As a female entrepreneur, you know first hand the mental and emotional challenges that come with starting or running your own business.
But what happens when these challenges start to interfere with your potential and your business?
It can mean a shift in your focus and energy, or worse, it can mean taking steps backwards. By understanding the unique needs of yourself as a female business owner, you’ll be able to recognize when these issues arise and take the necessary steps to break those barriers and move forward.
Introduction: The Challenges of Being a Female Entrepreneur
As a money relationship coach and a business strategist with 2 teenage boys, I understand the challenges that come with starting your own business and keeping up with the day-to-day. However, I also know the importance of being emotionally regulated, especially when it comes to matters of regulating your business.
For instance, when I work with clients who are looking to monetize their passion and I begin helping them create or sell their offer, one of the things I have often noticed when we reach that point is an invisible block. It is something that they fear, something that robs them of their confidence to move forward for some reason or another.
Peeling away the different layers, I find that a lot of this comes down to feeling inadequate. Even when they declare their intention to make a certain amount of money or maintain a certain level in their business, it seems like they just don’t feel capable of acquiring it. Evidently, they haven’t quite managed to remove their emotions out of their business, thus left unable to achieve great results.
A lot of my soul-centered female entrepreneur clients struggle with fear of rejection and have been through unsuccessful launches in the past, compounded by conflicting advice from overly-promising promo “expert” marketers that often gear towards icky sales tactic – and this is where all these issues tend to begin.
So If you are a woman with a sensitive heart, want to make an income and an impact with your business, but are facing these blocks of self-worth and self-love — this blog is for you.
Emotional Regulation is the new rich for Female Entrepreneurs
In the world of entrepreneurship, it’s essential that you are NOT in constant trigger mode. This nervousness will continue to damage your nervous system.
Whether dealing with high-stress situations or these feelings of low self-worth, how we handle these moments is what truly makes or breaks us and therefore, our business. But what does “emotional regulation” really mean and why is it so vital to your success as a CEO?
Now we’ve all had to deal with overwhelming emotions or emotional triggers every now and then.
In simple terms, emotional regulation is described as “the process of controlling and managing our emotions.” It is actually what helps us to remain calm and collected in the face of stress, trauma, or other difficult situations. Learning to master that everything is someone own perception and reality and mastering never to take anything personally.
As you may know, the nervous system plays a big role in emotional regulation. For instance, when we experience something stressful or traumatic, our nervous system goes into overdrive. Neat right? How about NO.
This of course can lead to symptoms like anxiety, irritability, and even difficulty sleeping. However, we all have an innate ability to regulate even our deepest emotions, but let’s face it, sometimes we need a little help.
So at the core, emotional regulation is not just about managing our emotions in a way that is healthy and helpful, it’s also about recognizing when we need to take a step back and breathe. It’s about knowing our triggers and learning how to deal with them in a constructive way. And it’s about stopping the intrusive thoughts in their tracks and recognizing our own power— we are deserving of everything we desire, even on our darkest days, and can take charge of what we power up through our body.
Overcoming Blocks to Success
Everytime we have nervousness around something we are putting our central nervous system in freeze or flight mode. Then we end up with depression and anxiety or intrusive thoughts.
One of the reasons why I love helping my clients shift the guilt and shame around charging for their passion, is because this is something I know very well. As someone who has suffered (and finally healed) from this, I can approach this with compassion and help my clients shift it very quickly. So they don’t have to go through the long suffering I did. The shifts are simple yet life changing.
What I learned is that being able to really take ownership of the value and impact we are providing our clients is essential for sustainable business growth and achieving the wealth creation we desire. And this is something I’m passionate about helping my clients with.
Through my work, they can gain confidence in their worth and be more mindful when pricing out services or products. Not only does this lead to more realistic pricing strategies, but also increased authenticity which leads to more meaningful connections with potential customers!
This of course shifts the focus to where it really should be! On serving people who genuinely need and appreciate what they have, instead of getting caught up in “price wars” or discounting themselves too low without true appreciation for their offerings.
Although these intrusive thoughts are somewhat common and more often than not harmless, they can still have an effect on our emotions and the way we go about living our daily lives. Especially when we are in the process of creating or running a business.
Fortunately, there are a few things we can do to improve our emotional regulation and remove some of the blocks to success. Here are a few tips:
- Write down three positive qualities about yourself/your offer that you like and read them daily to remind yourself of how special and unique you are.
- Practice mindfulness meditation; this is a strategy of focusing on the present moment rather than ruminating over the past or worrying about the future.
- Instead of bottling up your emotions, take the time to talk about how you’re feeling with someone you trust – this could be a family member or friend, or even a professional such as a coach or counselor. Once shame is said out loud it’s finally released and no longer can keep you captive.
- Get rid of perfectionism. Perfectionism is a huge block for many women entrepreneurs. We tend to strive for perfection in everything we do, which only leads to disappointment and frustration. Instead, learn to accept yourself and your work just as they are. Perfectionism is often a hidden shame coping mechanism.
With these tips in mind, take some time each day to appreciate yourself and all your wonderful traits!
Befriending our Nervous System
It’s no secret that stress can wreak havoc on our health, but did you know that emotional regulation is key to maintaining a healthy nervous system?
You might be thinking, “duh!”
Well, to no surprise, when we are able to regulate our emotions, we are better able to manage stress and prevent its negative effects on our bodies.
The nervous system is responsible for our fight-or-flight response, which is designed to help us survive in dangerous situations. However, in today’s world, we are often faced with stressful situations that do not pose a threat to our survival.
There are many ways to regulate our emotions, but one of the most effective is through befriending our very own nervous system. When we take the time to get to know our nervous system and how it works, we can more easily identify when we are feeling stressed and take steps to mitigate its effects.
Often, our beliefs about ourselves can be the biggest barrier to success as a female entrepreneur. We may feel blocks of self-worth, or that we don’t deserve to create wealth doing what we love. These beliefs can lead to anxiety and stress, and even cause us to fall into a never-ending cycle which can sabotage our efforts to be successful.
But if we can learn to regulate our emotions, we can overcome these obstacles.
