Do you wonder why some businesses seem to consistently grow while others just vanish into nowhere?

I just got off a podcast interview and it was really fun (and also kind of intense) to break down how I’ve been able to grow my business over the past few years and create unstoppable success for myself and my clients (I’ll make sure to share that interview with you!).

When I started my business I was a bit of a mess — I had NO clue what I was doing and I knew there was a good chance that my business either a) wouldn’t survive, or b) wouldn’t allow me to support myself financially.

This had nothing to do with me personally, these are just the odds.

Many businesses fail in the first year and even more fail in the 5th year — but here I am still going strong and actually even increasing my business income every year since I started. 

The interview today really gave me an opportunity to process 3 crucial actions that I’ve taken over the past few years to take my business from a part-time mess to a full-time (continuing to grow) empire and I want to share them with you:

 CRUCIAL ACTION #1 

I recognized my self-sabotage and was 100% honest about the lack of effort I was putting into growing my business.

What does that mean? Well, there was a point where my bank account was getting close to a BIG ZERO — and it scared the shi* out of me. I was tempted to make myself feel better by giving myself a pep talk about how hard I’d been trying and how it wasn’t my fault that things weren’t working out.

Instead, I gave a REAL solid assessment about what I was doing to grow my dream business and take it to the next level, and it turned out, not much! I owned up to the fact that I was binging too much Dawson’s Creek and that I was hiding from the scary tasks in business (like actually finding out what potential clients would want from me, actually inviting people to sign up for services, and put myself at risk of hearing a big fat no!).

Once I was real about that, I turned things around by doing about 67 free calls over 6 weeks and designing a brand new program in just a few short days (which turned out to be my first mastermind) — within a matter of 2 weeks, I ended up booking out over $12k in sales and that was truly the start of uplevel. But it took me dropping my “story” about how hard I was trying (when I wasn’t really working much at all) so I could actually put the real effort into the tasks that were scary but mattered.

 CRUCIAL ACTION #2

This might seem obvious to some of you but I have to admit that it didn’t come naturally to me. Crucial action #2 was that I allowed myself to create a vision about the big business that I wanted and how it would allow me to achieve the lifestyle I wanted as well.

The truth is that I was a rule follower — I did what I was supposed to and I didn’t really allow myself to dream beyond that. I went to college, I went to grad school, and then I immediately found a full-time job. I had a story that I wouldn’t be able to make much money as a social worker and that all I would ever be able to do was fill my week with back-to-back clients working in an agency for very little money.

Now, maybe it seems like it should have been easy for me to dream beyond that, but it just wasn’t possible for me to do that after dealing with some serious traumas and losses in my personal life. I didn’t think there was anything else out there and didn’t even know how to imagine other possibilities. Luckily, I was living in the city of possibility (aka NYC) and I was eventually introduced to other paths in life. After suffering from severe burnout and quitting my job to travel and volunteer in South America, I knew that I could never go back to a limiting 9 to 5 again. 

At first, my big vision was just to create a business that allowed me to make the same amount of money I did as a social worker (which truly wasn’t much and wasn’t enough to have a good lifestyle). Eventually, I rewrote my vision to create a business that allowed me to help hundreds of women a year create financial stability and freedom for themselves through their work. I also added in some extra touches to that vision like a dream apartment overlooking NYC with a pool (and I got that last year). 

My big vision served as motivation to build a bigger business than I dreamed possible — and now that I have that, I’m working on an even bigger vision.

 CRUCIAL ACTION #3

Look, this one may sound like a cop out, but I can’t stress enough how important it’s been to actually financially invest in myself and my business. (I’m kind of tempted to write that in all caps.) 

I’ve always been a caretaker from a young age in my family (and in my job as a social worker), which means I was always putting other people’s needs first. I was always fighting their battles, providing them with support, and also prioritizing their dreams first. I had no real support system for myself. 

When I first invested in support for my business, I had no business set up. I had no clue what to do and I knew that if I was going to stick with it and make it work, and that I wouldn’t be able to do it on my own. I’ve continued to invest in business strategy and support since then, and it’s one of the main reasons that my business has grown and thrived when so many others haven’t. This business thing can be hard and if you want a big business that will support you and give you an unstoppable financial growth, then you’re going to need to be willing to invest in yourself.

My business has grown beyond the initial vision I had for it and that’s become of the investments I’ve made in it — and I’m so grateful I took the risk and made those investments even when I couldn’t afford them because it’s given me a bigger, more stable future than I ever dreamed possible (and I’m also able to help more people then I ever would overcrowding my schedule with clients in an agency). It’s also helped me get through the tough times in business without giving up (and let’s be real — there are tough times in business!!). 

If you’re interested in getting support for your big vision for your business so that you too can achieve unstoppable success, then let’s talk — Click here to book a free strategy session + create a plan to build unstoppable income and an unstoppable business!