3 Ways I Sabotaged My Own Business

When I first started building my business back in 2007 I had no idea what I was doing. There wasn’t the barrage of coaching available then, or the 100s of free webinars now out there to choose from, where I could learn about sales, marketing, copywriting or how to shift my mindset.

Just like most natural health practitioners I thought all I needed was a website, a nice looking business card and a brochure. I added some free seminars to my schedule, along with a pretty (useless) poster.

Looking back I’m grateful for my debt, my failures and my own self-sabotage. There are still days when I catch myself in sabotage mode. They are typically the days I have scheduled promotions.

Here are three ways I self-sabotaged my business. See if you can relate to any of them.

1. I had no idea that I was afraid of success

I want to be a mix of Oprah and Tony Robbins. I have a message and I want to scream it from the rooftops, except that every time I wrote a blog post or thought about submitting a pitch to guest blog or ask for feedback on salescopy I procrastinated and never followed through.

It even got to a point where I was offered really great opportunities and never followed through with them.

Success can be scary. Putting yourself out there is really scary. It wasn’t until I realized that I was afraid of the judgment of my own ideas that I was able to deal with my fear of success.

2. I undervalued my skills and my time

Sometimes I feel like a doctor. Not that I diagnose my clients or prescribe treatment, but 10 years of nutrition knowledge and client experience is a powerful asset.

My knowledge and experience have afforded me the ability to help my clients save their own lives, get off their meds and reverse disease states.

So why on earth did I feel ashamed to charge a measly $55 per half hour for my expertise? I didn’t have the insight to put a dollar value to my time, which led me to give my time away for free.

You know how it feels to give your time away for free, right? It feels frustrating and you feel devalued. Especially when I’ve invested thousands of dollars into my education.

My client time is valued at $125 per hour. My business coaching time is valued at $497 per hour.

Realizing that I was severely undervaluing my time has been a tremendous eye opener for me. I no longer do $10/hour tasks like scheduling my social media or creating graphics.

It actually costs me money to do those types of tasks instead of outsourcing them because when I focus my time on those tasks I’m not growing my business.

What is your time worth? Define your hourly rate and do not deviate from it.

3. I was very busy but not productive

When I first discovered that I needed to switch gears from being a nutritionist to being a CEO/business owner I started to read business books. Almost all business books talk about making a to do list and prioritizing your action items.

So that’s what I did. I made many to do lists.

I had so many to do lists that I had no idea what I was doing. I was overwhelmed. I didn’t know what was actually important to focus on. I remember completing tasks on my long to do list and crossing them off… it felt good.

6 months later I was no further along in my business and my to do lists were just as long.

There is a big difference between being busy and being productive. Being busy all the time leads to burn out. Being productive leads to money in the bank and a deep sense of fulfillment.

How do you feel right now? Burnt out or fulfilled by your business?

I learned how to be productive by focusing on one weekly goal and 3 tasks per day. I wake up early and do the most important task first. This way if my day goes off the rails I still feel productive.

Everything else can wait until I finish my one to three tasks planned for that day.

There are many other ways I’ve sabotaged myself over the past decade. If you find that you are not where you want to be in your business take some time to examine the ways in which you might be self-sabotaging.

Often the answers to your struggles are not found in doing more research, taking more courses, hiring a coach or attending more networking meetings… the answers are found in your thoughts and behaviors; the ones that you need to stop doing, replacing them with new thoughts and new behaviors that drive your business forward.