Podcast

Episode 480: How To Graduate To The Next Level of Revenue

If you have been stuck at the same level of revenue for a while now, this episode is for you. I’m sharing my simple 5-step process to graduate from your current level of revenue and achieve your next financial goal. This is a process that’s been proven to work time and time again both for me and for my clients inside Perfectionists Getting Shit Done. And today I’m sharing it with you.

In this episode you’ll learn where perfectionists get stuck with achieving financial goals and why. I’m also sharing why I don’t recommend focusing on having a better marketing strategy, getting more leads, refining your offer or becoming better at what you do. Tune in to learn what to focus on instead so that you can achieve your goal with ease and confidently figure out all of the practical, strategic and marketing details along the way. 

Find the full episode transcript and show notes at samlaurabrown.com/episode480.

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If you’re ready to get out of your own way in your business, you want to check out my program Perfectionists Getting Shit Done. Click here to sign up today: samlaurabrown.com/pgsd.

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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Introduction
Hi and welcome to another episode of The Perfectionism Project, a podcast full of perfectionism advice for entrepreneurs. My name is Sam Laura Brown, I help entrepreneurs release their perfectionism handbrake so they can get out of their own way and build a fulfilling and profitable business. I’m the founder of the Perfectionist Getting Shit Done group coaching program, which is otherwise known as PGSD. And for even more perfectionism advice to help you with your business. You can follow me on Instagram @perfectionismproject.

Sam Laura Brown
Today’s episode is on graduating to the next level of revenue in your business. And what I want to share with you in this episode is a five step process for you to be able to graduate to the next level, whether you are graduating to making $1,000 a month, $10,000 a month, 100,000 in a year, a million in a year. It doesn’t matter what that level of revenue is. What I want to share with you in this episode is the process of becoming the person who can make that next level of revenue, and then stepping into that and embodying that and having that actually become your reality.

This is one of my favorite topics to talk about, as it really is the intersection of mindset and business and productivity. And I love talking about it in terms of how we perfectionists tend to approach having a level of revenue increase, like being able to make more money in our business. We want to get really pressured about it, stressed about it. We get tense about it, we try to be really strategic about it and have the perfect strategy and do it perfectly. And it doesn’t work like that. And I’m so glad it doesn’t work like that. And a big part of what we do inside perfectionist getting shit done is having you learn a simpler and easier and more effective way than the forceful way that we perfectionists take that ends up with us burning out, us trusting ourselves even less and really, ultimately, when we do take the approach that our perfectionist brain wants to take, we end up resenting our business and often resenting our customers and clients.

We end up essentially creating a job for ourselves that is worse than any job that we could have for anyone else. We are a bitch to ourselves. We don’t treat ourselves kindly, and we therefore aren’t showing up the way we want to be showing up either. So what I’m sharing with you in this episode is really going to help lay out in your brain what you need to be focusing on to be able to graduate to the next level of revenue for your business, no matter what that level of revenue is. So on the pgsd coaching call, I was coaching one of our PGSDers and how this came up, this topic was that she was saying that she has been struggling with the same essentially, like social media drama about not showing up consistently how she wants to, and she’s done it before, but she’s just not doing it, and she’s not emailing her email list like she wants to be emailing them.

And sometimes she’s batch recording content and sometimes she isn’t, and she’s feeling a bit okay about that. Now, after some previous coaching, she’s feeling better, but ultimately she feels like she needs to tie up some loose ends and then sit down and actually make a social media plan and then execute it. But she doesn’t have the time because there’s so many loose ends, and also just all this time needed to plan it out, and then she’s feeling more behind that she isn’t getting it done, and just kind of like in that cycle, and I can personally relate to that. And recently, my brain has been like in a more advanced level of that, and I have been doing a lot of myself coaching and getting coaches well on this.

So it was a topic that I was really happy to be sharing about, because I have so much personal experience and also success with graduating to the next level and just a deep understanding of the perfectionist thought process that keeps us from actually going to the next level of revenue. So what I said to this PGSDer was okay. So what will you be doing with your time and in your business once you are on top of all your social media? Say, for example, you have YouTube videos batch recorded for six months. You have your Instagram content like prepared for six months. Not that you need to have it prepared that far in advance, but just like going to this imaginary place as a thought exercise, imagine you have all the emails written. And also imagine that you are fully booked with clients.

