Ep #54: When Nothing’s Working

When Nothing’s Working

What would it take for you to believe that whatever you’re doing for your business right now is working? One of the comments I hear most frequently from my clients is that although they keep showing up, they aren’t getting the number of consults they want, or no one’s liking their content, and that nothing is working.

As entrepreneurs, we all go through stages of reaching new heights in our businesses, and it can feel really helpless when you think you’re doing everything and yet, you’re not getting the results you want. Many of you get stuck in believing this is a problem, and today, I’m inviting you to question whether it truly is.

Tune in this week as I address the belief that nothing is working and show you why this is an indulgent thought that is entirely optional. There is no magical formula or tangible thing out there that will finally make it feel like everything is working as it should, and I’m offering an alternative thought you can try on so that every step you take feels peaceful and aligned.

I am so excited to offer you a podcast-only treat! I’ve created a five-day Unblock Your Confidence mini-course, and this is some of my best work. If you struggle with confidence and want to build more trust in yourself, stop caring about what other people think, get over your fear of failure, and start unblocking your confidence, you need to check it out. Click here to find out more!

What You’ll Learn:
  • The scariest part of your journey as an entrepreneur life coach.
  • What “belief blinders” are and how you get stuck in them. 
  • Why having crappy thoughts isn’t a problem.
  • How to examine what your line of thinking is creating for you.
  • What happens when you indulge in the thought, “Nothing is working.”
  • How setting time parameters for your goals helps you achieve them.
Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:
Full Episode Transcript:

You are listening to episode 54 of The Confident Coaches Podcast, the one where you stop thinking nothing’s working. Alright, let’s go.

Welcome to The Confident Coaches Podcast, a place for creating the self-confidence you need to do your best work as a life coach. If you want to bring more boldness, more resilience, and more joy to your work, this is the place for you. I’m your host, Amy Latta. Let’s dive in.

Hello my confident coaches. How is everybody out there? I’m actually a little nervous to ask because it’s been November and the first two weeks of November have certainly not been going how we thought they would. So can we all just take another – I mean, how many collective deep breaths have we taken on this podcast this year?

I’m not sure how I like this episode of 2020. You? It’s a little bit much, don’t you think? So let’s all take deep breaths and once again, the state of the Americas and the state of the Earth is just proof positive, proof positive there’s never been a better time to be a life coach than right now.

The people out there need us. They need us. Do you see the state of the United States and the state of the world right now? It’s cray cray. This is the perfect intersection. This is the perfect time in the entire history of man to be a life coach.

So if you get anything – this isn’t even where I was going with this podcast, but if you get anything out of this episode when nothing’s working, if you get anything, leave the episode with this; there’s never been a better time to be a life coach. This is the perfect time to be a life coach.

The world needs us now more than ever, you hear me? Okay, so given that, I know a lot of y’all are thinking that nothing’s working. This isn’t working. I don’t know what I’m doing and all that kind of crap. We are going to deep dive into that today.

We’re going to take this nothing’s working bullshit and we’re going to put it – we’re going to show it its place. But first, before I do that, last week, my client Mindy shared her transformation through – she’s been a one-on-one client almost two years ago, a year and a half, two years ago.

And then she joined my Confident Coaches Mastermind in May this year. And just last week, she posted this and it just brought me to tears because so often, we can look at our R line and if it doesn’t look the way that we thought it should have, we think that none of this is working and none of it matters.

And she had this reflection. She does believe in herself. I’m actually going to read it in her voice. “I’ve just had an exciting realization. I do believe in myself. I am confident. Otherwise, I never could have made it this far. In the past couple of years, I’ve resigned from my corporate job and I’ve made all of these personal life changes that I never would have done before. I’ve taught myself how to set up a website, how to set up landing pages, how to do an email auto-responder, webinars, workshops, I’ve created Facebook Lives and newsletters and blogs and freebies and flyers and events.

“I have looked ridicule and judgement in the face. I’ve questioned all of my doubt and all of my questions about whether or not I am qualified to be a coach without certain certifications or degrees. I’ve had people literally walk away when I tell them I’m a life coach,” and she’s still here. Sorry, I’m going to keep reading in her voice.

