Ep 83: Overcoming Success Barriers

Welcome to Dawn of a New Era, with myself, Dawn McGruer, author, speaker, trainer and strategist, in all things to do with online marketing and growing and scaling your business. Now, in this episode, we’re going to look at barriers to actually growing and scaling your business. Now, fundamentally, they are not just strategic things, they are not just things that we would assume in business. They go a lot deeper and they are at the heart of everything. Now, marketing, motivation and mindset are the three things I talk about on this podcast, but they are the three critical success factors that I believe that every business owner, entrepreneur and founder needs to be able to be successful and to grow their business, and to be positive in the performance in everything that they do.

Now, when you look at barriers to success, one of the biggest ones that we will see, and I’m sure we have all probably experienced, if not all of these, some of these or a few, but overwhelm is the first. And overwhelm really is one of the biggest challenges because as soon as we hit this, what happens is confusion builds, and with confusion, everything stops and we hold, and we regress back into ourselves. Now, when we feel overwhelm, we’ll notice a massive difference in our motivation and also our mindset. But with the sheer overwhelm, everything feels cloudy, everything feels that it’s not possible to push forward, and it becomes very difficult to quantify the specific actions and things you need to do. So when we look at overcoming things like overwhelm, it’s about simplicity and going back to basics. And with all of these barriers to success, my recommendation is to get a blank piece of paper and just to work it out. Because once we understand what’s causing the overwhelm, we go back to basics and start thinking about what we’re trying to achieve.

Get it down on paper

So, let’s say, you are overwhelmed about a huge project or launching a new product or service, or just really the direction and strategy that you need to go in to grow and scale your business. How do we solve this? Well, we get a piece of paper and we think about the three biggest goals that we need to achieve in our businesses. Now, you can do this if you are facing barriers to success or overwhelm in a career too, it doesn’t matter. But if you are suffering, you have to get it out. Now, you can talk to people, but I’ve always found that when we’re in this state, we tend to regress slightly. I always encourage sharing because sometimes talking it out helps. But the first stage is to understand it yourself. Get the piece of paper, write out what the three goals are that you’re trying to achieve. So think about it, if you’re trying to get a new job or you’re launching a new product or service the three things, the goals that you want to achieve, and then work backwards.

And start just writing down how you’re feeling, what the problems are, is it where to start, et cetera. Now, generally what’s happened is that there is a disconnect between you and the goal. You can’t quite see how to get there. So there’s a couple of things you can do. I’ve always, in my life, invested in support and systems, and just moving forward with the feeling of knowing that someone’s been there before. So I feel that coaches and mentors are a great asset. And something that, if I look back on the success in my business and also how I’ve grown and my own personal development, it’s been because I’ve worked on me, my business, with someone else’s eyes. And you don’t necessarily have to go and find yourself a coach and mentor, but to go it alone could be a slow process. And it means that if sometimes you are stuck, it’s quite hard to shift out of that without someone else’s intervention.

Now, what happens is, is every time I’ve worked with a coach or mentor, that person feels like they’re like my virtual business partner, that they’re going through it with me. And just that whole essence of knowing that someone is there dedicated to you and solving your pains, your problems and challenges, and helping you understand and grow, then that’s been a big difference for me. And it also aligns to some of my biggest achievements. I did a speaking program for seven days in Dubai, and then I won best female speaker. I did some intensive training around obviously digital marketing, et cetera, and did my Chartered Institute of Marketing exams, and that catapulted me into my marketing career. So I think about all the critical stages and successes, and I align them to things that I’ve done. And it always comes down to investing in solving that barrier to success. So things like overwhelm, imposter syndrome, tech or team or strategy, these can all be solved by obviously working with someone, investing in obviously learning the root of overcoming that.

Having that confidence

For me, speaking was one of the hardest thoughts of doing on stage and I was petrified. It came down to a huge confidence thing. So for me, learning and doing got me past that barrier and to go from being petrified of going on stage to become best female speaker and to get the accolade was huge. But if I hadn’t done anything then I would’ve stayed stuck and it would’ve been a constant barrier that was niggling. Something that I knew would actually help grow and scale my business, but I couldn’t do it. So try and map out on a piece of paper your goals, what the issue is, what do you feel? And then you start to understand the problem and what the solutions could be. So things like imposter syndrome, it’s crazy because I think most people, 70%, they say, of people have been affected by this. And I definitely did, I got my publishing contract with Wiley, and it was the most joyous occasion getting it, wasn’t as joyous writing it, it was pretty tough, but I still felt very, very motivated.

The hardest bit was handing the manuscript in because I was thinking, “What if no one buys it? What happens if it flops?” But all of these things come from a false belief, something in our system or psyche or an experience that’s happened to us that’s kind of like creating this barrier. And our whole belief system has to change because in fact, I got bestseller, before it even launched, I’d got an award from Business Book Awards. So all of these non-truths had to be mitigated. So how do you go past it? Well, again, working with someone, talking to someone, understanding where you are and what past experiences may be holding you back. Everyone experiences, I’m sure, imposter syndrome because it’s one of those things that even now, certain things I will get it for if I’m launching something or I’ve put time and effort into something or I’ve been awarded something, it happens.