So at the moment, she has a one on one service that she has with clients. So I asked her, like, how many people, is that for you? And imagine if you were fully booked, like, you are actually able to fully book out your services. You also have a wait list. Like, imagine that is your current reality. You have simple systems set up, like any little cleaning up that you need to do around the business so that you can batch record so and be that far ahead so that you can deliver amazing results to those one on one clients. Like, what are you doing next? Like, what is your time going to what offer are you creating? Or, like, what are you doing? Basically, like, what is your next level of growth after you get to this level, and after you achieve the things that you’re currently working towards?

And she didn’t know, and this is really, really common, and is something that I’ve noticed in my own coaching as well, like, for myself, with my million dollar goal, that when I’m not clear about what I will actually do once I have made a million dollars, like, if I let that be such a big deal, if I have that on a pedestal and I haven’t even thought through to like, Okay I’m 33 so if I make a million dollars this year, I still maybe have, like, 50 years left of entrepreneurship. So what am I going to do once I’m already at that million dollar level, to continue growing my business? Like, have other businesses, like, what does that look like for me? But because my brain, like, it just wants to stay in the comfort of my current level and being in that multiple six figure range, that it doesn’t even want to think about what’s next, so that I don’t actually have a reason to go into what’s next and to go into that unfamiliarity.

And I was saying to this, PGSDer, if you haven’t actually taken the time to create, like, really, clearly, create a picture for what will be the case in your business? Like, after all of these problems you’re struggling with, like, after they’re solved simply and easily, which tends to be the case once we actually have a bigger goal and a bigger vision, we’re like, oh, well, I may as well just get these things done instead of trying to stay busy with them, because we feel like we’re just going to enter into this abyss, this unknown, this like period in our business where we don’t even know what we’re working towards or what to even do, and so our brain just creates so much drama and these false problems, so that we are always busy trying to solve the same things again and again, which gets so frustrating.

But it’s just so helpful to know that if you actually follow the steps I’ll be sharing in this episode, which I talked about on that coaching call as well, that you will be able to graduate to the next level of revenue, because it won’t be such a big deal to get there, and you’ll just be able to move past it and through it and achieve it without drama. It’s where we make it such a big deal that we keep ourselves separate from it, like when we have it on this pedestal, then we actually disconnect from it, and we make it like, I have to make this big leap and do these big things, and we really go into this all nothing mindset of like, I need a completely different strategy, or I need to show up in a completely different way, when really, oftentimes, the goals that we have are well within our reach in terms of the actions that we can take.

It’s just really the mental side, the mindset side, which is why I love personal development, mindset work self coaching. It’s why I teach that inside perfectionist getting shit done. Because it’s like that goal that you have, if you imagine like you have a like, my iPhones in front of me. I have my iPhone sitting in front of me on my desk. I can reach that like, just by putting my hand out. Or maybe you can think about it being a little bit further. It’s just a little bit of a stretch. But am I willing to lift up my hand and reach the phone? Like, what if I think that there is a terrible message that’s waiting for me on my phone? Like, I’m not going to want to pick it up, but if I know clearly, like, I’m going to pick it up and be safe and everything will be okay, and I’ll be able to continue on with my day, then it’s no big issue.

So if we are thinking about our goals in the same way, where it’s like we are climbing Mount Everest, and it’s going to be so amazing when we get there, and then we don’t know what’s after, and it just feels like downhill from there, like after we achieve this goal, like I don’t even know what I’m gonna do with my time, or we imagine, like, worst case scenarios, like I’m gonna be so much more visible and I’m gonna have haters, and I’m gonna have trolls, and I’m gonna have this, and I’m gonna have that, and we just really decrease our desire and our willingness to do the equivalent of picking up The iPhone off the desk, like your goal, if you think about it this way, your goal, even if, for your brain, it feels like a stretch. You can actually, like, it’s not a stretch for you to do the things needed to do. It’s just the mindset side of the willingness and the courage and, like, the emotional capacity to just be willing to actually do it, and to do it calmly, and do it sustainably. And our brain just wants to be in the drama. It wants, like, the comfort food of that drama, and to just be like, Oh my god, I’m not posting consistently on social media again.

And I know my brain loves that too, but it’s like, oh, if I actually follow this process, which I mentioned, if I actually do this, and I’m like, Oh, well, I’m just gonna post, like, it just removes the drama, because you actually know what’s next. You have a clear vision, and it just kind of like sorts itself out. It’s really counterintuitive, but I’m gonna walk you through this process so that you know what I mean, and so you can just be thinking about it as I go. Like, think about yourself as always when listening to this podcast. Don’t think about someone else you know, and their business and how they could be doing it better think about yourself. So the first step is to picture and visualize the future of your business, beyond your growth goal, beyond the 12 month revenue goal that you have, you need to have a clear picture and visualization of that. It doesn’t have to be like a mental picture in your brain. We all have different brains and things think in different ways, but you need to know what is next. You need to know what’s coming next.

