Hey everyone, I'm excited about this week's podcast episode. I'm going to talk about how to see if you're self-sabotaging your own online business. We're going to touch a little bit about those things that we kind of put up our hands and say, no, no, I don't want to go there. But is it really an aspect of fear? We're going to uncover this and get right to the juggler. So I can't wait to get started here on the Resilient Faith Online Show. Welcome. I'm Arissa Shadrick, host of the Resilient Faith Online Show. I'm an online marketing coach and certified copywriter. In this podcast, you'll find a different perspective to the external and internal challenges we face as online content creators. Join me for some inspiration and practical tips as we create positive change online. To connect with me and my private Facebook group, go to Marissa Shadrick.com forward slash community. Hello, hello, how are you doing today? I am just energized, excited. Spring is around the corner. The weather is getting great. I'm really enjoying my walks. I feel like I'm getting more exercise. And I'm sure for those of you that have to shovel snow and bundle up, you're probably looking forward to it. I'm a little spoiled here in Las Vegas. I don't have to do all that. But boy, I sure enjoy the springtime because in the summer it gets like a furnace here. It's terrible. You can't go outside because you'll just get scorched. So, in any event, today I'm going to talk about a topic that is very close to my heart. Fear is something that I am actively fighting against and I see many faces of it. And oftentimes when we're online, we can self-sabotage ourselves, not because of procrastination or some of these things that we might think is a reason, but if we really look hard, we might discover it's an element of fear. But here's the good news once you know what it is and you can speak into that and you can realize it and acknowledge it and take steps that help you become more confident and move forward, you just eliminate fear out of certain things that you have to do online. So we're going to get really specific. Entrepreneurship means that we face ongoing hiccups, we face disappointments, we have to be vulnerable, we have to be on camera, we have to write and put our thoughts out there for people to read. We have to be very proactive and not just reactive. We can't sit in the sidelines, right? We can't sit on the bench. We have to constantly be innovating, trying new things. And we have weeks that are great. And then we have other weeks that are not so great. If we want to be totally honest, right? We all face disappointments. Maybe some campaign didn't go as well as we had hoped. Maybe our engagement isn't as good as we'd like on social media. There could be endless amounts of things, but don't let that discourage you. We're going to unpack some of the ways that we could self-sabotage ourselves. So the first one is resistance to lead. Consider a leader. A leader is usually upfront, usually has a vision, usually communicates and trying to persuade other people to follow them, right? So sometimes we have a resistance to lead because of fear. It's sort of one of those faces of fear because we think, what if I lead and nobody follows? Oh no. What if I put something out there and nobody clicks on it? Oh no. But you have to realize that we all go through this. You are not alone, right? We all go through this, but we've got to realize that if we have a message to share with the world, if we can create transformation, if we can help someone, we need to step up and we need to lead. And that means we do need to be very personal and transparent. And I know that's uncomfortable. I'm an introvert. I don't like talking about my personal life, but I've learned to share certain aspects of my life with people. I'm not great at it, but I'm working toward that and tried to I try to be a little bit more vulnerable, especially when it comes to reels. I don't know if you've ever done reels or TikTok or any of that. You know, some of it can be really, really fun, but really goofy. So I totally get it if it makes you uncomfortable. But that's all part of leading, right? We're trying to reach people. So we need to be transparent and not be afraid. But another reason why some may have a resistance to lead is because you feel a burden of responsibility when you lead, correct? There's a burden of responsibility. And leadership can be very lonely in the beginning, right? When you're first starting out and you're leading ahead, because you're in you're ahead of everyone else, right? So you're casting vision and that could be really lonely. And all of these things could be reasons why we resist to lead. And yet, if we have a message, we need to step up and we need to be bold for the sake of those that will listen. We need to be bold and share what's on our mind. We can't remain neutral. We need to be bold. In fact, scripture, there's a scripture that says that I'd rather you be hot or cold and not lukewarm. Of course, that's referencing our faith, but that is good advice. It's better not to be lukewarm. It's better not to be vanilla and neutral. Now, some of you that love vanilla, okay, vanilla is great. But you know what I mean. It's better not to be neutral. Be passionate about what it is that you're sharing because