I did everything I was supposed to do. I didn’t cut any corners. I followed the program EXACTLY as it was laid out, but I still didn’t get the results I was looking for in my business. So, I broke up with them.
As a new Entrepreneur, have you ever signed up for a course promising to teach you the secret formula that, if you followed exactly, would yield amazing financial results? I have…on multiple occasions. I’ve invested a lot of money in taking all kinds of classes to help me build my business: Group Coaching, Membership Programs, Digital Course Creation, Meeting facilitation, and how to launch products, but none of them worked for my people.
At first, I thought it was something I either did incorrectly or didn’t do enough of. Blaming ourselves is a pretty typical response for a trauma survivor. We believe that if we did something wrong, we can do something to fix it. That kind of magical thinking has been with us since childhood. How many of you thought that the abuse you suffered in childhood was your fault because you were “bad,” and if you could just be “good enough,” it would stop? I did.
This kind of thinking is a well-worn and overly-used neural network for us. It is such a habitual pattern that most of us don’t even think about it. But as we begin to heal, we learn to accept that it might not have anything to do with our effort or performance at all… it just wasn’t designed with us in mind.
As a trauma survivor who works exclusively with trauma survivors, I had this “sense” in my gut that none of these programs would work for my folks or me because they were not trauma-informed. These programs promoted hustle culture, sending out a ton of emails, and using psychological triggers to get people to buy the products we were selling…none of which are trauma-informed principles.
And can I say to the people who may be promoting these types of programs, one thing that trauma survivors don’t need more of is psychological triggers? We have enough for a lifetime, thank you very much.
Even though I had this “sense” in my gut and would cringe each time I set up a ton of emails to sell my coaching products, I ignored it, because I thought that they knew better than I did. Who was I to say any differently? It wasn’t like I was making millions or as successful as they were or those in their program.
But one thing I knew better than they did was my audience. I know them because I am them. When I finally tuned into the clues my biology was giving me, I realized after several failed launch attempts that the methodology was at fault, not my effort level. So I made the difficult decision to part ways with them, and the certainty they promised but never delivered.
As a trauma survivor who is rather new to the concept of having voice and choice, deciding to distance yourself from a “proven” program to go your own way can feel both liberating and terrifying.
If it fails, you’ve got no one to blame but yourself. But personally, I don’t believe in failure because I am 100% aligned with Nelson Mandela’s philosophy of “I never lose. I either win, or I learn.” So, if we try something new and it doesn’t work out, we regroup, adjust, and iterate on the solution…and we go again, because that’s what resilient survivors do.
Trust is a really important part of the healing journey, and for us, as trauma survivors, it has to be learned and earned. Maybe the first person we learn to trust in the healing journey is our therapist. Having a therapist you can trust is critical to the healing process. This trust is earned through micro-moments when they’ve shown up for you, supported you, or helped you through hard things.
Learning to trust ourselves, especially as entrepreneurs, is no different. It comes from the micro-moments when we decide to listen to what our gut is saying, take a calculated risk to do the scary thing, and hold ourselves with compassion when we have a learning moment. When we learn how to show up for ourselves, support ourselves, and commit to never giving up on ourselves, we learn how to trust ourselves and our judgment.
This is part of the healing journey. I have always seen therapy as my classroom to teach me new skills and work as my lab to practice them. Therapy and work run in parallel because what you learn in therapy can be applied at work. Work is part of the healing journey, not separate from it.
Conversely, what comes up in therapy might also show up in our work. It has for me on many occasions and in so many different ways. No one ever said that the healing journey would be a walk in the park or easy. There is no easy button in healing, and there is no easy button in entrepreneurship either.
Learning to trust yourself enough to chart your own course and follow your intuition is a huge sign of healing. I experienced that this past week, and I’m pretty excited and hopeful about what the future holds for me in my business. I am no longer hindered by the program’s rigidity, but have the flexibility and creativity to blaze my own trail.
Have you ever had these kinds of moments as an entrepreneur? I would love to hear about them and how you overcame the obstacles that led to breakout results for you. Leave me a comment below and let’s support each other on this healing journey.