Second, you need to act as if you already have that business. Third, you need to let yourself be supported. Fourth, you need to anticipate that your brain will offer you confusion, fear and doubt, and you need to know how to end that. And number five, you need to keep believing even when there’s evidence that you shouldn’t. So I’m just going to walk you through that process of being able to graduate to the next level of revenue, because you have probably been thinking about it. My guess is more so in terms of, what is the strategy? What is a social media platform? What is a social media strategy? How do I get more leads? How do I get more people on my email list? How do I get more followers? How do I have a better offer? What price do I have it be? What’s the name of it? Like all of those strategic things, and that’s not what’s stopping you from getting to your goal. And you will naturally sort all of those out when you follow this process, and this is really what we support you in with inside perfection is getting shit done as well, so that you’re not on your own just trying to, like, figure it out as you go.

So number one, picture and visualize the future of your business beyond your growth goal. So you want to be thinking about, as I shared, like, if everything you’re currently working towards, like, in the next 12 months. Like, Zoom yourself forward and imagine that it is already being done like that is your current business today. Like, suspend reality for a minute and go into your brain to like, I’m fully booked. For example, the example I shared, I’m fully booked. My social media is batched and organized. I have simple systems set up. Like my back end is organized, then what? And you might notice that in that like, it’s really helpful to pay attention to the feeling that brings up, because that feeling might be a little bit of fear, it might be uncertainty, like, it probably isn’t going to be the amazing feeling that you think it might be, though it could be, and that’s really helpful to look at as well.

But what is that feeling that comes up for you, and we want to look at, okay, once you are in that mental place of, okay, all the things I’m working towards, like the goals that I have for the number of customers I’ll have, or the amount of revenue I’ll have, and the way that I’ll do that, like all of that is done, and maybe even I have surplus demand and like, people who want to work with me or want to buy my thing, and I’m like, needing to meet that. What next? What am I doing next? What problems am I solving for next? Like, getting yourself to actually go in your brain to like, that’s my reality. Okay, so this work week, what am I working on? This quarter? What am I working on? If all the things I have been working on and struggling with are already now complete and done, it’s a really great thought exercise to go through, because it’s probably going to be so discomfort and like not knowing this. And that’s why we avoid it.

That’s why we say stuck in the same problems and things like social media drama, because our brain wants to avoid the discomfort of answering that question, what’s next, what’s after this level, and really actually fleshing that out. And our brain, as I mentioned, wants to go into this place of like, oh my god, there’ll be haters and trolls or like things like that, but to actually think about like, if this was my reality, this is my business now that I’m fully booked, etc, etc, then what am I focused on? What projects Am I thinking about? What do I need to be looking at? And it’s going to be a different set of things to what you’re currently looking at and thinking about. And it doesn’t mean you need to have a perfect answer, like, this is the next offer that I’m going to have, or this is what I’m going to do next, or whatever.

But you need to actually spend time each week thinking about that next level and that being your reality, and actually thinking about the specifics, not just as vague, like, Oh, when I get there, I’ll figure out what to do next. No, because you won’t figure out and let yourself get there if you don’t know what’s coming next, as I mentioned at the top, that if it is this big abyss, unknown, unfamiliar place which our brain thinks is going to be really scary, our brain doesn’t like the unknown. It’s going to associate fear with that. And so what we want to do, and that’s even if you’re a person who like loves the unknown, is that our brain wants to know that we are going to be alive. It wants us to survive. It wants certainty. It wants familiarity.

And so what we want to do is have it not be an abyss in our brain and this fearful unknown, but to actually start getting specific about it, or like these are the kinds of podcast episodes I would be listening to if I was already making $100,000 a year, like this is what I’ve done recently. I’ll talk about it later in the episode two. But instead of listening to things about how to make a million dollars in a year, which is my current goal, and listening to how to grow from a million to 3 million or more, specifically, a lot of it is how to go from 3 million to 10 million. And so that’s what I’m thinking about, and immersing myself in the same way that when I was wanting to be full time in my business, I was listening to things that were talking to me as if I was already full time in my business. And so when it comes to as well, like what you’re consuming, this is why I love podcasts so much, because I could just surround myself. With like, constant messaging and support that was helpful for me.