there is an origin story. There's a reason why you're sharing it. And if you dig deep, you'd be able to find out the reason, the core reason why it is that you want to share this message. So resistance to lead can oftentimes be connected to fear, but only you can answer that. I'm not going to say that you're afraid cat, right? I'm not going to say that. One because I want you to listen to my podcast. No, I'm just kidding. But the other is because it's not true. I can't make a judgment like that. But I want to give you these tools so that you see for yourself and you unpack whether or not the resistance to lead has any elements of fear. Maybe some of the things that I shared. Another way that we can self-sabotage when we don't lead is because we're worried about criticism. Now, this could be another facet of fear, right? We're afraid about criticism. We take it too personally when someone criticizes something. And that could be simply a form of people pleasing. Now, when I grew up, I was very much a people pleaser. So I totally get it. I totally get it. I was conditioned to do that. When I did good things, that's when I got affirmation. That's when I got love. But when I didn't, I didn't get that. So I learned to do things for people, you know, family to be able to get that affirmation I wanted. So I had to really uncover all of this and realize that criticism was very much, or the idea of criticism was very much connected to some of my insecurities, right? And so we have to realize, you know, that if we are afraid of criticism, we need to realize if you're a person of faith, the only one that you should be concerned about is God. So if you're looking to please God, don't worry about what everybody else says, right? If you are sharing something and you feel like you're being obedient to God and you're doing what you're supposed to do online, then by golly, don't worry about what other people say because you get all kinds of stuff online on social media. I remember I was, I'm gonna be totally vulnerable here. I was on Instagram and I was practicing how to do some reels because I'm kind of experimenting with reels. I'm still not comfortable with them, but I'm playing around with them and they are kind of fun. But I remember was trying some filters. Oh, this is hysterical. I was trying some filters and I really couldn't tell on the phone what the filter really looked like. And so I recorded this thing with this filter. It was just some short thing. And somebody said to me, Wow, you look like a Dorito, a hot Dorito chip that's been in the tanning bed way too long or something. Evidently, I must have looked really orange. So, but that person was right. What can I say? The filter was not very complimentary. So, anyway, you can't find it. I deleted it. But in any event, you know, this stuff happens and you just have to laugh a bit. You know, I did look like a Dorito chip. What can I say? I did, but you have to learn from it. So thank you very much for that person that posted that because they were right. So don't worry about criticism, just worry about honoring God. If you're not a faith person, are you aligned to your integrity, to your values, to the things that hold true? And if you are, then don't worry about feedback that you perceive to be criticism, because criticism can be valuable in the case of the Dorito chip. It can be valuable. So don't worry about that. The next one is if you hate change, that could also be a form of fear. And really hating change, I mean, everything changes. There's so much change all around us all the time. I mean, the seasons change, we change, we get older. I mean, everything changes. We can't stop things from changing. It's a false security to think that there's comfort or there is security in not changing because change is happening. There's some examples in the book that I love that is John Maxwell. He talks about change and uh he just compares some things from the 1950s and the 1990s, and he said how much things have changed since then. And this is 1990s, because this is an old book. This book I've read over and over again. I got highlights in it. I accidentally got it wet one time, and so the pages are all kind of wavy and warped, but the content is so good that I don't want to get rid of this book. In any event, uh he says in the 1950s it was all about savings. In the 1990s, it was all about spending. In the 1950s, it was all about delayed gratification. In the 1990s, it was all about instant gratification. That holds true now, doesn't it? Yeah. In the 1950s, it was all about neighborhood. In the 1990s, things shifted to lifestyle. In the 1950s, it was all about export. In the 1990s, it was all about import. So a lot of these things haven't changed, have they? In the 1950s, it was all about public virtue. In the 1990s, it was about personal well-being. In the 1950s, it was all about mom and dad. In the 1990s, it was all about nanny and daycare. And he goes on and on about all this change, right? 