“I have faced shame and embarrassment when I couldn’t afford to replace certain things in my life. I’ve cold called strangers to build connections and relationships. I’ve become a paid public speaker even though I quit singing in public due to stage fright. I’m still in business after four years with no intention of quitting and I’m applying for high-end masterminds, even though on paper I don’t qualify. But I am ready to go all in and there’s no way I could have done any of these things if I didn’t believe in myself, let alone done all of them. I’m committed to this dream of mine, it will be my reality, I am absolutely certain of it.”

Tears, my friends. Absolute tears. I frequently ask my clients in the Confident Coaches Mastermind to take stock of what they’ve created and what they’ve done. What were you not even doing when you started and what are you doing now? How differently are you showing up?

And not just in your life coaching business but in your entire life. So often, we think that if the result we’re shooting for isn’t in the palm of your hand by the fifth month of a six-month mastermind, this isn’t working and nothing’s working. You’re not even accounting for the things that your brain is working on behind the scenes and you just don’t even have the awareness of it yet, and you are so undermining and undercutting those things that you’re doing now in your life that you never would have done before.

Don’t discount any of it. It’s all part of this and it’s all super important. Because listen friends, there are programs that will teach you sales, that will teach you marketing, that will teach you better coaching skills, that will help you work on your mindset. But confident coaches, Confident Coaches podcast, Confident Coaches Mastermind, my whole program that I’ve created with the modules and the workbook and the coaching, Confident Coaches teaches you to be okay with you.

And that’s the most important thing when you’re going to be an entrepreneur life coach. It’s the secret weapon to all the other programs that are out there. Confidence is not an option. It’s a necessity.

So Mindy, yeah, she’s absolutely creating what she’s never done before because look at what she has created. I love it. I love all of it. It gets me so psyched and excited and to find out who else can I help with this good stuff.

And that’s part of the reason why I created today’s podcast episode because I hear this one so much. Nothing’s working. I’m doing everything and nothing is working. I keep showing up, I keep posting, I’m doing this, I’m doing all of the things, and I don’t have engagement, or I haven’t gotten a consult in a month, or no one’s signing up, no one’s liking, no one’s – whatever the thing is.

Whatever your criteria that you decided is required in order for you to think that this is all still working. That criteria that you’ve created is all made up. And it’s so important to understand this. This is so important for you guys to get through your heads now because your brain is trying to tell you that if you had a certain something, then you would believe that it’s working, then you would finally believe you could do what you haven’t done before.

And that’s not how this works. It won’t be working until you’ve created it, and you won’t know how to get it working until you’ve done it. Your insistence that there be a certain thing that you can put your hands on, a tangible that you can wrap your arms around in order for you to believe that this is working is killing your confidence.

So lean in because I do love you. You are my Latta loves. I Latta love all of you. So here’s the thing; you’re showing up. So to be clear, this is for those of you that got off the couch and started doing the shit. You are doing stuff. Your action line is full of action.

So those of you who are struggling to still even start taking the action, I do want you to pay attention to this too because I know you also think there’s going to be this magical point where you’re going to be taking all this action and all the results, you’re just automatically going to be there.

It’s super important to remember this episode because A, we got to push you off the shore of this riverbank into the river of misery, and over to the other side. So this is for the people who have pushed themselves off the shore. I understand it’s actually a riverbank and I’m going to use the word shore. I’m going to mix some metaphors here and just run with it with me.

So for some of you, we’re still trying to push you off the shore. This is for the people who have pushed off the shore and they’re in the middle of the river and they can’t see either side. And you’re doing all of the things. You are posting all of the things. You’ve tried all of the stuff.

So in my Confident Coaches workbook, which is part of the Confident Coaches Mastermind, I have an entire section all about confident in business and marketing and making an offer every day. And I help you come up with ideas, I give you my own ideas and give you space to brainstorm different ways of making an offer.

And so yeah, you’re doing that. You’re doing a lot of those things that you see other people doing, that you hear are the best practices. You’re sitting in belief. You’re doing the here are the thoughts that I need to think in order to believe, where am I on the belief scale, where’s my belief today? I’m going to go back and sit in belief.

You’re doing all of these things, right? But you’re not creating the results that you said that you wanted. You’re setting the same goal month after month and not hitting it. And your brain is going to start to revolt on you.

It’s going to start to tell you this isn’t working, I don’t know what I’m doing, this is never going to happen for me, I apparently don’t have what it takes, or I don’t know what it takes. Like, why am I bothering to set the same goal every month? I never freaking hit it, what’s the point of doing this anyway? This is dumb, this is stupid.

