Year, this is just always a great time to have a fresh start to evaluate your processes, evaluate where you're going, and also, this is a good thing for you to take into the New Year. These can be checkpoints for you that you build into your evaluation process in the New Year. Every time you do your quarter planning check in how am I doing? Am I stuck? Why? How do I re align myself? I know this can be a busy time of year, I hope that as you're listening to this podcast, you're giving yourself a little bit of space, maybe to have a break from the chaos or busyness and just giving yourself some time to be when this airs, I will be actually at a cabin with my husband and all eight of our children. And so hopefully you can send me some good vibes for peace, I will definitely be taking some time to go on some walks and have some time to myself. My husband and I have always had our kids at different times. We either have had my kids or his kids at the holidays. But this year, we are going for it. So we're really excited. We've actually got our long list of groceries and meals and all the things to have an amazing time. So send me some good vibes, we are having a great time, and I cannot wait to tell you all about how it goes. All right, let's talk about a rut. What is a rut? So we all know that there are days or there are moments in our days when we feel a little stuck, right? We feel that sense of dread, like, "Ah, I don't really feel like doing this. We want to procrastinate, we want to distract, we want to buffer." Totally normal, right? This is a normal part of the human experience. This is a normal part of the business building experience, and hopefully you all find ways to move through that. Sometimes we move forward with what's on our list, even if we don't feel like it. Sometimes we may build in ways to motivate or excite ourselves. I am a big believer in having resources at your fingertips to get you excited and engaged in your business. I will go for a walk a lot of the time, get my energy moving, get some ideas flowing, talk with someone about some of my ideas, there are so many ways that we can keep our energy and momentum flowing in our business, and it's really important to do that on a daily basis. Now, sometimes you may find yourself and your business in a bit more of a rut than just a fleeting moment in the day or just a bad day. And oftentimes, when we get into a rut in our business, we don't even realize that we're going there until we're there. And we find ourselves feeling stuck, almost trapped, uncertain of where we're going, what's going to work, what we're capable of. It's really this place of stuckiness a place of self doubt, and a place of a lot of uncertainty and lack of direction. How many of you can relate to this? I'm going to give you five specific tips. You can try out one of these or all of these just check in with each of these and see if this is the thing that may help you get out of the rut you may be in or maybe the rut that you're in a certain area in your business because remember, sometimes we can be in a rut, and sometimes we may be in a rut just in one area that we may not be aware of. So let's go through the five tips. Number one, check in on yourself and your alignment with your own values and your own mission; so often when I talk with our coaches when I'm coaching them, helping them move forward in their business, we find that one of the biggest things that keeps people from creating success in their business is not being aligned with building the life and business they want. I'm going to give you a really simple example. If someone has a high priority on family time on connection time, and they're building a business that is spilling over into all of the things that are most important in their personal life, doesn't it make sense that they would sabotage themselves in their business, that they would not want to move forward, because what they've done is they've set themselves up so that building their business takes away from certain things that they really want. Really simple example there, but very true, right? Very plain to see what is going on? It's so important that you make sure that you are aligned in your life, with your own priorities, the things that matter to you, that you're spending your time in a way that honors the things that you want. It's also important that you are in alignment with your mission and your business, whatever that may be. I know that you're here because there is a purpose, there is a compelling reason behind building your business could be the freedom and flexibility, it could be the people that you want to help, it could be a combination of both or something else entirely. Number one tip, if you are feeling stuck; give yourself time to check in to see that you are aligned with your values, your priorities, the things you want, and your personal mission. Are you trying to live someone else's version of life? Are you taking on a lot of shoulds? Are you in a space of compare and despair? These are all the things that are going to help you determine how you can realign yourself with you. Okay, tip number two, check in on any lingering insecurities on what you're offering in your business. So as a coach, you have something that you offer, right? And you've worked on your marketing, and your messaging, and you may have an amazing message that sounds like a no brainer for someone to join. And yet you may have some insecurity behind the scenes that may sound something like can I really deliver on this? Am I really going to be able to give what I'm promising here? Am I really qualified? Can I really help my client get this result? Am I good enough at what I'm doing? Am I giving enough? Now these insecurities are important to pay attention to. Not necessarily because they're all true, but because these insecurities are there to tell you something, and specifically to tell you where your focus needs to go. And I'm just going to highlight two very common options of how these insecurities can be addressed. Sometimes these insecurities may be nothing more than noise inside your head. They are fears, they are doubts, and they are just that part of you that is worried about failing. But rather than just dismiss these insecurities, I think it's very valuable to look at them and to question them. Is this true? Is this not true and dig a little bit deeper. And if it is true that these are just coming from noise in your head, that's when you know that your work to overcome these insecurities comes in the form of getting coaching, getting support, getting help, shifting your beliefs, your mindset, your emotions, so that you can have the confidence that you should have in relation to what you're offering. The other way we address these insecurities actually starts out the same right looking at these insecurities and questioning them. But sometimes these insecurities may have some more merit. There may be things there that you do need to change the way you're offering or the way you're coaching, you may need to up level your skills, you may need to lower the