Mar 1, 20164 min read

Chapter 2: Overcome Debilitating Self Doubt

Updated: Mar 1, 2022

After my Awakening, I decided to start setting goals for my journals. Before that, breaking in a new journal was stressful. What tone am I going to set for this journal? It always seemed I had something I needed to vent about when I was writing my first entry and that felt like a bad place to start.

The goals I set cannot be characterized as SMART. They were not Specific or Measurable…they were definitely Relevant and Timely. Attainable? As you will see for my first goal, it is like the journey of mastery, one never quite arrives! Yet, this practice of setting journal goals was part of a chain reaction of deep and deliberate learning that has led to my transformation as an entrepreneur. I continue to set journal goals today!

January 2012 – July 2012

1/19/12 – Start making goals for journals. First journal goal is to overcome debilitating self-doubt 1/20/12 – Realize things are taking longer than I expected so I focus on manifesting 1/22/12 – Call on patience and decide I need a plan 1/27/12 – Deal with stress by focusing on lessons learned 2/1/12 – Decide I need EntrepreNerds to be valuable for myself and others 2/7/12 – Practice “Gremlin Taming” as I question how I will get paid and create value? Recenter with what I know 2/11/12 – Draft ideas for first business plan for EntrepreNerds 2/20/12 – Launched website 2/21/12 – Contemplate how to prospect specific clients 2/28/12 – Contemplate charging for EntrepreNerds 2/28/12 – Re-centering self with a pep talk 3/1/12 – Need to try to let go of my worries so I practice deep breathing. Suggest I disconnect my self-worth from my business. Again, I don’t know what I am doing and making it all up as I go 4/2/12 – Realize that self-employment taxes are the most expensive thing I bought myself in 2011…contemplate where I want my business to go 4/10/12 – Realize I am getting in my own way and need to stop 4/14/12 – List the ways I am putting myself out there as proof of my valiant effort 4/19/12 – Feel like I need to prove myself, but how? 4/14/12 – Present to a peer advisory group & get feedback that I am the new consulting 4/25/12 – Reframe my perspective of sales so it is more positive 4/26/12 – Address my relationship issues with money in a letter. Wonder, how do I focus? What do I need to do to create my vision? 4/27/12 – Pitched my first coaching client and they signup 5/12/12 – Asked Bob to be my mentor. Develop non-traditional market research package and coaching package 5/19/12 – Dialing down overcommitment’s. Feeling bad about getting paid for things that are easy. Realize it is best when I let the answer emerge from within. Identify the ways I have been holding myself back. 5/31/12 – Decide I want to use my time more wisely 5/19/12 – Have a lot of different things to consider and decide about 5/28/12 – Give myself a pep-talk 5/30/12 – Wonder if it is possible to sprain your brain. Start to habitualize asking, “What’s the very next action” 6/4/12 – Wonder how to stop beating myself up? Give an, “I can do it” pep talk to myself 6/5/12 – Feel like I am getting to know my social media persona. Start to outline my sales cycles and the results I create 6/6/12 – Start offering my special clarity and focus consultation 6/7/12 – Attend Salt and Pepper Lunch and reconnect with my love for intergenerational conversations. Draft my sales funnel 6/14/12 – Feel conflicted and hurt. Got feedback that I should focus on marketing because I am too young to be taken seriously as a coach. 6/20/12 – Feel like professional colleagues stabbed me in the heart when they should have been more supportive 6/27/12 – Experience the inauthenticity of meeting with someone that follows the formula for networking and don’t like it

There is no such thing as being fearless. If that is something you aspire to, you have been duped. Fear not, I was duped too. Being a misfit entrepreneur requires that you be fear facing. For me, fear manifested as debilitating, getting in my own way, self-doubt. It literally stopped me from doing necessary things for no good reason.

Your fear may manifest differently. I have encountered people that do not have a shit-talking inner critique like me yet they still get in their own way. It comes across as logic or reason, “I can’t start talking to people about my business until I have a website.” Really? That’s 110% hogwash. Sorry, but if that mirrors your own experiences than your inner-critique is masquerading as an ill-advised business expert. He is replacing curiosity with the need to be perfect or right at your expense.

I invite you to share your thoughts, reactions and questions in the comments. Please join me in lifting the veil on the emotional rollercoaster ride that is entrepreneurship…we need not go it alone.