Have you ever thought that your thoughts could be sabotaging your business success? Well, based on a recent survey of over 130 solo business owners, I discovered that we're all pretty much alike. And we're going to unmass some of the prevalent limiting beliefs that wholesome business owners back. You're going to discover the top seven limiting beliefs and how to overcome them so you can reach business success. Stay tuned. Welcome to Amplify Your Authority Podcast, your go-to resource for AI-powered marketing strategies that help solo business owners grow and thrive. If you're a coach, consultant, or service provider, this show will help you confidently promote your brand, attract high-quality leads, and build a business that aligns with your life and values. I'm Marissa Shadrick, a marketing strategist, certified copywriter, and AI whisperer. Each week I share actionable strategies, expert insights, and AI-driven shortcuts to help you simplify your marketing and amplify your authority. Don't forget to follow the show and leave a five-star review. And now let's listen to this week's episode. Hello, hello, and welcome to the Amplify Your Authority podcast. I'm so glad you're here for season three. Can you believe it? It is moving right along. So I took a little bit of a break. I am back, and I'm here with some insights from a survey that was taken of 130 solo business owners, and it reveals some interesting facts about limiting beliefs. And I thought I would share that so that as you're moving through quarter by quarter to reach your goals this year, you can be mindful of these types of limiting beliefs to overcome them. So once you recognize and you understand what they are, then you can reframe them and continue to move forward. So as entrepreneurs, we often focus on the external challenges, but oftentimes the real challenge isn't external, it's internal, it's within our mind. And many of us know this, right? That's why we journal, that's why we read a lot of self-help books, right? Maybe you listen to Tony Robbins, you listen to inspirational, positive speakers, but we still got to do the work and figure out what some of these limiting beliefs are and tackle them head on, or they can hinder us as we move forward. It's not always the external things, it's the internal things that do this. So by identifying and addressing these mental barriers, we're gonna be able to reach our full potential and drive our business forward. So let me take these seven limiting beliefs. There was a whole bunch of them, but I narrowed it down, consolidated it to the top seven, and we're gonna start with number seven and work all the way through backwards to the number one limiting belief. So you may not have any of these, or you may have one, or maybe a few, right? Throughout my entrepreneurial journey, I had many of these that I had to overcome. But I'll tell you this, and here's the truth. Once you're aware, that's it, game over, because you'll be able to address those limiting beliefs on a daily basis. Or in my case, I had to do it hourly when I was competing for an international speech competition. I had to do it hourly because the limiting belief was such a stronghold. So don't despair. If you have one, two, or three of these or more, awareness is the key and it's game over. Once you're aware, you can do something about it, and it will be something of the past. So let's start with number seven first, and I think you'll find these pretty interesting. Number seven was people won't pay for what I offer. This is a limiting belief. And how it affects our business is that it leads to underpricing or undervaluing services, making profit much harder for yourself. It also can cause fear of sales conversations. You've kind of tried to avoid them, and it leads to inconsistent income, which we need cash flow. This creates hesitation in marketing and reduces visibility and conversion. So this is all related to not believing that people will pay for what you offer, and it affects your business in a big way. But here's the reframe: instead of looking at all these negatives, say people invest in what they value. My job is to communicate the transformation I provide. Talk about the value, talk about the transformation, talk about your own story, how you were able to maybe overcome whatever it is that you provide or teach on. Most of the people that listen to this podcast are coaches, consultants, or service providers. So you have to realize that if it worked for you, it can work for somebody else. And people pay for transformation. They pay for that. They don't, they don't necessarily find features and modules and you know the number of lessons that are in a course valuable, but the transformation is huge. So when you understand that people invest in value and transformation, and your job is simply to communicate that transformation, then you don't have to fear that they're not going to pay for what you're offering. So let's move on to limiting belief number six. I'm not smart or talented enough. Now keep in mind, this is over 130 people that said these similar things, right? And this is how it affects our business. It stops entrepreneurs from pursuing big opportunities due to self-doubt. They don't pursue those larger opportunities because they doubt themselves so much. They think that they're not smart enough or talented enough. And that could cripple your business. The other way that it affects your business that prevents them from investing in learning and mentorship because they're figuring, well, I'm not talented enough. I shouldn't spend money on a mentor or coach because it I'm just not going to be able to get the transformation I need. Other people can, but I can't because I'm not talented enough or I'm not smart enough. And you think that it's not going to work for you. The other thing is that when you believe that you're not smart enough or talented enough, it leads to fear of visibility. And when we have an online business, the key thing that we need to do is be visible. Visible with our frameworks, visible with our transformation that we bring, visible with our opinions. We need to be visible, vocal, whether it's in written form, video form, whatever way that you are communicating online, the goal is to be visible. So