expectation of what you're offering, especially if you're offering something that you could never possibly promise as a certain result to your client. The bottom line is that if you have insecurities in what you're offering, it is always going to lend itself to some level of being in a rut. Look at those insecurities. Find out the ones you need to work at from a mindset and emotion level and find out the ones that you want to address on a practical-tactical level. Okay, tip number three, shake things up especially with the New Year coming. I want you to ask yourself if I were starting over what would I do differently. Now this question can be a little bit dangerous if we use it too often, right? And we switch our business entirely and we move from one niche to another or one format to another and we end up being very flip floppy. That is definitely not what I'm talking about. But if you're in a rut, and you maybe are frustrated in several different areas, ask yourself if I were starting over what would I do differently? This may be something as small as the way you schedule your time. It could be what you're focusing on in your business, what you're focusing on in your messaging; it could be the way you run your program; so many options. Simply asking yourself to think about a clean slate, and shaking up just one or two things differently in your business can actually make a big difference. I know this is simple, but we don't give ourselves permission to do this nearly enough. Okay, number four, do something you are excited about, even if it makes no sense. Now as creative minds, it's very important that we figure out how to keep a steady course going forward, rather than bouncing around with too many ideas. Oh, I so relate to this. A lot of us use the word constraint, use constraints, stay focused, and keep moving forward, and I agree that this is important. I agree that as you have your big picture vision, you have your main goal, you want to move toward that. I actually talked about this just a couple weeks ago, this idea that sometimes doing something in your business that is fun is exactly what you need. So think for a minute, if you are in a rut, I want you to give yourself permission to move forward on an idea that sounds exciting, even if it makes no sense in your big picture plan. And notice as you're thinking about it, what arguments come up the reasons why you can't do it. I did this, I'm going to be working with a small group in January of coaches, I'm so excited about it, it is a small group, it is definitely not in line with the way that I'm scaling my business. But I'm so excited about it, it's important to me, it's meaningful to me. And of course, there are going to be benefits to the big picture of my business. As I work with these coaches, I'm always going to be learning, I'm going to be creating more things for my business. So there are certainly those benefits. But the sole purpose of what I am doing is to engage in a meaningful way with this group of coaches so that I can help them. And it's just something that matters to me and that I am excited about. Give yourself permission to do something you're excited about, even if it makes no sense. The last tip is give yourself the gift of a belief detox. Now, this may look differently for each one of you. But there are a lot of ways that you can do this. Oftentimes, when we're in a rut, we have a lot of beliefs that are not serving us all coming together at the same time. A lack of belief in our ability to create what we want, noise in our head, like you can't help these people, you're not the kind of person that can do something like this, you're not good enough, what you do doesn't matter. We can have all of these beliefs just overtake us and keep us stuck in a rut, especially if you're just on the brink of growing to the next level in your business. So when I talk about a belief detox, this can be a lot of different things. It could be you spending some time consistently, over a week's time, looking at your beliefs, and making space with curiosity for them. There's a huge difference in looking at your beliefs and criticizing them, versus looking at your beliefs, and having some curiosity about how they may be impacting you. Just this one simple step of taking a look at the beliefs and allowing space can bring some openness to you. The next step of this would be looking at some of the beliefs that you'd really like to bring into your life. What does this look like exactly? This may be talking to others who have higher level beliefs than you in those areas. It can be taking in podcast books, I think it's really important when I say a belief detox. I know a lot of you do this all the time. But I think it's important to set aside a period of time to totally immerse yourself. A few months ago, I totally checked out of my business and my life and I spent some time by myself. I dove into some books that helped me to understand myself at a deeper level. I spent time with myself, I journaled, I looked at some patterns that I'd had for a long time in my life, and I really thought about how I could shift those. So a belief detox should really be a set amount of time where you're able to really dive in and immerse yourself. Another option can always be going to an event, going to a mastermind, going somewhere where you're able to immerse yourself in more powerful beliefs of those around you. Getting in that environment is another way you can shake things up and can really be a chance for you to have that immersion process to detox your beliefs. You can also do this on a smaller scale, it may be that you decide every single day to have a little bit of space to look at a belief, have some curiosity about it, and think about how you could release that belief from you. Think about this word detox. How many of you have ever done like a juice cleanse or something like that? Or you've done-- I've done this detox, where I had the certain nutritional supplements that I was taking, and I only vegetables, and it was a way to kind of clean me out, get the toxins out of my system. And I think when we're talking about a belief, detox, I like this idea of instead of thinking about shutting out these beliefs, thinking about bringing in so many good beliefs, bringing in so much powerful knowledge, that the beliefs that aren't serving you can simply be released. So that's what I've got for you. These are five tips things you can consider. As the New Year is coming, give yourself space and permission to make some shifts, realign yourself, take a look at what you need to do to feel more confident in what you're offering. Shake things up, do things you're excited about, and give yourself the space either in a chunk of time or on a daily basis to commit to doing a belief detox. All right, coaches I will talk to you on the next episode. Have a good one. Thanks for listening to The Masterful Coach Podcast; you can check out www.coachingcollective.com for info about the ultimate program for coaches building a business. To find out more about Molly, you can visit www.mollyclaire.com