It's Been 2 Years...Why Hasn't My Business Taken Off?
Updated: Apr 4
I'm excited to get into today's story! This is something that I wanted to talk about because it was something that was almost a light bulb moment for me a couple of weeks ago when I was having a conversation with somebody. I thought that it might be something that you have been feeling. I know I have felt this way before and I thought it would be really important to bring it up and just put it out there as potential thought and something to think about.
The story goes, I was speaking with another PT a couple of weeks ago. She had booked a call through my website and we were doing a consultation and talking about where she was and what kind of help she was looking for, (maybe coaching, maybe not). She had asked me a couple of logistical questions about getting started with her practice. She asked me a question that I thought was super interesting because nobody has ever asked me this before. She asked me, "Morgan, why can I not just make a flyer? Print out the business information on it and go hang it up or hand it out to people?"
It took me a second because I haven't been asked that before. Up until that point she had told me a little bit more about her story. She had started her practice a couple of years ago. She'd gone through the credentialing process with Medicare. Logistically speaking she pretty much had everything good to go, but it had been about two years since she got everything set up. She hasn't really taken the next step forward to take any action towards building and actually growing her practice. One of the things that she brought up, and I hear a lot of people bring this up, and I myself do this too.
"Life got in the way"
Before I go in on this topic I want to put out there that this is something that I have done too and I still will do a lot. All of us will still do it, but what I am trying to do is whenever it comes up I own it. One of the things that she said is that, "life has gotten in the way". I hear this more than I would like to, so it's kind of become a little bit of a pet peeve of mine. I ask somebody, "Why haven't you done this?" or "Why didn't you get to all of your coaching homework?" They'll say, "Oh life got in the way", "Life was really busy."
Obviously there are some special cases, but very rarely does something happen where it is a true crazy emergency: death in the family, something that needs to be taken care of, etc. I would say the majority of the time when life gets in the way it's just that other things came up and your business went on the back burner. I say this as somebody who has definitely done that. I think that this can happen a lot if you are trying to accomplish more than one goal or project at the same time. That's what happens to me all the time. I will decide that I want to take three different courses, make content, do my coaching, do PT, clean the house. I want to do all the things and do them all at the same time. Then when one thing doesn't get done or I didn't execute on it the way that I had intended, it's a life got in a way thing.
While that may be true in a sense, using that as an excuse as to why you haven't done the thing I think is what really starts to get me. I know for me I've been practicing if I didn't execute on something the way that I had intended I will own that and take responsibility for it. I think about as "is this actually something that's a priority for me right now and if so how do I fit it into my schedule?" If it's not a priority, we're going to put it on the back burner for now. Because even if it's something that I want to do and I'm interested in, it's not a priority right now. I then need to part ways with it for the time being, so that it's off of my plate for right now. So if you are finding yourself in a place where you're constantly going, "Oh life got in the way", you need to seriously ask yourself if growing a practice and building a business is something that you want and if it's a priority for you.
You have to have a really honest conversation with yourself about it because the reason that you're not getting things done for it is that it's not a priority or it's just not something that you truly want to do. I think that second one can be hard to tackle so we'll talk about that a little bit first.
I think in the past few years more and more people are looking to start their own business/ start their own practice. It's easy to hop on that bandwagon to do it as well because we see a lot of the glitz and glamor or a lot of the good parts about running a business. What we don't see as much though are that a lot of the parts of the business that are difficult and take a lot of effort, energy, and confidence (that you may or may not have right now). It's easy to want to be part of the collective and say, "I'm going to start my business as well." Then once you actually get into it and realize what is involved, the amount of time/ energy/ effort, you realize that maybe it's not what you want to do. However, you're already in it so you feel like you can't back out of it. You then stay in this gray space of, "Well, I already started it and I think I want to do it/I said I want to do it. I don't have the time, energy, or resources to dedicate to this though, so I'm just not going to and then blame it on life getting in the way."
That can be a hard place to be because you've already put some effort into this and realizing that you don't really want to do it anymore can produce a lot of feelings when coming to that conclusion. If nobody has told you and that is something that resonates with you, just know that it's totally okay if you want to A) not do a business anymore or B) put it on the back burner for a while. You can put it on the shelf in the closet and come back to it later. Nobody's going to look down on you and if they do then those are not the kind of people you want to be around anyways.
The important thing about it is that you tried it and you realize some things. You've gained some information and you can make better decisions moving forward because you've gained that information. That was something that came up in this conversation, going back to that original question of "why can't I just make a flyer?"
Energy
Not an energetic match
I told the girl I was speaking to that I think the reason why she can't get herself to make a simple flyer and go pass it out is because her energy right now is not aligned with the energy of what she wants to be doing or what she's telling herself she wants to be doing. What's happening with her is not matching up with the alleged goal. It's really hard to get yourself to do a thing when it's not there's not an energetic match. I wish I could come up with a better way to describe that, but it could be coming from:
a place of fear
feeling like an imposter
feeling like you're not good enough
being worried about what other people think
being worried about what if I go all in on this and do it and I don't get any clients at all
...A lot of the worry that's associated with it.
Is it a priority?
The second thing with not being an energetic match is going back into the "it's not a priority" or "it's not what you really want right now". Having that energy, knowing that your business is not a priority and/or it's not really what you want to be doing, but then you're telling yourself that you need to take an action towards doing the business, it's not lining up. So if you are having a lot of trouble getting yourself to do things and it's been years that you've been trying to get your practice off of the ground, it's really important to take a look at the reason as to why you can't get yourself to take the action.
If we get rid of the surface level things, you don't know what to do, check out my program! If you haven't Googled things yet, maybe go there. If you figured out what you need to do, maybe it's just a few things. Maybe we need to start taking smaller actions to help yourself move past the fear, address the mindset of things, and work on your confidence. Then that'll help you take the action because you're moving towards an energy that aligns with that of somebody who is a full-time practice owner and a full-time business owner.
I really think that the energy thing, even if it sounds kind of "woo-woo", it's really important. Because if your energy is in one place and the goal's energy is over on the other side, there's no way that it's ever going to meet in the middle. You don't have control over the result and you need to control what you can. That involves taking a look at your own mindset.
If you really do want to grow a business and if it is going to become a priority, it's not that you're lazy, it's not that it's the wrong thing to do, and it most certainly is not that life got in the way.
Listen to this episode on my podcast!