I’m sorry, I laugh because I’ve so been there. I know this place. I know this place. I understand this place. I’ve swam in this place. So let’s use this river of misery analogy here, and I really want you to understand this.

So you’re over here on the riverbank and we’ve gotten you off the bank. You have set across into the water. And you’ve lost sight of that shore, but you don’t yet see the other one. So the shore you left is where you were, the goal that you want to create is the shore that you’re looking for.

And you’re smack dab between the two and you can’t see either one. It’s terrifying. This space right here is freaking scary. It is terrifying. You’re like, what have I done? But you can’t go back. You know too much. You’ve done too much. You’ve done too much work. You can’t quit. You can’t go back, but you also don’t know how to keep going forward because every day you’re padding and you’re paddling, and you don’t seem to be getting anywhere. And oh my gosh, I don’t know if I’m ever going to get there.

This is the single scariest place in this journey, when you’re in the middle of the river of misery and you can’t see either bank, you can’t see either shore, and you’re not sure where you are. You’re starting to lose your sense of direction, you’re unsure what’s happening.

My client Barbara shared an amazing analogy because she loves to go on cruises. Now, I’ve never been on a cruise before, but I’ve seen movies, so I know. And we’ve looked at cruises before and I’ve seen the itineraries. You’re floating out in the Caribbean and there’s always that day that’s just 100% at sea.

You can’t see anything. It’s all blue. It’s all blue ocean meeting blue water and you can’t see a thing, right? But you know that next destination is there, but you can still find a way to keep going and entertain yourself in the middle of that. We’re going to run with the cruise analogy.

I know, I’m mixing tons of analogies here, just like run with me people. You’re on a cruise ship and there’s a place here to have fun and keep going, entertaining yourself while you’re there, while you are figuring out, while you are trying to figure out what works, why you are trying to figure out those things, right?

It doesn’t mean that you’re out in the middle of the ocean or you’re out in the middle of the river of misery and you’re just like, I guess we’re never going to get there because I looked outside and all I see is blue. I guess we’re lost at sea.

No. You’re not lost at sea. You’re headed in the right direction. You just keep swimming. I’m going to throw in some Finding Nemo. So when you’re in the middle and you’re thinking none of this is working and you can’t see either shore, you’re out in the middle of the ocean or you’re out on a raft – you’re either out in the middle of the ocean on a cruise ship or you’re out in the middle of a raft in the river of misery, depending on which analogy you want to run with here with me.

So then what? Understand this. These thoughts that you’re having, I’m going to refer a little bit to the last podcast episode, episode 53, where we talked about stop entertaining crappy thoughts. You’ve got to do a little bit of that right here.

Put them in a model. I don’t know what it takes, I don’t have what it takes, this isn’t working, I don’t know what I’m doing, this will never happen for me. Put them in a model. If this is your first podcast episode, the model is the coaching model that I use extensively throughout my coaching program. There’s lots of episodes on it.

CTFAR, circumstances create thoughts, thoughts create feelings, feelings create actions, actions create results. Put those thoughts on a T line because they’re all thoughts. I don’t have what it takes, this isn’t working, I don’t know what I’m doing, this will never happen, whatever your flavor of thought is, it’s a thought. It is not a circumstance.

Don’t try to argue with me on that one. It’s a thought every day of the week. When you think that, how does that thought feel? And when you feel that way, what does your action line look like? What are you doing from that feeling? What are you not doing from that feeling?

And get freaking specific. Don’t put vague I check out. How do you check out? List all the stuff that you’re still doing. Put everything in there. And then what is the result of that? Own it. See what that line of thinking is creating for you.

Because that line of thinking, I don’t know what I’m doing, is going to create the result of you not figuring out what to do. The line of thinking this will never happen for me is going to create the result of it never happening for you. This isn’t working is going to create the result of you not figuring out how to make it work.

And just like last week’s episode, use the parenting Jedi mind trick that I love to use to stop entertaining those thoughts when they show up. They’re going to keep showing up. You’re in the middle of the river of misery. Of course they’re going to keep showing up. That’s not a problem. Your job is to stop entertaining those thoughts.

And I tell you exactly how to do that in last week’s episode, episode 53. And so once you’ve modeled those thoughts and you’ve practiced that parenting trick that I tell you on how to stop entertaining those thoughts, also make sure that when you’re doing belief work, that’s not just an action step for you. That’s not just a check mark, a thing that you do.

