I find that this time of year is a good time to do self-reflection and fine-tune our strategy. I find that people, most of society, are not good at managing their time. We tend to be a society that procrastinates and waits until the last minute to achieve a goal. That can mess with our mindset, that can mess with our momentum, and the strategies that we’ve worked hard to master. It does mess with our ability to achieve a goal.
Are you the kind of person who waits until the last minute, then doubles down and runs hard to the end of the year, and you risk burnout? When that happens, it can be a slippery slope of being uninspired, lacking motivation, this lack of drive to show up and even do your work daily, it can make you rethink your career and think you need a different one.
I speak from experience because I’ve been there in life. I thought I had all the strategies and had it figured out. The one thing that I can tell you that has saved me, that has been my saving grace, is that I’ve invested a lot of money into coaching and therapy. A lot of it was working through the narratives that I was playing on repeat to myself as I was growing my organization. Click here to read more about how you can avoid burnout as a direct sales leader.
There’s imposter syndrome, that leading a team feeling like you’re not sure how to do it to that self-defeat of feeling like you should be further along or am I a leader if people are taking a step back? I’ve navigated through a lot of the challenges that I have had to deal with in the past decade that I’ve been in direct sales. If it wasn’t for having a therapist, a highly qualified business therapist who has helped me navigate through a lot of these things, I’m not sure that I would have been able to sustain the growth that I’ve sustained.
In addition to coaching and therapy, I fiercely pursue people, groups of people, who have done the things that I want to do, and who have a positive energy that I can surround myself with. I pursue podcast episodes, conferences, and masterminds where I can listen to the stories of highly successful people. I like to hear their failures. I like to hear about their setbacks. I love to hear how they navigated through a challenging season and then what the outcome was. It is such an inspiration to me to be reminded that I’m not the only one who goes through some dark days and big challenges.
These five principles come from my own experience and what I’ve worked through with either a therapist, a business coach, or my business partners. Working through all different seasons and strategies is what has brought me to still be in business almost 13 years later; specifically working on my mindset, reactions, and learning to trust the process.
The 1️⃣ first strategy that I find that leaders self-sabotage themselves with the phrase, I’m not far enough along, or I should be further along than I am right now.
A lot of times the world is only showing you the highlight reel, people’s successes, and a little bit of their failures. But you don’t have that peak behind the day-to-day of what an entrepreneur’s life looks like. Friends, we all feel like we should be further along. And if you play that narrative on repeat over and over and over again, you are going to play yourself right out of your next big success, because that’s going to make you play small.
We all say these things such as, I’m eight years into the business, nine years, ten years into the business, and I haven’t achieved this success yet. Instead of putting our heads down and doubling down and saying, what do I need to do to achieve that next level of success? We instead go put in a load of laundry, or we scroll social media, or we call a friend and we go to lunch. So we self-sabotage ourselves because we think we should be further along than I am. Who am I? Who am I to accomplish it? If you are ten years into the business and you achieve a superstar diamond rank, nobody’s laughing at you. People are celebrating you. They want to know how you did it.
If we keep telling ourselves that story of I should be further along, and we keep sabotaging, we’re only hurting ourselves because there is no arrival. There is no end date when it has to be accomplished, or you’ve missed the boat.
For example, I tell the story often about the time that I was working so hard to qualify for an invitation to a leadership retreat. I missed the qualification by one week. Yes. Seven days. I missed that qualification. I sat on the basement floor with tears in my eyes, looking up at my vision board, being so angry and defeated that all these other people were going to this leadership retreat. I felt like I deserved to be there.
I was working harder than anybody else who was getting that invite, and it wasn’t fair. Then my mentor said to me, Melanie, you are exactly where you’re supposed to be right now. That flipped the switch for me. I am exactly where I’m supposed to be right now. While everybody else is at that leadership retreat, partying and having a good time and drinking drinks and socializing, I’m going to be back here building my business. I’m going to invite, post more, and follow up. I’m going to build connections. I’m never going to miss another goal.
I never missed another goal. I went to every conference, and every retreat, qualified for the top ten, went on my first top ten trip, hit superstar diving, and was the top partner in the company. Not just one year, four years in a row. I proved to myself that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I could sit back and wait and see what happens, or I could double down and push myself forward. We all have those stories that are waiting to be told.
