Have you ever had this experience? You find a new ‘system’ for success/making money/time management/dieting or whatever…and you try it and it doesn’t work? So you perhaps try again and it still doesn’t work. So you blame yourself for being lazy, good for nothing, stupid, having no willpower, being in the wrong somehow and everyhow. Ever had that? Most of my clients have at some point, and it drives me wild.
Because…what if it’s not YOU that’s the problem? What if that system just doesn’t work for YOU?
Not because you are defective, but because it doesn’t work for you. We’re all different, so adopting a system that has worked for someone else is no guarantee of success for you.
And here’s why it drives me so crazy. When you blame yourself, you are criticising yourself, putting yourself down and giving yourself a hard time…and it might not be your fault. Yeah, sure if a system for strengthening your right leg involves standing on one leg (the right one) for 3 hours…and you don’t do it at all, then it’s not going to work for you! But it may be that deep inside yourself, where you are wise and you know yourself well, you know there are better ways to strengthen your right leg than standing on it for 3 hours a day!
You see, inside us we have a reservoir of wisdom that for most of us goes totally untapped. In this reservoir, we have the ultimate knowledge about ourselves and how we work best in the world – an instruction manual if you like. For example, my instruction manual states quite categorically that I will not get up at 5 am to write, no matter how many writers think it’s a good idea. It tells me that trying to follow sensible, businessy, suit-advice for running a business is not for me. It tells me that I need freedom and inspiration and joy in my life to thrive.
For the first few years of my business, I didn’t trust this inner wisdom at all. I knew absolutely jack-shit about marketing and sales, so I relied on the hexperts to tell me how to do it, even if their advice made me feel physically sick, and even if I could actually see their advice in action, failing dismally as other people marched around networking meetings thrusting their business cards at reluctant attendees, and you could see that those cards would end up in the bin asap…not bringing in business as was intended.
For the first 2 years, I ignored my inner signals telling me “this sucks” and “this shit can’t be right, it’s bloody awful”, gritted my teeth and carried on trying to follow their advice. And then, 2 Knights In Shining Armour entered my life and told me I could do it my way. I credit those 2 guys (Joseph and Damien) with saving my business from certain destruction, because if I had continued down the road of listening to these idiotic hexperts any longer, I’d have given up my business and concluded that I couldn’t do it, that I wasn’t good enough, that I was not cut out to be a business owner.
And I’m sure you agree that would have been a terrible loss to society, right?! More than that, it would have been the destruction of me. My confidence would have tanked, my self-esteem would have been in tatters, my inner wisdom never heard. So you see why it drives me wild when I hear clients going down the same path? No, no and a thousand times, no! Stop thinking it’s you that’s the problem all the time. Instead, check with the system you’re trying to follow, check in with your inner wisdom – do you get an icky feeling in your belly? Do you find yourself preferring to do a year’s worth of ironing than take the advice of that person?
Or do you feel inspired, excited, keen to have a go at whatever they’re asking you to do? Your Inner Yes will tell you if you’re on the right path for you…or not. And yes, of course, you will need to listen to other people and get their help and advice…but make those people the people who resonate with you in your heart and soul, the people who make your soul sing when you hear from them, the people who seem to ‘get’ you. There is room for all sorts of success in this world, and there is room for you to succeed YOUR way, with your values and integrity and personality.
One of my favourite things to share with clients is that I’ve read many an auto-biography of biz folks…and almost all of them say at some point and in some way “I paddled my own canoe and listened to MY gut” – almost all of them did it their own way, bringing their unique take on the world into their success. Please, please, please, stop going to the default position that YOU are doing something wrong, and instead learn to trust yourself more than everyone else, even if they are ‘an hexpert’…because ultimately YOU are the expert on YOU. And YOU are the one who’s going to have to live your life. You might as well live it your way – it’s more likely to work, and will be a lot more fun than the confidence-killing alternative!
Let me know if you’ve ever fallen victim to thinking you were somehow lacking when a system didn’t work for you in the comments.
Love
Donna.x
Comments
17 responses to “OnTheBeach: Stop Thinking It’s You”
Something must be in the air, as it seems many of us are thinking about this very subject. I just wrote a blog post in a similar vein! It’s so true though, how there’s no one template for anything. Just gotta live our life in our own way.