Really feel the belief of already landing on the next shore, already having those clients. Imagine being her and seeing her and feeling her. You are her. Feel that belief in your bones. Go and visit future you.

Just today in my July Confident Coaches Mastermind group, I shared a new technique with them of how to really not just sit and visit future you but an actual embodiment of future you and a hypnosis technique that I’ve learned where you can actually visit yourself and ask your person questions, ask your best mentor, which is you, questions.

My client Barbara, not only did she use the cruise ship analogy, but her future you is in this dazzling red gown. My client Sarah, her future you, she’s like, “the rings on my finger just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger as we went deeper and deeper and deeper.”

But really learn the techniques of really feeling the belief of already having achieved this. Don’t make it just a thing that you do, like you’re brushing your teeth. Sit in it, marinade in it. And this idea that it’s not working, listen, something isn’t working.

If you’re putting out all of that stuff and you’re showing up every day and you don’t have the result you want yet, you are right, something’s not working. But that’s not it’s not working. Something’s not working and I wonder what it is.

Maybe you do need to change up the time that you’re posting, maybe you do need to mix up your Insta stories. Maybe you do need to go to a virtual networking event or go to other virtual networking events. Maybe you need to spend some time studying the other coaches that you love, watching how they share and how do they write their copy, how do they capture your attention?

Practice writing your copy the way that they do. Notice how they lead with something that captures your attention and then each of their lines or each of their sentences invites you to read the next. Study the people who are killing it. Pick one or two and see how they engage.

But everything I’ve just shared right here, that’s all action line items that don’t matter if you’re thinking that this isn’t working. You need to fix that thinking and you need to be sitting in the belief if you’re really going to change your copy or do something differently. You need to be able to feel it in your bones and then go try those different things.

Because all of those different things that you might try, all that changing up that you might try can’t really be done if you’re hung up on the nothing’s working thing. The other thing that happens when we’re indulging in nothing is working and this is never going to happen, the ideas you have are very narrow-minded.

I teach a concept called belief blinders, and it’s just like you’re a horse with blinders on. You can only see the obvious thing to try right in front of you and you keep trying the same thing over and over again or you’re trying very small shifts.

But as soon as you drop this nothing’s working mentality and this is never going to happen for me mentality, those blinders start to open up and you see ideas you hadn’t considered before. And let’s be honest, I’m going to be so honest with you. It’s so rare, so rare. Lean in my friends, I’m getting a little feisty right here.

It is incredibly rare that when I coach somebody on this, that they don’t have an idea already in their head of what they night try and they just haven’t done it yet. But they’re so indulging in that nothing’s working that they haven’t bothered to try that idea.

As soon as you drop the nothing’s working crap, you’re like, yeah okay, I’m going to go do that thing that I’ve been thinking about doing for three months and I haven’t done yet. And the same line of thinking of why bother setting the goal if you’re not going to hit it, a goal with no time parameter is just a dream. There’s nothing to tether that goal to reality. It’s like a helium balloon that’s just out there floating.

A time parameter tells your brain that this goal is not just a pie in the sky dream, but something you actually want to achieve. That it’s real. It’s like, my client Jen was talking about how she used to help teams with goal setting when she was in the corporate world.

She was like, yeah, we would set these big goals and we didn’t know how long it was actually going to take for us to do that, but we set these timelines to it and we set check-in points along the way. We knew we were eventually going to get there. But we knew that it wasn’t the getting there by the time that was the most important thing. It was the team growing and learning along the way and having these check-in points and never stop believing that they’re going to achieve the ultimate goal that they set out to achieve in the first place.

We set the timelines for reality and for parameters and to evaluate what’s working and what’s not working. But then we let go that the goal has to be achieved within that time. My client Rachel shared just a couple of weeks ago, the timing does not matter. It’s my belief that matters.

You set the goal, the number of clients you want by the end of this month, and you put that time parameter on it to tell your brain we’re serious about this. We really are going after this and we’re really going to achieve it. You figure out what you need to think in order to believe.

You put all that it’s not working, I’m never going to get there, all of that, you put that in check. You do the parenting Jedi mind trick where you stop entertaining that thought and then you work on your belief. Belief from the middle of the river that it’s coming.