if you believe that you're not smart enough or talented enough, subconsciously you're going to fear visibility and you're not going to want to pursue those larger opportunities because there are larger opportunities. There's summits, there's speaking opportunities, you're not going to pursue those. So we need a reframe and we need to consider this and flip it around and say, I don't need to know everything. I can learn, adapt, and surround myself with experts. So right out of the gate, you don't have to know everything. You know enough to get started. If there's areas that you're not familiar with or skills that you need to learn, you can learn that. You can adapt and you can surround yourself with experts that are going to encourage you and lift you up. Number five is I can't trust others. This is another limiting belief that makes you think that you have to do everything yourself. And nothing can be further from the truth. You don't need a large team, but you could collaborate with other people. You could have maybe one person, a virtual assistant, one or two people that work with you that you have a relationship with as you're growing your business. So trust is important. And you know what? There's people that will try to scam you, but there's a lot of good people out there in the world. I've met a lot of great people. Um, so they're honest people that are credible, have integrity, perhaps even the same values you have as well. So this is how it can affect your business in a negative way if you feel like you can't trust people. It causes micromanagement, preventing business scalability. It also leads to the fear of outsourcing or hiring, keeping you kind of stuck doing everything. Now, nowadays we have abilities to be able to duplicate ourselves, so to speak, using AI. That's another topic altogether. But I do still use a couple of people in my business for certain things that I do not like to do, and they take care of it. I use AI a lot as a team to help me duplicate myself, my efforts, and that way I don't have to grow a large team. But you can't have the fear of outsourcing or hiring out. And it also limits business partnerships and collaborations, which is important. It's all about that relationship marketing. If you don't trust people, you're not gonna be likely to partner or collaborate with other people because you're always gonna be wondering, are they trying to pull one over on me? Or, you know, you're always gonna be suspicious, and that's not just a healthy place to be, right? So the reframe would be trusting the right people and creating clear systems will allow me to scale without stress. So you see how it's very simple to re-word it and make it turn it into a positive, make it a positive experience, not a negative one. So I'll repeat that one. If you have trouble trusting people, just say trusting the right people. Notice I said the right people, and creating clear systems will allow me to scale without stress. Now let's move on to number four. Number four is I can't succeed in business. Now, this is a huge limiting belief that believing that maybe it will work for someone else, but not for you, and this is how it affects your business in a negative way. It prevents taking risks. Oftentimes we test things and we take a risk. Nothing is guaranteed. Most solo business owners and larger businesses actually will take a risk, will try something on a trial to see if it's gonna work. And if it doesn't, it was a test, no big deal, right? But if you're afraid and because you think you're always going to fail, you're not gonna succeed, you're not gonna take risks. This leads to the fear of selling again, making it hard to attract clients. It creates imposter syndrome as well, stopping business owners from stepping into more of a leadership role. The reframe for this is very simple. Every successful business owner started somewhere. I can learn once again adapt and improve over time. So every successful business owner started somewhere. So if you think I can't succeed in business, just know that everyone had a starting point where things weren't as polished, where maybe they didn't know everything, they didn't have all the answers, they just took the next step. So you can just reframe that and realize, well, for one thing, you can't read the future, right? You're not a mind reader. And the other thing is that you can't compare yourself to someone that is fully successful, that's been having a business for you know 10 years plus, if you're just starting out. And you can't label yourself that way because that is going to create a negative ripple effect. So just remember that every business owner started somewhere and that you can continue to learn and adapt and improve over time. Number three is I don't have enough time. Boy, we hear this one a lot, right? When we're trying to sell coaching programs and such, like, oh, I don't know if I can make the calls and so forth. I don't have enough time. But if you say this and it's a limiting belief in your business, here's how it can negatively affect your business. This leads to poor prioritization. If you think you don't have enough time, you're not going to prioritize the things that need to be done. And if you don't do that, then you're going to be always just managing fires, right? Taking care of things that pop up that are urgent. And so it leads to poor prioritizing, focusing on the urgent instead of the important tasks. And then it stops entrepreneurs from delegating or automating work. So if you don't have enough time, or you say you don't have enough time, you're not going to take the time to automate something that's going to give you more time, right? Or you're not going to take the time to maybe delegate a portion of it, or maybe get a contract worker and show them how to do something because that takes time. You know, I can do it myself much faster. Or you're not going to take the time to maybe learn AI because you're saying, oh, that's just such a huge learning curve. I'll just have to do it myself. When it could actually save you hours, if not days, of work, right? So not having enough time can have a negative impact. And then it causes burnout from trying to do everything alone. And that's the last thing you need to do is try to