Starting and building a business is difficult. It’s so worth it but it’s not an easy task. 😅

When you share your services online, show up on video, and start having sales calls for the first time… things will come up.

You might feel self doubt, anxiety, imposter syndrome. It’s all happening because this journey is new.

And because entrepreneurship is so personal.

Think about it, at your last job it was probably easy for you to sell.

Maybe you were a server at a restaurant and you knew all the right adjectives to describe your favorite dishes.

Maybe you were in retail and you enjoyed complementing people on what suited them.

Maybe you were working at an office going through the motions of the day-to-day.

I’m sure you got some rejection to those sales. Did you take it personally?

Now put into the context of entrepreneurship and what you sell becomes personal. It’s not just another job selling someone else’s ideas.

You’re essentially selling you.

Your heart.

Your ideas.

So when you get your first “Now isn’t the right time” or “It’s out of my budget” in your business it can hurt.

But it doesn’t have to.

What’s feeling that hurt is the Ego.

Your Ego made the rejection mean something… creating thoughts of “I don’t have enough experience”, “Why am I even trying”, “I should just give up”, etc, etc, etc

Those thoughts can bring up heavy emotions.

If you’re in this space, here’s what might be happening:

1. Your past traumas are being triggered
2. There’s a limiting belief you’re subscribing to
3. You need discipline in your self care routines

👆🏻Becoming aware of your ego helps with all of these.

Separating yourself from your ego makes you observe what’s happening instead of being so identified with your thoughts.

A note on awareness vs “dropping your ego”

I orginally started writing this post to be about “dropping” your ego. But I don’t think this narrative is helpful. The goal isn’t to get rid of Ego. The goal is to notice it as something that you are not.

Ego is not the enemy. It keeps you safe from danger. But sometimes that safety is also keeping you in your comfort zone.

Without Ego, you’d probably do something harmful because it’s job is to preserve your life. Ego is also where your conscious personality comes from.

It’s a part of you. And I’m here to help you love all parts of yourself. Subscribing to the “ego is bad” narrative might be creating shame and self hate so I invite you to challenge your relationship to ego.

It’s time to take your power back. These tips are designed to help you sit with what comes up so that you can cultivate more self love and attract success from the inside out ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

Find your Past Trauma Triggers

Looking into inner child healing was life changing not only for my personal life but for my entrepreneurship journey.

Before doing this work, I was scared to express my unpopular opinions and didn’t have the confidence and clarity to start my business. Continuing inner child healing after I launched Self Expressed Babe helped me fall in love with sales and launching.

You’ll know your past trauma is being triggered if you’re afraid of rejection. Specifically selling and sharing yourself on social media.

Essentially, in posting on social media you are selling. Even if it’s not a direct sale, you sell by giving value that builds trust and relationships which one day lead to a sale.

Working on this helps check your ego because you let go of the labels you attach to trauma, heal it, and know how to non-judgmentally handle yourself when you’re triggered in the future.

What you can do:

1. Ask yourself what you’re afraid of and if that’s serving you.
2. Connect with your inner child by inviting more fun things into your life– just for the sake of enjoyment. So dancing, singing, painting…anything that makes you happy and isn’t done to gain something out of it.

Unsubscribe to Limiting Beliefs 🙅🏻‍♀️🙅🏽🙅🏼‍♂️

Mindset work is an important aspect to being able to reach any goal. Most people say “mindset is everything”. I disagree with that statement, but that’s another blog post.

I do agree that mindset is hugely important because how you think can feed into how you feel.

And most times, it’s not easy to notice that we’re subscribing to a limiting belief. Even though you probably say them out loud in conversation every day.

For example, I used to say “Showing up on social media is so tiring and time consuming” and subscribing to that thought made me prioritize putting hours a day into Instagram. When that thought wasn’t true and hours a day isn’t helping anything.

That’s why coaching can be so beneficial because you get what you’ve said aloud mirrored back to you with the intention of you noticing this for yourself. If you’re curious about working together, check out my work with me page.

Working on limiting beliefs helps you be aware of your ego because you take control over your thinking. It will take time but with consistency you’ll find yourself able to be more observant and helpful to yourself when you do have a “negative” thought.

What you can do:

1. Write down what you believe to be true about selling
2. For each thought, ask yourself how this makes you feel and what actions you take because of it.
3. Is that serving you?
4. If the answer is no, what thoughts do you want to believe instead?
5. Make mantras/affirmations for yourself for these thoughts along with a regular practice to let these new beliefs soak in

Discipline and Self Care 🥰

Have you ever hiked up a steep mountain or done a difficult workout? You know that voice in your head that says “Stop!! I don’t want to do this! I’m dying rn!”

That’s the ego.

And have you ever kept going despite those thoughts?

Yes? How did you feel after?

Accomplished right? It feels GOOD to push ourselves past our comfort zones. Growth is always going to feel better than stagnation.

But the ego loves trying to keep us in stagnation.

That’s why being disciplined in how you care for yourself is going to take you to the next level.

Your best thinking and actions go you to today. It won’t get you to your next level.

This is why you might not get as much out of something if you’ve done it for years. Take gratitude journaling as my example. I committed to this practice and got myself to write in a gratitude journal everyday for a year. It took me a few months to get to it being a daily habit.

It helped my mindset so much, because it gets you into the rythm of looking at the bright side of things.

Do I do gratitude journaling every day now? No.

The practice engrained a more positive mindset in me. So I don’t need it every day.

Now I’m writing a few things I’m grateful for 1-3 times a week within my regular journaling. Gratitude journaling got me to level up to who I am today. But I’ve added on different habits to my routines to continue leveling up.

It’s important to see everyone is on their own personal journey so you might need a different thing in your routine that your best friend.

Being disciplined in self care helps release the grip of your ego because you push past the stagnation of staying where you are today. Pushing past your comfort zone is the way to grow and discipline is the vehicle to get you there.

What you can do:

1. Get present with what your current routine is. You have one even if you’re not intentional with it. (My morning routine used to look like: Check instagram, scroll until I’m starving, make breakfast, and rush to work because I didn’t manage my time well)
2. Think of who you want to be in the future (3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 3 years from now.) What does this EPIC person do in their morning/night routine?
3. Pick ONE thing from your future self’s morning routine to commit to for this next week. Then the next. And the next. Aim to go as long as you can so it can turn into an unconscious habit. (For me committing to shorter time periods like a week tricks my brain into continuing and it’s less daunting than saying I’m going to do this for 90 days even if that’s the plan)
4. When you feel like this new thing is a habit and is something you don’t have to remind yourself to do, go through question 2 and 3 again.

Everything in this post can help you become aware of your Ego because you’re practicing presence and creating new neural pathways with new actions

The ego wants to keep you the same because it wan’t to keep you safe. New things are scary to the ego. Self preservation is the ego’s #1 priority but you can choose to observe it.

This is really the TIP of the iceberg here. But if you’re ready to push past your comfort zone and you can seem to get there on your own, I’m here to support you.

My 4 month 1:1 coaching program, Grounded Growth, is designed to help you up level your inner being so that you can easily create the success you want. I’m talking growth without the stress, endless creativity, and so much fun in your business. Click here if you want those results!