You set the timeframe to make it real and then you let it go in order to keep your belief. Listen, the clients are going to come when the clients are going to come. They can happen in any moment. Your work is to keep the belief to not entertain the crappy thoughts in the middle of the river of misery to believe in your bones, not just in your head, so that you can brainstorm new ideas and you can try new things and you can rewrite your copy a million times until you figure out what works.

Honestly, I think the biggest thought error of all here is that you think that it’s a problem. You think that it’s a problem that you keep showing up and you keep doing all the things and you don’t yet have the result. And what if it’s not?

I don’t have what it takes, why ever think that? Of course you have what it takes. You’re figuring this out. This isn’t working, nothing’s working, no, something’s not working and I wonder what it is. I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know what I’m doing, that thought right there assumes that you are ever going to know what you’re doing.

And you won’t know what you’re doing until the goal is in your hand. I don’t know what I’m doing, no, you may not know how you’re going to create that result but you’re going to show up every day until you figure it out. Everything you do, you learn something more, every step that you take, you learn a little bit more and you get a little bit farther.

This will never happen for me, bullshit. That’s an indulgent thought that you don’t even need to believe. These thoughts being here, the results not being in your hand yet don’t have to be a problem. I’m throwing a lot of client names right now.

The perfect analogy I wrapped up by Sarah, she is a weight loss coach, I’m like, how would you coach your client who has had a four-week plateau? She’s like, oh, well yeah, it’s not a problem. It’s not a problem at all. Maybe you make a little bit of tweaks, but you keep believing that it’s going to happen.

You don’t stop believing. You don’t quit. You don’t think, oh, I’m never going to lose the weight. You make some small tweaks, you readjust your mindset, you shake it off and you keep coming back every single day. And what a lot of us are doing in business is we’re like, I’ve been eating salads for a week, why haven’t I lost all of the weight I want to lose?

No, that’s not how it works. You know, anybody who’s – I’m going to tell you this right now. Weight loss coaching and growing your business coaching is almost the damn same work. I used to be a weight loss coach and now I do this because it’s the exact same coaching.

You get that big push out of the gate and then you hit some plateaus and your willingness to stay committed and to keep working and to keep eating the foods that help you lose weight, and then when you don’t find the foods that help you lose weight, you tweak and you try this and you move a little bit of this, maybe a little bit more of that.

And there is no perfect answer. There is no formula. Everybody’s different. And you tweak and you tweak, and you keep believing and you keep going. The same thing for your business. When nothing’s working, it’s not even true. It’s not even true, my friends.

You’re smack in the middle of the river of misery, you’re on that cruise ship floating out in the ocean with no shoreline in sight, it’s exactly where you’re supposed to be. Everybody experiences this moment. Some moments are longer than others, sometimes they happen more frequently than you want them to, and it’s not a problem.

All those indulgent thoughts that this isn’t working and it’s never going to happen for you, they are indulgent. Know what they’re creating for you. Choose not to entertain them anymore. Sit in that belief in your core so much. Be willing to tweak and twist and make adjustments and think of out of the box ideas and try new ways and test that copy and rewrite it again and again and again and again until you create the result that you want.

That’s the work. There’s no magic formula. There’s no secret pill. This is your commitment to you. And your willingness to call bullshit on the nothing’s working lie. Alright my friends, I cannot wait to see what you create in this world. I’m so damn excited for all of you. Alright my confident coaches, remember until next week, let’s go do epic stuff.

Friends, I am so excited to offer you a podcast-only treat. I am sharing with you the five-day Unblock Your Confidence mini course. It is only available to The Confident Coaches Podcast listeners and the only way to get your hands on it is right here. Why do you need this course?

Well, in this five-day mini course, you will learn why it seems like you struggle with confidence when others don’t, how to build trust in yourself, how to get over your fear of failure, how to stop caring so damn much what other people think, and the best thing you can do to unblock your confidence today.

All of that in just five days. This is some of my best work waiting for you. Visit www.amylatta.com/unblockconfidence to get yours. Again, that’s amylatta.com/unblockconfidence. Go now and get started today.  

Thanks so much for listening to The Confident Coaches Podcast. I invite you to learn more. Come visit me at amylatta.com and until next week, let’s go do epic stuff.    

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Hi, I’m Amy.

For years, I took a ton of action to sign clients.

I learned to create self-confidence and powerfully believe in myself first, and then built a multiple six-figure coaching business.

And I can help you do it, too.

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