BUSINESS: Getting over yourself

Do you know what I’ve just done? Sent off my very first email. To real people. To followers!  That must seem quite an easy thing  - not to mention an obvious thing - to do for a business like mine, right? Not for me - it was a complete mental block. My hubby works in IT - so maybe I was waiting for him to do his knight-in-shining armour routine and sweep in to take it off my hands and solve this for me but that didn’t happen. Well - kind of.  In fact, to be fair to him, he had helped set up Mail Chimp a couple of years ago for me.  In fact, I was even paying for the service! And did i use it? Did i heck!  People were signing up but i just had no clue what to do with it. So I wasted money and it didn’t get used.  

Setting up my email list was my New Year’s Resolution of 2025.  It’s now November. NOVEMBER!!!  And you know what? Having just got it all sorted, I don’t actually know what all the fuss was about.  Did I have a few tricky moments ? Yep - sure.  But actually, it’s up and running now, first email has been sent and I have linked it to a working discount code. So I’m pretty chuffed - and all without any help from the hubby. 

But these blockers were a massive problem for me - and are a big problem in the development of our small businesses. It might be email issues, marketing issues, content issues, whatever the issue….. but it’s in our head - that blocker that says you can’t do that, its way too complicated and so your business plans just stop. They don't progress any further. You put it to the bottom of your ‘To Do’ list and try to forget it - I say ‘try’ as its always there waving for your attention. Yet you know, if you were to solve this particular email issue, you would reach a bigger audience and get more sales. YOU KNOW THIS but even so, you just cant. It’s a stumbling block which can last you sometimes years. And no matter what, you will continue to give excuses. I know this as that was totally me - and it will continue to be me as that’s just how I’m (we’re??) built.

It can actually be quite debilitating really as we give excuses why something can’t be done or, more likely, just put it off for another day because it feel so big an issue in our heads.  An insurmountable problem.  So how do we get round this? I listened to a podcast one day that had the motto “what have you done today that you didn’t have in place yesterday?’. This belief has honestly been a game changer for me and become my motto.  It’s very much the ‘glass half full’ theory looking for the positives rather than the negatives.  We are always critical of ourselves so finding things we have done well can sometimes be difficult.  But actually, when you have this belief, and then consider your achievements over a whole month - list them even - you realise that you’ve done so much better than you think.  You’ve actually achieved a LOT. And all these things were not in place last month.  THIS is how your business will move forward. One step at a time.  

Doing this email thingymajiggy felt absolutely huge in my head.  But once I sat down and gave myself time, anything that I achieved was one step further towards this goal.  One step further forward towards the thing that didn’t exist yesterday. And actually, I got it done. I now have an email list.  I have the ability to send an email.  I have a way of getting people to sign up and with incentives. I now have something in place that didn’t exist yesterday.  Will it be 100% successful? I don't know.  But it’s in place and is a place to start.  I got over my fears and blockers and gave it a go.  Tomorrow will be focused on what I do with it next. Will I have blockers and excuses with this then? Absolutely. Will I get over myself?  Yup!