do everything alone instead of optimizing a good workflow. So here's the reframe. I have the same 24 hours as everyone else. I can prioritize and create efficient systems. I'll say it again. I have the same 24 hours as everyone else. I can prioritize and create efficient systems. And on this one, I will say too that one of the things that really helps with time management is creating great goals and really good habits because that helps you execute on the things that need to be done, not just the things that are demanding your attention. Okay, let's move on to number two. Number two. This one is interesting out of all of these people that answered the survey. I am too old. I am too old. If that was the case, I'll tell you right now, I wouldn't be here. So I am too old is number two. This is how it negatively affects your business, creates resistance to adapting to new technology, right? And marketing trends, like for example, AI. So if you think it's just too far gone for me to start right now when everything is so advanced, hey, I'll tell you, it is the best time because everything's so much easier. And it's plug and play, it's drag and drop. Uh it's things are so user-friendly. There's never been a better time. The other negative uh effect to your business, if you believe that you're too old, is it discourages starting or scaling a business. It discourages starting or scaling a business, a fear that it's too late. I'm just now starting my book. And if I had this mentality, I'm too old, I would have said, Oh, I should have done that a decade or two decades ago. It's I'm too old now to do it. And here I am doing it. I'm in the mess, messy middle of doing this right now. So it could discourage you from starting or scaling a business, and it undermines confidence in networking with younger professionals. Did you hear that? It undermines the confidence in networking with younger professionals. I believe we can learn like we, meaning older, like I am, we can learn from younger professionals just like they can learn from our life wisdom, our experience, right? I think we can learn from each other. So that mindset could be very crippling as well. So here's the reframe experience is a competitive advantage. Many successful entrepreneurs started later in life and thrived, which is true. I think I did a podcast episode on that, but that's the reframe. Experience is a competitive advantage. Many successful entrepreneurs started later in life and thrived. Now, drum roll for the number one limiting belief that can negatively impact your business. I am not good enough. Hard to believe, right? I am not good enough. That's pretty amazing to me. I'm not good enough as number one, I'm too old as number two, and I don't have enough time as number three. Um this particular one, I'm not good enough. It sounds very similar to the one number six, I'm not smart or talented enough. It's slightly different. And this is how it affects our business in a negative way. This leads to self-doubt. When you think you're not good enough, you're gonna doubt all your decisions, everything that you're doing. You're gonna wonder, did I do that right? Or should I go in this direction? Or, oh, I just heard that this is the better way to go. Maybe I should do this. You're gonna be starting and stopping over and over again because you're gonna doubt yourself. And then you're not gonna charge what you're worth either. And this causes hesitation in marketing as well, leading to inconsistent visibility. And if you had any of the other limiting beliefs that causes not wanting to be visible, it just compounds, right? It results in way over-delivering in comparison to what you're charging. In other words, you're not charging enough for everything that you're providing. So it's over-delivering. There's nothing wrong with over-delivering, but when you really over-deliver and you create like a $2,000 course and you're only charging $47, you're underpricing, and that can lead to burnout because the math is just not going to work, right? For the time you put into it. So here is the reframe for the number one limiting belief I am not good enough. Here it is. I have valuable skills and experience that people need. I may not be perfect, but I am capable of serving my clients effectively. I'll read it again for the number one I am not good enough limiting belief. I have valuable skills and experience that people need. I may not be perfect, but I am capable of serving my clients effectively. And there you have it. The number one limiting belief was I am not good enough. Number two was I'm too old. Number three is I don't have enough time. Number four is I can't succeed in business. Number five, I can't trust others. Number six, I'm not smart or talented enough. And number seven was people won't pay for what I offer. So limiting beliefs will hold you back in your business growth. But again, as I said earlier, being aware of these limiting beliefs, it's game over. Once you're aware, it's almost like you take the top off of a can and you expose it and it is exposed to the air, and all of a sudden it's not in this in this can with a seal on it, creating tension. You're releasing it and you're able to see it for what it is and reframe it and be able to think through it, whether it's journaling or writing in a notebook, and realizing is this really connected to the truth of who I am? Or is this something that I just have going on in my head because maybe of a past experience or maybe my childhood or whatever it might be, you're able to at least expose it, to look at it head on. And that's how you can continue to reframe it. And you can catch yourself on a daily basis when this limiting belief is trying to raise its ugly head, and you say, No, I've already reframed this and I have a reframe for this. And then you just say that to yourself, right? So recognizing and reframing these beliefs is the key to building a profitable and sustainable business. Because remember, a lot of the challenges aren't necessarily external, oftentimes they're internal. So I hope you like this podcast episode, our first in season three. And if you like this podcast, be sure to leave a review and a five star rating. I would love that so much. And until next time, take care. Bye bye.