Thank you darling! Yes, I think this is such important work to do with physical health, understanding yourself is always better than following yet another mad ‘diet regime’! Go girl! x
Exactly Amy! x
Absolutely! And this ties in with the work I want to do around weight loss, and diet and fitness advice. Applying a blanket mathematical equation to an individual body and life is never going to work, and who’s to say what a perfect weight is, anyway?
Women blame themselves for failing at a diet when it’s the diet that fails them. This is brilliant advice…another fab post, Donna 🙂
Hi Donna,
Visiting from Amazing Biz & Life! Yeah, I’ve had lots of advice too. You do have to just use your gut. That is always the best advice!
Thanks Joy! xx
Oh Alli love! This brought tears to my eyes! Absolutely, all the advice in all areas is generic, for Mr Average. And you are the only one who knows the whole picture for you. Yes darling you can put down that weight knowing that YOU didn’t fail and YOU are totally loveable. <3 xxxx
Hear hear! Yes, write that post Sibylle! It’s so important to spread the word about this – it’s something I wish I had known when I started! You’re so right, and when you listen to that inner voice, it knows where your people are and what they need from you! x
Lol – yep, tech can get you like that!! 😀 x
love this! thanks for the inspiration!!
Thanks Cindie! It’s so important to trust yourself, the more of us talking about it, the better! x
Love this, Donna. I was just working on a post about “self-trust”. You are so right that we have so much wisdom within us, if we would just listen to our bodies and follow what feels right to us we’d have a much easier time of it! 🙂 Great stuff. Always love reading your posts. xo
Lacking because a system didn’t work? Oh, in a big way…my marriage. I followed all the advice, tried everything under the sun that’s supposed to save marriages…and not a single one worked. For a while I blamed myself for the end of my marriage (and I still do sometimes)…that if I had only done x, y and z better…that if I had tried harder, been more of one thing and less of another or done something differently it could have been saved. I carried it all and it was a lot to carry. Clearly I was deficient if everything I tried failed. Obviously I’m unlovable and so deeply flawed that it had to be my fault. If it works for aaaaaaaall these other people and not me then I must surely be the problem, right?
Wrong. I’m sure much of the advice and techniques would have worked if our situation was different…but those books weren’t written for people who were battling the issues we battled. They were written for people who had merely tuned out, for the “average,
“typical” couple going through a rough patch. But we weren’t typical…far from it. It simply didn’t apply to us.
The fact of the matter is: I gave 100% effort 100% of the time. I went above and beyond and gave it all my heart and soul but there is nothing I could have done to save my marriage because, at the heart of it all, it had nothing to do with me. The marriage failed for reasons that predated our relationship, for reasons that were so completely beyond my control that to think for even a nanosecond that I could in any way change or influence them is laughable. I did my best. I tried my hardest. The marriage failed, not me.
You can get the best advice, the best help from the best people in the world but if it’s not right for you and your situation (be it business or love) then it will never ever work…no matter how hard you try.
Thank you for reminding me not to carry the weight on my shoulders. I can put it down. ♥
I love, love, love this!! I’ve actually been thinking of posting a (similar) rant on the many, many “how to” resources for online marketing, and how they all tell their own story and then promise if you only give them x thousand quid, they’ll teach you how to do it too. The problem is, THEIR way worked for THEM which doesn’t mean it’ll work for you, and people go away disappointed and with their self-esteem severely dented.
I’ve stopped buying programs and started listening to my inner voice. I do it in all other areas of my life, so why not online? And see, my own tribe was waiting for me. <3
All our *not good enough* moments have to do with administrative/techie things *ugh*…. YET somehow…. we STILL make it work 🙂 ….
xox
Yes, I have found most of my ‘not good enough’ things have come through marketing ‘advice’ that felt icky and didn’t work either! I’m loving what stacy’s up to right now – have you been watching her video series? x
My only “not good enough” moments have been in marketing. What I’ve been doing hasn’t worked very well. I’m trying to find my own way through the jungle of advice. I don’t like cookie-cutter models and playing people’s pains