Fear of the unknown

But you have to go back and embrace it. And I would urge you that if you have barriers that just get them out there, first thing is to write them down, second thing is to try and understand them and understand what the disparity is between the goal and where you are. What could be blocking it. It could be a mindset belief. Things like tech, it’s a fear of the unknown. If you’re not a technical person, just everything seems overwhelming. So the solution to that barrier could be to hire someone. Again, with things like teams and getting talent in, or learning how to do something, it’s like rocket science. It sounds just totally out there, completely just unfathomable. And then if we were to go and learn about it, it would feel fine. So you don’t know what you don’t know. And often the fear of that is creating a barrier. So when you think about strategy, one of the things that I see a lot of my clients hold back with is that they don’t have one.

They know what they want to do, but they don’t know the exact steps to get there. They want to fast track it, they want accelerated success and they want good returns, in a very quick period of time. But they keep doing the same thing over and over again and it’s not working. It’s only when they reach out and maybe work with someone or I start working with them maybe in the mentoring program, that we start to unlock some of the issues of where the fear is or where the disbalance is. And sometimes you do need a support system. It could be that you have confidence issues in your business or cash flow. It could be a fear of failure, it could be that you don’t have a support there in place.

For me, certainly only my own business and being a CEO, I felt very lonely. So to get past that barrier, what did I do? Well, I worked with people in terms of I joined programs and I joined a seven-figure mastermind in LA, and that was amazing because the sorts of people I met, so inspirational, just so exciting, and it gave me a whole new outlook. It made me have more inspirational ideas and aspirational goals and it definitely helped me in a support system. I learned a lot, I gave a lot, but I felt like I was in a community and a tribe. So you have to find the way past it. And documenting it and getting it out of your body is often the first stage. So looking at things like how your business is structured, if it doesn’t feel aligned, going back to basics and thinking, what is it you really want to do? What do you want your day to look like? And really break it down into chunks. You can’t solve everything and you can’t solve everything quickly, but you can do micro steps.

And I’m a massive advocate for this, of just doing something and starting just feels better. And as you’re on that road, it’s like when you procrastinate over something, procrastination’s always worse I think, than the actual doing because we build up all of these false things and fears in our minds and it’s crazy. But sometimes just walking into the situation and taking a bit of control or getting someone to help you can be the first stage. Now, again, when you’re looking at scaling and growing your business, you have to think about it in terms of where you want that to go. I had no idea at 21 whether I wanted to sell my business, I wanted a lifestyle business, or what indeed I was actually going in to do. I just wanted to start it. So you have to get an understanding of where you are at, and you have to be very clear on your goals. You’ll also be very honest with yourself in terms of the barriers.

When the panic sets in

And if there’s things around you like maybe going live on Facebook or something, if that gives you sheer panic, but it would really help facilitate the growth of your business, you have to try and find a way of getting past it. I mean, I don’t know anyone who loved going live, I mean, I did it and when I realized I hadn’t died the first time or the second, or indeed the third, it got easier. But it’s one of those things, it’s a fear of being judged or doing something wrong or people laughing at you or ridiculed. And quite honestly, if we look at it, there’s probably loads of people sitting there thinking, “Oh my goodness, I wish I could go live,” and giving you utmost respect for the fact that you’ve done it. So we have to get rid of these barriers, these false beliefs, and really mitigate what that means for us and for our business growth. So if you would like just to have a bit of a clarity on this, a bit of a talk-through in terms of where your business is going, please reach out.

Support if you need it

You can find me on all social media channels, go and visit dawnmcgruer.com. We have loads of free ways of working with me, obviously other ways of working with me, through coaching or retreats or mentoring. But the biggest thing I’d like to say is that if you are stuck, you do feel that there’s a barrier, and you would like to chat through your strategy, and just get some positivity around where you need to go and how I could help you do that, then by all means you can hop on the website and you can book a call with me. And my discovery calls are transformational in the fact that often we touch on things that you don’t discuss day to day. And I think sometimes that can just be the shift that’s needed to take that next step to really move the needle in your business and uplevel to the next stage of success.

So I hope you enjoyed this podcast, and please remember, you can come and find me, dawnmcgruer.com. If you’ve not got a copy of my book already, you can grab a free copy of Dynamic Digital Marketing. You just pay for the post and packaging, which is £7, and we’ll ship anywhere in the world. So have an amazing day, and remember, the first step to getting past your barriers to success is to write them down and own them. And remember to write your goals down, write your barriers down, and just try and understand what could be the bridge past those barriers, to overcome them, to move forward and embrace them. Now, remember, obviously I was petrified of public speaking and then I went on to get best female speaker. So it’s definitely possible, it’s just finding the right route or road to success for you.