1950s, it was all about knowledge. In the 1990s, it was all about credentials. And in the 1950s, it was about we, right? We in the 1990s, it was all about me. So to put our security in the idea that I'm not going to let anything change is a false security. In fact, we were meant to transform. We were meant to change the way God created us. He said, Be ye transformed. We're supposed to transform from the inside out. So change was already baked into our faith and our spirituality about continuing to change, continuing to grow. That's why I read books and listen to podcasts. And since you're listening to this, you like to grow as well. You like to change. So embrace change. But if you hate change, it could be an element of fear as well. The next one is never taking risks. This is a big one. Never take a risk. So if you don't want to take a risk and you think, oh, that's a little risky to do that. That's a little risky to launch that. I'm not sure if I'm going to get the signups. That's a little risky to send out that type of content. You got to realize that if you're an entrepreneur online, you've got to take some risk. You've got to test things out. That fear of failing or fear of making mistakes, hey, we all fail, we all make mistakes, but we learn in the midst of all of that, right? Fear of losing your reputation. You know what? If you align yourself to your values and what's true for you and you honor people and you respect people, you're not going to lose your reputation. Now, people may say something that's not true, but that doesn't mean it's it's true about you. It just means that someone was not being very nice, right? So you have to realize that taking risks is all part of entrepreneurship. So never taking risks could be an a way that you self-sabotage your business, which is what we're talking about, self-sabotaging yourself, because you're afraid to put yourself out there. And you have to see if you're never taking a risk of any kind, is it because you're afraid of failing or afraid of making a mistake? So you need to consider that as well. And then the last one I want to share with you is if you avoid confrontation, that could be an element of fear as well. If you want to hold back because you don't want confrontation, so you need to realize, you know, again, this could be a little bit of the people pleasing. There could be a lot of reasons for this. And again, only you can decide if there's fear involved in this. But someone could just be offering an alternative view. So your avoidance of confrontation and not speaking up or not saying something or not putting yourself out there because someone might say, Well, what about this? Or, well, I've heard that people do it this way, or whatever it might be, it may not be necessarily confrontation. It could be someone that has an alternate view. There's different ways to crack a nut, right? An alternate view, or maybe questioning to seek clarification. Sometimes we perceive that as confrontational or attacking us, but maybe they're just questioning and seeking clarification for their own understanding. And so it's not confrontational, but because of insecurities that we might have or fears that we might have, we perceive it that way. So we have to realize that is it really a confrontation or are they just questioning, asking a lot of questions to get that clarification? Now, if it's hostile, if it's just downright mean, who likes that, right? You have to give people a lot of grace. And this is what I used to tell my kids when they were little. If you see someone that's really hostile or really mean or really nasty, wherever it might be, it's because they have owies on the inside that you can't see. And usually that's what happened. Hostile people, people that are very toxic, it's because they are broken on the inside and we don't see it. And so we have to just uh talk to them and walk through that with a lot of grace. And if we need to sometimes apologize, you know, apologize and try to mend that brokenness somehow if we can. It's an opportunity for us to serve them in a different way because maybe they are broken on the inside. So, really, in all of these that I talked about, you know, how we self-sabotage our online business, there could be an element of fear when there's resistance to lead or worried about criticism, or you hate change, or you never want to take a risk, or you want to avoid confrontation. That can all be ways of self-sabotaging your business because there might be an element of fear. And again, only you can decide if that's true. I don't know if that's true about you. I know it was true about me, but you have to determine if that is true about you. So it's really to summarize it, it's really the fear of the unknown, not knowing how the outcome's gonna be, and taking this journey almost with a blindfold. But that, my friend, is kind of like the way it is. You know, we kind of walk through this journey, doing everything that we can and checking everything off and really planning, assessing, uh, doing um even a review afterwards. You know, I debrief with myself after something. I debrief to see what could I have done better, what could I have eliminated, what could I have added, and just always improving it. That's all we can do is bring our best. Sometimes our best is fantastic, but sometimes our best isn't so great. But we're still trying to do our best. So I wanted to just share a couple of things that if you are struggling in these areas, here are a few ways that you can kind of move forward is to determine what's really most important in your life. If this is important to you, what you're doing online, if