So I’ll talk about that more in step five of this process. But just be aware and mindful of that as well. So you want to start getting specific about what is my business going to look like? What will I be working on? What will my days look like? What will my projects be like? Just start to actually feel that out. And if you have a lot of trouble with that question, which you probably will, your brain has been wanting to avoid answering that. And also, a lot of perfectionists, like some, have a really easy time visualizing and daydreaming, and like we often as well, do that as an escape of like, okay, the future’s gonna be so much better than now to just like, it’s a way we kind of, like, emotionally regulate ourselves is if we’re in a experience right now of failure, we fantasize about a future time where it will be successful to try and emotionally regulate now.

But what I want you to do is, like, get specific. Not just like, okay, it’ll be so much better. Like, my business is gonna be so much better once I’ve done X, Y, Z, no, it’s looking at okay. The reality of business is there’s always going to be something to learn, a new skill set, to develop a problem or challenge to overcome. What are those problems and challenges, like, what are my next level problems and challenges? And that will really help support you to just solve these ones and move on to the next ones, versus, especially when coupled with the other steps in this, versus not even knowing what they are. And so choosing your current problems over unknowing problems because your current problems feel so much more familiar.

So something to help you with this too, is a question that a lot of us have answered at least one time in our life. Is, what would you do if you won the lottery? And so we go, okay, well, I might buy a house for my parents or I might, you know, start up a charity, or buy this car or this house, or, like, whatever it is that you do with money. So that’s a similar style of thinking that we want to do. But it’s if my business was making the goal amount of money that you have $100,000 a million dollars. What would you do next? What would you be thinking about? And what would you be focusing on so same style of question, a hypothetical, like, if you were in this circumstance, what would you do? And then we’re now applying that to your business. Of if your business was in this circumstance, of you having achieved your current goal, what would you do? And so you want to spend time every week thinking about this, bringing your brain back to this, that if we spend so much time in our brains thinking about all the reasons it’s not working, all the reasons we’re never going to get there, all the proof we have that we’re on the downhill or whatever, then we are just going to stay stuck in the same problems that we have, because it just feels so comfortable to be stuck in those problems.

And again, we don’t even know what would come after those problems and what’s going to happen once we actually graduate from them, because we aren’t spending time picturing this and visualizing this. And I’ve been spending a lot of time doing this, and it really hurts my brain, like it actually feels like a gym workout for my brain to picture. Okay, my business is making 3 million so coming back to the Growth Goal, like, my growth goal is 12 million, not 12 million, my growth goal is $1 million in a 12 month period. But also, I’ve made $600,000 before in a 12 month period. So a million dollars isn’t even that much more. And I’ve made multiple millions in my business overall. So a million dollars, like when I think about it, it doesn’t even feel that different to the business that I have.

And so for me, what’s been so helpful is to go beyond that. I still have the goal of a million, but I go beyond that in my brain to Okay, 3 million. What is my business looking like? Then what am I going to be solving? What am I going to be working on? And that really helps me as well to not and this is something I’ve learned from my coach, Stacey Boehman, is that we tend to underestimate what’s required to achieve our goals, and by actually thinking ahead and visualizing like what needs to be done and what we’re going to be working on to achieve the bigger goal, that’s actually the plan to achieve the goal that we do have, the current goal.

So and when I’ve done this work, and I mean thinking about, okay, when I’m making $3 million and we have 600 PGSDers every year and things like that, and how can we make sure everyone still gets an incredible experience and the best results and even better results and all of that, that then I’m like, Oh, actually, I think when I look at it, that work is the work to get to a million dollars in revenue, and my brain just wants to underestimate what’s required, a bit of perfectionist entitlement, I’m sure within that, but my brain wants to underestimate that. But instead, if I look okay, what’s that big goal? Not only does it help me actually look at the real how to get to my current goal, but it also removes my resistance to making a million dollars, because I know what’s next, because I know that it’s not the peak, and there’s no peak after that, that it’s just one step of many in my overall entrepreneurial journey where I might have this business and other businesses and like allowing myself to dream bigger versus like, okay, well, once I make a million in a year, that’s it. I’ve reached the pinnacle, and then now I’m gonna have 50 years of just like not knowing what to do.

