Kasey Pierce - Unstick Yourself: Build Confidence by Redefining Your Rules

00:00  I'm so excited to be here to talk about some things that I know that we all deal with from time to time is feeling stuck in business because we're trying to follow rules that weren't met for us. I'm Kasey i'm over at Wildfoot Co on the services side of my business i am a Kajabi membership specialist for Wellness practitioners and on the other side of my business, I create gentle business resources for introverted solopreneurs. I'm very big on creating a business that fits into your life and your energy instead of trying to fit yourself into a box. When I started my business in 2016 I was pretty new to the online business world i guess I didn't really know what it was like to be an online service provider, but I knew that I wanted to do something and it it felt promising.    

00:56  So.    

00:59  The thing was, is that I know a lot of people take their nine to five experience and they convert it into a business, but I didn't really have that i was coming from being a stay at home mom. I had experience from before I was a mom, but I didn't really know how to turn that into a business. So I was basically starting from scratch, just figuring it out, trying to figure out what I wanted to do what, what services I like doing and all that so I followed a lot of rules that I was told from people who had been at it for a while and I felt like, well, you know, it worked for them, so it's probably going to work for me.    

01:40  It should work for me it didn't work for me because the rules that I was trying to follow were not meant for me. So one of those rules was Instagram being on Instagram. And I tried to make Instagram work for me for so many years, You know, it looked like people were having fun on Instagram enjoying it. So I was like, well, I guess I'll figure it out, you know, so I tried, I forced myself to post, I engaged in stories, I tried to follow all the different perfect strategies. And you know, I just got stuck.    

02:26  Like every time I tried to create content, I,    

02:31  I just sat there and I could not get motivated to do it. And the harder I pushed, the stickier it felt. So that was, you know, that was a big one for me was Instagram was a big hangout for me. And it wasn't just Instagram i mean, every, everywhere I turned, it felt like there was like another right way to do business, right? And I was constantly questioning myself if I didn't follow a blueprint. So one day, this was just a couple years ago, so I spent a good portion of my business trying to do all of these things and trying to make things work and stuff and about a couple years ago, I think I just got fed up i was like, I'm sick of doing this there has to be a better way.    

03:23  And I kind of asked myself what if the rules that feel sticky aren't mine to follow? And that really shifted a lot for me. My entire mindset change and I just started trying different things. So many of us struggle because we are trapped by those rules. They weren't created with us in mind. For me, I'm an introvert, neurovergent, living with chronic illness i'm a mom. I just don't thrive in a high energy business model yet i was still trying to make that work. But like I said, when I started my business, you know, I just, I didn't know.    

04:07  So the good news is that you don't have to follow someone else's road map. And I'm so glad that I figured that out. So I'm hoping that it helps you too. So let's talk about how to recognize what feels sticky, how to redefine the rules and have a business that actually fits you well, let's talk about that sticky feeling. It feels like resistance, dread, procrastination you can't get motivated to do something.    

04:39  Those feelings are information. It's telling you something and it usually comes from one or two places. Rules that don't fit and desires that feel hard. So the rules that don't fit those are the strategies, systems, expectations that we've been told to follow that maybe don't align with our personality, work style, values, energy. So maybe one of those things is you have to be on video you have to do live video, you have to show up on camera people want to see a person and you're like, I absolutely hate being on camera and I don't want to do that there has to be a different way.    

05:22  Or maybe it's you have to spend money to make money, AKA investing in coaching or services to help you grow. But maybe you don't have the extra money to invest or any way to invest or maybe you don't know how to vet a coach or service provider to make sure that the right the right fit for you.    

05:48  Desires that feel harder are the things that we genuinely want to do, but they feel overwhelming because mental clutter, physical clutter, perfectionism, fear, different things. So maybe you want to create digital products, but you're kind of stuck and overloaded with the different advice or decisions that you have to make, like what kinds of digital products you want to make. You know, courses, master classes, tool kits, templates, you know, so many decisions. And that was me for quite a while i wanted to start creating digital products back before it was like the thing to do, but I I just couldn't get started because every time I tried, I just felt completely overloaded. So reflection time, what is something that feels sticky in your business right now? Does it feel sticky because it's a misfit rule, something that you feel like you have to do or does it feel sticky because it's something you want to do but your brain is making it harder than it needs to be i.    

07:05  Think we've all that been there so my brain makes everything harder than it needs to be, so I get it. But if you start recognizing what's behind that sticky feeling, it helps you kind of shift your approach to business. And not every business rule is written for you so that's a good permission slip for you to remember that you can do things a different way if it's not working for you. What works for one person may completely drain another.    