I had a decision that day when I sobbed on the basement floor, sat there, and just wallowed in self-pity, distracting myself with other things, laundry, food, and the kids. Or I could double down and could say, I’m going to change my efforts. I’m going to change the way I focus. I’m going to learn from the situation. That’s what I want for you. You need to create that story, that, that success story, that victory, so you can tell it to the people following you. You can tell it to your team and the people that you mentor so that it can inspire them to never, ever give up.
My 2️⃣ second strategy is, that people come and go, not everybody stays at a job for their entire career. Most people come into your business for a reason. Some of them stay for a certain season of their life. Maybe your direct sales business served a season for them, and it helped them get through something that they needed to get through. Some people do stay for a lifetime, and they do become lifers. It’s not a personal attack on you 90% of the time when people leave.
As the leader think about, was this person somebody that I served for a reason?
Was it a certain season of their life or is it a lifetime?
When anytime somebody leaves, I evaluate that. At first, I would be bitter. Through coaching and obviously some therapy and just working on that narrative, I began to respect people’s decisions. And I just said okay, if you’re, if you want to leave, no big deal. Here’s how we do it. This is the way we exit. This is the process. Here’s the transition plan. I respect you. These are my wishes. I always say to people, if you ever need anything, like, the door is open. I know that just because I served somebody in this capacity doesn’t mean that we can’t connect in the future.
The 3️⃣ third strategy is to start creating systems. If you are the leader right now, that is feeling a little guilty, maybe you did something wrong. What does serving look like for you? I want you to journal this out, write it down, open up a Google Doc note section of your phone. What is the way that you serve?
Then as people take a step back, I can always say, listen, I showed up, I served. It’s not my responsibility to make somebody else successful. It’s my responsibility to connect them to the tools so that they can be successful. And that, my friends, is a big reason why I’ve been able to just navigate through, that taking a step back or leaving or moving on to other things. So leaders acknowledge this happens, this is normal.
The 4️⃣ fourth strategy is being afraid of failure or failing in general.
I couldn’t believe how many people said to me, I’m so afraid of failure. I asked them, why? What does failure mean to you? What are you making it mean? They would respond, I’m afraid of people judging me. Do you think that people are standing there thinking about your life as much as you are? Do you think that anybody is going to know that you set a goal and didn’t accomplish it? No, they aren’t. They’re not thinking that much about you.
How could I have marketed differently? How could I have invited more people? Was my timing off? Was my message wrong?Reflect on it, and then you say, all right, I’m going to do it again. Because really what is inspiring is when you rise from that failure and you keep going, kind of like the I should be further along, right? It’s the same thing, you know, we rise up. What are we going to do with the obstacle that we’re faced with? Nobody’s judging you. If they are, they’re not your people. Because any entrepreneur is going to tell you things fail. There are business ideas that you put out there, and they are not going to take. And that’s okay. You’re not a bad business owner.
The 5️⃣ fifth and final strategy I have is, as a leader, things are going to feel off sometimes. Sometimes when something feels off, it is off. Even if I didn’t think an idea was really good. I would just do it because other people are doing it and this is what I should do. I have to push through and make it work. I would say yes to so many things. I would overbook my calendar and I would have no downtime whatsoever. Over the years, I’ve learned the signs of burnout and how I can avoid it as best as I possible.
I’ve started to get good at it. If I’m about to make a decision in my life, I get quiet. I pray about it. I journal, and I ask for clarity. I listen to my gut. If my gut says this is not the right person to partner with, this is not the right opportunity, this is not the right marketing message, this is not my ideal niche. These are not my ideal target clients.
If I am running these Monday night team calls and five people are showing up and you have a team of thousands, if something starts to feel off and you’re beginning to resent it, you want to look at that opportunity and you want to say, is this how I best serve? Is this where my gifts are best used? Is this how I want to show up?
Maybe you’re not liking your marketing message or the way you’re showing up on social media. Permit yourself to invest in a Chic Branding Experience, to dive into your niche to say, I don’t like posting this way. How can I reimagine it? For me, it’s okay for you to say no to things that were serving you at one point, that are no longer serving you, or that you feel are more draining than they are life-giving.
Being a leader, growing a business, it’s not easy. It’s hard work. I’m always working on my mindset, my discipline, my motivation, how I’m showing up, and how I’m serving.
I’m a constant work in progress, which is why I invest in myself every single day. I invest with my morning routine, with my daily fire, with my evening routine.
You are always going to be growing if you choose growth. Your mindset is where you are at in life, so if you want to grow, start with your mindset and the way you are talking to yourself about your goals and business. Then, carry on and build your dreams.