So I may as well just keep struggling with making a million dollars so that I can entertain myself with that and have something to work towards. As humans, we love working towards things. So you need to give yourself something bigger to work towards. And in PGSD we really teach you a lot about how to do that in a way where it’s not pressuring yourself and being tense about it and stressed about it. Because perfectionists, we tend to be fearful of thinking bigger because then we’re going to have this unrealistic expectation and the pressure associated with that. So in PGSD we really support you with that as well. But just know you need to have that bigger picture, and that bigger vision that goes beyond your current growth goal to help you remove your resistance to achieving it.

Second is you need to act as if you already have that business. So if you love like myself, the world of manifestation. You might have already heard of this concept of acting as if it is really powerful to act as if it’s something that I love thinking about and doing. And also this really relates to self image. There’s a whole module in PGSD on self image, because aligning your self image with the business you want and not the business you have, is very, very, very important.

And that is the same as acting as if you already have the business that you want to have. And it is really counterintuitive to approach it this way, because we kind of think like, I don’t deserve to act with that level of confidence or clarity until I actually get there, but then we don’t get there because we don’t act as if. And so you really need to be willing to act as if before you were there, because that is how you actually get that. That reveals the steps, that reveals the support that you need, the action that you need to take, like that is the process. And if we withhold that from ourselves, because we think, no, I just need to sort out like I’m even struggling with the level of business I’m currently act I can’t even think about acting as if I have a like, higher level of business, so to speak, then we deny ourselves actually graduating to the next level of business.

So a way that I love to think about this that is really helpful, just to speak to the counterintuitive part of it is that when I’m in that mindset of like, I can’t act as if. Like, I don’t deserve to act as if kind of thing like, I need to prove myself to be able to do that. And I need to just, like, sort out where I am before I can even think about where I’m going. It means I just indulge in so much drama about the current steps that I need to be taking, and I give myself way too much time to do them like, instead of just doing them efficiently and effectively. I give myself so much time, there’s so much mental drama around it, because that is like, that is really just me acting as if I’m in this current business level and then I’m not going to graduate, versus if I think about, okay, I have a $3 million business, and part of that business is content creation.

Then I just create content without drama. I’m efficient about it. I batch record. I let myself be on top of it. I let myself be ahead of it, because there are other things that I’m doing in my business beside content creation. But if I think about having a six figure business or multiple six figure business, then it’s like, okay, well, I can just spend all my time on content creation, and that’s fine, because there aren’t bigger things I need to be doing. I hope that’s making sense, but it’s really looking at when you actually allow yourself to act as if you have the business you want to have, and not the business you currently have, you will solve more efficiently for the problems that you currently have, because you’re solving them as future you who already knows how to solve that problem and who already has that skill set. It’s really a way to access your high level thinking and higher level wisdom and higher emotional capacity and levels of execution when you are acting as if you are the person who’s running the business you envisioned in step one.

You need to be willing to feel a bit delusional. You need to be willing to suspend your disbelief. And so for example, practically speaking as well, it means doing your power planning, following through with your plan, your plans, plans, taking action from a place of belief and willingness, rather than taking action from a place of disbelief and resistance. And as I mentioned, upgrading your self image to be in alignment with the business you want, and not the business you currently have. Acting as if. Again, it’s like that first point was asking the question to yourself, similar to the lottery question, like, if my business was in a certain situation, what would I do next? How would I carry myself? How would I behave? How would I be thinking? Where would I be spending my time? What wouldn’t I be spending my time on?

And then the second step is to actually do that, and I’m going to move on to step three, because this all supports you in the acting as if so. Number three is to let yourself be supported. This is something we talked about on today’s coaching call as well. Is to not make yourself wrong for knowing better but not doing better, and like not making yourself wrong for getting support, because this PGSDer was like, I’ve already been struggling with this before. I’ve gotten coaching on it before. And like it just feels basically like I feel, I think, essentially a bit of embarrassment or shame about even asking to get coached on this before, because I’ve already gotten support with it. And what I shared is that, like, of course, you know what to do, but you’re not doing it because knowing doesn’t entitle you to implementation.

Like they’re two separate things, and what really the coaching calls and the PGSD process is there to support you with is developing the emotional capacity and willingness to do the things that you know you need to do. It’s not about like, here’s the knowledge that you are missing, and now you can go off and do it. No, you know what you need to do, and you will, of course, update that as you actually take action and you learn, okay, here’s what I need to do more specifically, or I thought this thing would work, and it didn’t. So it’s not like, Okay, I know what to do and it will perfectly work. It’s a process. You’re an entrepreneur like you were going to learn through trial and error and doing shit and seeing what happens, not from having a perfect plan, executing it perfectly and then it perfectly works, but really like letting yourself be supported with the emotional capacity and the willingness to do the things you need to do, and letting your brain be seen by other.