07:38  Or someone else's perfect strategy might be your worst nightmare. So instead of assuming that every expert has the answer, something that you can ask yourself. It's a big one for me is would I still choose to do this if I weren't worried about how others do it?    

07:59  That was me and Instagram. I dealt with a lot of comparisonitis on Instagram. You know, just seem like, you know, everybody was doing their thing and I'm like, how can I do that like, how can I make that work? It seems like they really enjoy being on Instagram and doing this. Like I want to make that work for me but when I kind of asked myself if I blocked out everybody and I started to, I started to block out things like I would unfollow, I would mute because I was trying to just like, you know, get that tunnel vision where you're just like looking ahead for yourself, not what everybody else is doing.    

08:43  But I started to do that i started to block out things that I was comparing myself to. And when I asked myself if I would still choose to show up on Instagram even after like a muting and unfollowing and all that,    

09:05  The answer for me was no i I wouldn't still choose to show up on Instagram because I didn't want to show up on Instagram. I didn't enjoy creating content for it i didn't just, I just didn't enjoy being there. So I deactivated my business account. I have a private account for family and friends, but that's like my limit of Instagram. I I don't want to. Yeah, I don't really follow any business anything on my personal account.    

09:37  That opened up space for me to figure out a marketing strategy that actually fits me and allows me to create content in a way that feels natural for me. So a little exercise that you can try is to write down some of those rules you feel stuck in. Maybe it's just one big rule that's getting to you. Maybe you have a few of them maybe it's a whole list. Just write them down.    

10:05  And then any of those rules that are hard, no, like absolutely not doing that. Cross it off, get rid of it. We don't need that. The ones that are left are typically the rules that you're thinking you could probably make that work if you could figure out a way that works for you you know what I mean like, yeah, I could probably do that. Like let's just, I'm going to use the Instagram example again but like, yeah, I could maybe show up on Instagram if I didn't do Reels, you know, maybe that's something that you could consider. And then those are the rules that we're going to read, right we're going to redefine the rules so that they fit you.    

10:50  All right. So.    

10:54  Kind of going back to, yeah, I touched on this a little bit, but even if we want something that can feel hard because of different reasons, like too many choices, I talked about that and I was talking about the digital products. There's a lot of choices out there just in general for business. Decision fatigue is real perfectionism everything has to be in order before we start. Yeah, I did that a lot early on in my business i had to get my website done i had to get a social media presence so that when I started showing up, it was like I already had, like I was already there you know what I mean like I was already trying and I was already showing up before I really started showing up.    

11:43  Overcomplication, we assume that things have to be hard to be effective. They don't. That's a big one for me i deal with all of these, but overcomplication is probably the biggest one I deal with. So here's how we're going to unstick yourself. That didn't really make sense, but you know, you're going to unstick yourself. You're going to simplify, you're going to break down your big overwhelming goals and you're going to take them and make like micro steps. So instead of wondering how to get from A to Z, you're going to figure out how to get from A to BB to C and so on.    

12:25  Maybe you want to create a course and that's a really awesome goal and it's also a very overwhelming goal. So instead of looking at the big picture, like a how to create this entire course, you break it down. What is one lesson that I want to teach in this course? Just one start there and then like work your way through align. I have kind of a love hate relationship with the word align because it's it is overused a lot, but it also kind of fits a lot. So, but focus on what energizes you instead of what drains you.    

13:07  If you hate showing up on video, let's shelve that idea for now. You don't have to do away with it for good but for now, let's let's take that off the table. You know, try something else. You can always reintroduce things that you threw away when you did your little exercise if you want to. Only if you want to act before you're ready confidence does not come from knowing everything or having every little thing in place then perfect.    

13:45  It comes from taking action. And that's kind of scary sometimes. But I remind myself of that every day because the more I take action and put myself out there a little bit, the more confident I've become. And.    

14:06  But I'm still, you know, it's still a work in progress it probably always will be so I'm always reminded myself, like, take action. That's where the confidence will come from. It's not going to come from having every little email in my funnel just right. You know what is right, right.    

14:26  But once I started making those small little changes and choices, instead of forcing myself to follow what worked for somebody else, I let go of the things that drained me, and I built confidence by doing things my way. And my business now feels a lot more me than it ever has.    

14:49  What is one rule that you're going to redefine today.    

14:56  If you need any help reflecting on that, I basically took what I talked about and I turned it into a Google Doc workbook kind of thing where you, there's some prompts, but also space for you to jot things down if you're somebody who needs to get it like out of your head and down on the paper or digital paper, it could be helpful for you to have like a little starting point. So if you want to grab that, you can.    

15:28  And to wrap this up, if I could have you remember one thing is that you don't need to fit into somebody else's blueprint you get to make your own and that is what makes business feel enjoyable.