creating the content, the message that you have is important to you, just know that that's been given to you. That's been given to you. And I'm gonna say it's been given to you by God, right? It's been given to you to be able to hold that, steward that, and offer that as your offering each day, right? And so determine what's important to you. If you have a calling on your life to be online and to serve people online, then realize that you need to use everything, regardless. I mean, this is it's really a growth journey. Anyone that's online, you know, once you start an online business, you're gonna grow. You're gonna grow. If you don't want to grow, then don't do an online business because you're very visible. You're online for crying out loud. You're online. So just know that you will grow and that this is normal. We all go through it, all of us. So you need to separate reality from imagination. So the thing that you want to do is not live this fiction story and really live your nonfiction story. Because sometimes these fears, we have all these imaginations and all these ideas and thoughts and so forth, and it's a fictitious story, it's not real. And you want to live the nonfiction story, the true story, right? Live the true story and live the way God has said for you to live and be the person that God has said that you are, not what other people say. Who does God say you are? And then in those difficult times when you really need grace to move forward, consider who do you say God is. Is he big enough to take care of you in your business as well? And then you simply plan and you execute the plan. You execute the plan. You've got on your agenda what you need to do, and you just do it and you set the habits that you need to be able to achieve those goals. There's um a great scripture, and this scripture um is from Isaiah 41, 13, and it says, This is from the New American Standard. It says, For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand, who says to you, do not fear, I will help you. I will help you. And if you think you're alone in all of this, hey, let me tell you, the Bible is full of leaders who struggled with leadership and struggled with fear. And I can just mention a few. I mean, Moses, there's a verse in Exodus 3:11 where he he was full of insecurity. Moses had said to the God, Who am I? Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt? And yet God uses Hebrew baby that was raised by Pharaoh's daughter and left, escaped, ran away because he had killed someone, right? To come back and free God's people. And then there was Gideon in Judges 15, he God gave him incredible success. He was a judge over Israel, and he defeated Israel's enemy by God's power and might, not by armies and strength. And Gideon had said also, Oh Lord, how am I to save Israel? Behold, my family is the least in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father's house. And Jeremiah was another one, Jeremiah 16. I mean, this goes on and on and on. He wasn't a good speaker, yet he was a prophet with a call to repentance. So he was a prophet that needed to tell people a hard message, a very difficult message that people didn't want to hear. And he said, Oh, oh Lord God, behold, I do not know how to speak because I am a youth. He was young. God called him when he was very, very young. Yet God used him to be a voice. So the very thing that we think is our greatest weakness, oftentimes that's where our calling is. And if you heard another podcast, I didn't consider myself a writer and I ended up writing and publishing articles, and I became a certified copywriter. Who would have thought, right? So just know that there were others that came before you. So here's here's what I want you to walk away with. I want you to realize that fear may be an indication that you're just moving forward outside your comfort zone. Maybe you're taking those steps already and you're moving forward outside your comfort zone. Or fear may simply be the initial stage of something new, something grand that you're doing. And whenever you start something new, there's a little bit of excitement mixed in with a little bit of fear, but it could be a sign that you're starting something new, and that's a good thing. Or fear can lead you to pursue God in a deeper way with complete humility. When we feel like we've exhausted all our strength, oftentimes we tend to press in and lean toward God for wisdom, and that's a good thing too. So, in any event, I wanted to share that today because I felt like oftentimes we don't realize we go from day to day, week to week, month to month, and we resist some things and we don't realize that the root of it could be fear. But again, as I said earlier, it's up to you to decide. But some thoughts for you to reflect on. So, in any event, I would love it if you enjoy this podcast. I would love it if you would just um give it a rating and if you can give it a review, that would be super, super helpful for me. And also, it helps me get this podcast out to more listeners. So if you can do that for me, I would really encourage you to just stop and just find, you know, a place where you can do that before you forget. That would be really helpful and I would so appreciate it. So until next time, uh thank you so much for listening and I'll see you soon. Take care.