It’s so powerful because, for example, what I coached on today on that coaching call is not anything that would have come up in self coaching, because it is a blind spot, because our brains don’t want to see certain things. You need someone else to look at your brain. And this is why, for example, in my mastermind, I posted this week in the Facebook group that we have for it, and we’re just like, This is what I’m really struggling with, like, here’s where I’ve got into my own self coaching. But like, can someone please help me? And I got such helpful responses that were just things that I hadn’t even considered, and were, like, in my blind spot, because we all have blind spots, and you need someone else looking at your brain.

So don’t make yourself wrong for taking a helpful action. Don’t make yourself wrong for getting support, perfectionist like we love to feel self sufficient, independent. We’re not bothering anyone. We can figure it out on our own. And I love the quote of, if you want to go fast, go alone, and if you want to go far, go together. Get your self support. Get on the pgse coaching calls, post in the forum, make friends in the forum as well and on the calls, like, really allow yourself to be supported, to be coach. I know it requires vulnerability for a lot of us, like, we want to just be like, Hey, I did the thing, and to be in that, even though we have a hard time celebrating too, so we often don’t even share that, but we don’t want others to see the messiness of us, like not knowing and and being stuck in a problem we’ve already been stuck in before, and like all of that, you have to let yourself be supported. So increase your willingness to let yourself be supported. Get yourself that support. Instead of just trying hard and trying to be better, actually let yourself get proper support.

The fourth step is to anticipate that your brain will offer you confusion, fear and doubt and know how to answer that. So my experience, for sure, at every level of revenue growth has been that my brain, like when I’m not believing that I can achieve the goal, or that I’m the person who can do it, or that I can do it easily, then my brain wants to rush me. I feel a lot of urgency, a lot of impatience. There’s a lot of rushing. And therefore I also scatter myself, and I jump from thing to thing. I do things in inefficient ways, just from this place of like, I’m behind, I need to catch up. There’s so much to do. I need to do it all yesterday.

And just like that thought pattern, which my power planning really helps me with identifying and getting out of as well, but I can see it just my brain wants me to be rushed, because it feels like I have to get to the result to be able to believe it, and so I need to get there right now, versus when we’re in a place of belief, when we have that clear vision, we’re acting as if we’re like holding that belief, even when there is evidence that it’s not possible, which I’ll talk about in the next step. We need to just be aware of that pattern and bring ourselves back to sufficiency and calm and belief. And what I want to offer you with this is that when you are having that vision, acting as if letting yourself be supported, I don’t want you to be thinking, Okay, I shouldn’t have any doubt, I shouldn’t have any confusion, I shouldn’t have any fear.

And we often get into trouble because we believe everything that we think. And we believe the confused thoughts, we believe the fearful thoughts, we believe the doubtful thoughts. So what we want to do is just anticipate that your brain is going to be manufacturing a lot of those thoughts, especially when you are entering new territory. It wants to keep you safe in this level of business that you are currently in. It wants to keep you in this revenue bracket because it is known to you, whether that is $0 10,000 a month, 100,000 a year, a million a year, 10 million a year, whatever it is for you, your brain wants you to stay where you are. And so if you have a like a think back and reflect on when your brain has been the most confused and the most fearful and the most doubtful.

I want you to think of that as like I have been on the cusp of graduating to the next level of revenue, and my brain has gotten scared and produced more of those thoughts, and I have believed them, and now what I’m doing is expecting my brain to still do that producing of the thoughts and the feelings, and I’m not going to believe them, and I’m also not going to pretend with myself that I shouldn’t have fearful or doubtful thoughts or things that come up. My brain is doing its job to keep me alive. It does a very great job of that. We know that because I’m currently alive, and so it is going to do the like confusion and the overwhelming and the fearful thoughts and the doubt to a higher degree, maybe than it’s ever done before, to see that first as a sign that you are on the cusp of graduating to the next level of revenue, to the next level of business, and you need to know ahead of time how to answer that, so that you don’t buy into it and believe it like you might have been in the past.

So something that my coach shared, that I just want to share with you, because the way she said, it really resonated with me and was really helpful. She did an episode, Stacey Boehman talking about increasing your capacity and your willingness to do certain things in your business, and it was incredible episode. I will link it up in the show notes as well, if you want to listen. But something she said in that episode was, when my brain presents me with overwhelm, I respond with capacity and willingness. I don’t know if that’s the actual words, that’s what I took away from it, but it was along the lines, for sure, of when my brain presents me with overwhelm, I respond with and then you have a different feeling or thought that you respond with to not, like, counter that, or try and, like, put a band aid on top of it.

But it’s like, if you imagine it being a different person, and someone comes to you and they’re feeling so overwhelmed, or they’re feeling so confused or so fearful or so doubtful about their business, so they can either come to you like, oh my god, 100% you should definitely reconsider everything. Maybe you shouldn’t even have a business. Like, that’s what we do with ourselves, and it’s very unhelpful. Or when we’re just like, Oh my God, there’s so much to do. Like, imagine if the then when someone comes to you and it’s like, oh my God, there’s so much to I could never get it done, and you were there to support them, and you’re like, Oh my God, you’re totally right. You can never get it done. Tell me more about how you could never get it done. Like, let’s really look into this about how it’s definitely true that you definitely can’t do it. We don’t want to do that with ourselves. It’s not supportive.

So what we want to do is when our brain presents us with the confusion, with the fear, with the doubt, with whatever feelings come up for you that you know ahead of time, how to answer that? How to respond to it. You have thought through, okay, I anticipate this week as I calmly take action towards my goal, my brain might present thoughts like, maybe you should change your price, maybe you should change your offer, maybe you should have a different niche, maybe you should this, maybe you should that, maybe you should that, or maybe it’s thoughts along, like, more fearful thoughts of like, this is never gonna work, and if you do this, then this, then, like, looking at you’ll know your brain’s favorite flavor of holding you back and keeping you at the current level of protecting you. And so you want to anticipate that ahead of time. So for me, I know my brain is probably going to go most into the confusing thoughts of like, we should reconsider everything and kind of like having this existential crisis. And so it’s having a plan for when my brain goes into that desire to have and stay entertained by an existential crisis and needing to review everything and decide everything again, what am I going to do? What am I going to respond with? And so having that plan is really powerful.

And then number five is keeping on believing even when there’s evidence that you shouldn’t. So a lot of us have experienced before the feeling of believing in a goal, but we know it’s not real belief when you take a step and it doesn’t work as you planned, and then you don’t believe anymore. You get disappointed, you get disheartened, you stop taking action, you have a different goal. Instead, you like just disconnect from it as soon as it’s not working. We don’t want to do that because we know in entrepreneurship that you are going to need to trial and error your way to your goals, that there is no reality where you’re going to get only positive evidence that you are going to achieve your goal, unless you have done the mindset work to constantly reframe everything as evidence that you’re going to achieve it, which is very helpful to do as well, that what you want to do is to just know and again, anticipate you will do things that won’t work, that won’t have the desired outcome.

And you need to keep believing and keep thinking about that vision and spending time there and acting as if and letting yourself be supported and anticipating the confusion, fear and doubt and answering that. You need to keep doing that, even in the face of things not working, even in the face of giant failures and mistakes, which are all inevitable and part of the process, and you can’t avoid it by just thinking a little more or procrastinating or procrasti-learning a little more. You have to actually be willing to experience that, be willing to make mistakes, be willing to fail and to know that that actually isn’t evidence that you can’t achieve your goal. That is, as the cliche goes, like a stepping stone towards your goals, but your brain is going to want to disconnect and not believe, and you need to keep believing.

So what I want to offer you with this is to curate what is going into your brain. So what is your brain consuming? The same way that you might think about with your physical health, your diet of food, what is your mental diet? What are you feeding your brain? Are you doing lots of scrolling? Are you consuming things that are just feeding thoughts about there’s a bad economy or a recession, or people don’t have enough money, or you have to do things perfectly. It’s really important as well, especially if you’re in a period of disbelief, you might lean a little bit heavier into consuming strategic advice. Of if you find the perfect strategy and do it perfectly, you will get perfect results. We don’t want to fuel that perfectionist entitlement thought pattern, what we want to do is be consuming things that constantly see possibility and hope so.

For example, The PGSD private podcast, listening to the coaching calls and plugging that in when you are driving in the car, when you are just like going about your day, having that possibility and support and. It not being things that are going to take you off track and get you into that perfectionist entitlement of like, well, if I could just figure out how to do it perfectly, it will work. No, that’s not how entrepreneurship works. So what we want to do is just really seed that possibility and hope and to then consume specific strategy when we actually need it and when we are going to implement it, so not just constantly be consuming all these different strategies and tactics which we kind of know that we’re not going to like actually implement. So you want to go deep when it comes to anything strategic that you are listening to, instead of wide.

And so what I personally love to consume. So I’m in a mastermind, so I listen to the coaching calls and the materials in there. And I also have a few mindset podcasts that I listen to things like this podcast. I don’t listen to my own podcast, but equivalent of this. And also I love like manifestation and that side of things, because that really, as well, supports possibility and hope and belief, which is very important. And I also am listening to in terms of, like, just exposing myself to different ideas, which I love to do. I just listen to stories, like interviews of people building their business, like Guy Raz has the podcast, How I Built This, like, just things like that, where you were hearing someone else’s experience, but it’s not framed in a how to lens.

So just have a little audit of what are you consuming mentally, and is this supporting you to believe in a better, quote, unquote, better future, to act as if, to let yourself be supported, to respond back to the confusion, the fear and the doubt. Is it supporting you with that? Or is it, instead of putting you into that perfectionist entitlement of trying to find the perfect strategy or the perfect platform or the perfect niche and to execute it perfectly, we really want to be supporting ourselves with what we consume, it just makes it so much easier. I do a lot of self coaching as well when my brain is offering me up thoughts of confusion and fear and doubt. Like a lot of times, it’s just like, let the thoughts be there and let them be there without resistance. Don’t respond to them or react. Is like, let them come along for the ride.

And other times, I investigate them and I answer back to them. And so there’s a mix of that too. But just be mindful about your consumption, what you are consuming. And also, if you need to be protective over your dreams and over your big goals that you have. You don’t have to share them with your husband or wife or partner. You don’t have to share them with your friends. This is why I love having communities where I can share things like this and our PGSDers love having the pgsd forum because that’s a safe place to share the big goals and dreams you have, but like you have maybe made this mistake before, if you have a supportive partner, or maybe you don’t, and you just have tried to share it, or maybe they are supportive and you’ve tried to share it, but they also have their own thoughts and beliefs and feelings and things going on. You’re trying to create a reality you’ve never created before.

And so we can tend to, when we’re in disbelief, go to someone else to try and get belief and coaching, like being in PGSD is a great place to get that, but oftentimes in our like friendships and relationships, it’s not a great place for that, and we need to be in really specific circumstances for that to work. And so you might need to be protective over your dreams. Like when I was first growing my business, I didn’t tell people that I was trying to even have a business. I didn’t tell them about the business. I didn’t tell them I didn’t tell them I wanted to be full time in the business. I didn’t tell them I wanted to be a coach. I just needed to nurture that belief in private with the podcast I listened to and the support that I was getting like I just needed to nurture that for myself until I was at a point where having someone else not believe in it didn’t matter to me. But if it’s a problem, if someone doesn’t believe and I tend to agree with them that I need to protect that belief.

So that’s something you might need to do as well. So all of this to say, the summary is, when you are believing, when you have that vision, you’re acting as if, and you are believing you will take helpful actions and you will see and solve for unhelpful actions. When you are not believing, you will take, and you will take, and you don’t have that vision. You’re not acting as if you will take unhelpful actions, and you will try to take those unhelpful actions perfectly, and you will not solve for them. And if you see them, you will just get stuck in them, and they will just perpetuate. So if you want to really follow this process, I highly recommend as well, being inside PGSD, and this is what we support you with. But just re listening to this episode as well and going back to picturing like working through it, picturing and visualizing the future, acting as if letting yourself be supported, investigating what that looks like for you, finding the resourcefulness to get the support you need, anticipating what will come up for you, keeping on believing even when there’s evidence you shouldn’t that is a process. It’s not about having this perfect marketing strategy, or having this perfect offer, you will solve for that part when you are doing this process. So I hope this has been incredibly helpful, and I will talk to you in the next episode.

Outro
If you struggle to build your business due to procrastination or overthinking or maybe you keep burning yourself out, I want to invite you to join my program perfectionist getting shit done inside, I will teach you my proven process for getting shit done as a perfectionist entrepreneur. In case you didn’t know, perfectionists can’t follow the same productivity advice as everyone else, when we do, we get in our own way. So let me teach you what works inside the program. It’s simple, and anyone can learn to sign up today, visit SamLaurabrown.com/pgsd, I’ll see you inside.






Author: Sam Brown