103. How to Recognize the Business You’re Already Building
So many moms believe they haven’t started yet because they are not making money, have not quit their job, or do not have a fully formed plan. But that belief may be keeping you stuck far more than your actual circumstances.
In this episode, I talk about how to recognize the business you’re already building and why so many women overlook the evidence that they have already begun. I break down what starting really looks like, how we discount our own progress, and why shifting your identity from “not started” to “already building” can completely change your momentum.
If you’ve been feeling behind, aimless, or like you are still waiting for the real beginning, this conversation will help you see yourself differently. You may already be much further along than you think, and recognizing that could be the very thing that helps you move forward faster.
Ready for clarity and a simple action plan to get your business started? Schedule a free 1-hour consultation with me here!
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
How to recognize the business you’re already building.
The mindset shift that helps rebuild self-trust and momentum.
Why discounting your progress can keep you feeling stuck.
How your previous experience may already be supporting your entrepreneurial growth.
Simple ways to identify evidence that you are further along than you think.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Full Episode Transcript:
Last week, I had a conversation with a mom who told me she felt like she was just floating aimlessly. But as she was talking, I was sitting there thinking, wait, you've already started a business. You just don't see it yet. Many moms I talk to think they just haven't started yet, that they're stuck. They think starting a business means having a plan, making money, or being ready to quit their nine-to-five job. But what if you've actually already started and you just haven't given yourself credit for it?
Welcome to How to Quit Your Job, the podcast for moms ready to ditch the nine-to-five and build a life and business they love. I’m your host, Jenna Rykiel. Let’s go.
Hi, mom friends. Last week, I had a free webinar that was all about how to start a business before feeling ready. I've been talking about the cost of waiting and why we even misunderstand that feeling, like wanting to feel ready. We misunderstand the dynamic of that with whether or not we can start a business.
And today, I want to talk about finding evidence for why not only you can do this, why you can start a business, but why maybe you've already started it. This was inspired by a recent conversation I had with a mom who wants to start her own thing and feels like she's floating aimlessly. But she's been working outside of the traditional nine-to-five for almost a decade. She's freelanced, she's had short-term projects and contracts where she's been able to do something that she loves, and yet, there was an energy in the call that she was experiencing life as if she hadn't achieved anything yet, as if she hadn't done the thing.
And I know this is the story for so many people. I touched on this concept in episode 100 because I talked about my own experience with this. I talked about it in terms of celebrating, but it's also a sense of not recognizing our achievements, where we're achieving things and creating results and actually doing the thing, and yet we aren't giving ourselves credit for it. Over the last few weeks, I've been talking about the cost of waiting to get started and why we wait to feel ready.
And this mom that reached out to me, she reached out because all of that messaging resonated with her. She wanted to stop waiting to feel ready, and she wanted to just get started on this business that she couldn't stop thinking about. But what I learned in that conversation with her is that she actually had already started. And that's the person I want to talk to today. The person who has actually started but who isn't giving herself credit for it.
And if you're listening to this and you want to tune out because you're like, "Nope, that's not me. I haven't started yet," I want to challenge you and say stick around because maybe it is you. I want to challenge you that maybe you have started and you just aren't giving yourself credit. Maybe it's not that you've created your freelance business and have been working outside of corporate, like this mom. Maybe it's not to that extreme. But I want to challenge you, and what I'll talk about in this episode are ways that you probably have started and are just not giving yourself credit.
Maybe the idea that you have of what starting means is wrong. And it's holding you back from seeing the next step of what you could be doing to continue building and growing the business because you've lost a little trust with yourself because you believe you haven't started yet. But really, nothing has gone wrong. You just might be misunderstanding what starting looks like and not giving yourself credit for starting.
So today, I want to talk about what starting is not, that I sense a lot of moms mistakenly bucking themselves into this category of not ready or not started because they misunderstand what starting actually is. So we're going to talk about what starting actually is and is not. I want to dig into why this thought error really kills our momentum and maybe puts us in a position where we took action but weren't able to keep it going to create the next level of results.
We're going to find evidence for starting. I'm going to walk you through some questions and thought exercises that will help you see yourself as further along than you think. And by the end of this episode, you're going to have quite the identity shift. You're going to be giving yourself credit for the business that you have been building. Maybe unintentionally, but I promise you, if there's a business that you can't stop thinking about and that you've been considering and wanting, then you're further along than you think.
So it's important that we have that identity shift, and I will dig into that a little bit more, but that's what it's all about. When we focus on the gap between where we are and where we want to be, so maybe you're still in a nine-to-five and want a successful business. There's this gap of where you are and where you want to be. When we think about that gap, we feel terrible. We feel like we haven't achieved anything. We feel like we've wasted a lot of time and energy. We feel like we're floating aimlessly. We feel like we have nothing to show for the time and energy that we've invested in our career.
But when we focus on the progress, when we focus on the gain, what we've achieved, what we've actually already achieved, and how we've already started and taken action, we tap into a part of our identity that deserves to be out there. It deserves to be recognized. It's there. We've done the things, but we haven't allowed it to be part of what defines us because we are not recognizing it.
So let's get clear on what starting is and is not. In episode 101, I gave some of my own personal examples and client examples of what starting looks like because I wanted you to see what it actually looks like. It's not comfortable. It's not big grandiose actions. It's not revolutionary ideas. But I also want to be clear that starting does not have to mean that you quit your job and you have a fully-fledged business. It doesn't even have to mean that you have a clear idea of what the business would be.
Starting means that you're experimenting, you're trying things, you're seeing your own unique skills and value. You're testing things out to see what could build into a sustainable business. It doesn't have to mean that you're making money from the thing or the skill that you eventually want to build into a business. You don't have to be making money to have started.
I talked recently about my experience with donating free coaching to an organization, and that was starting. I was still in my corporate role. I was still clueless about how to build a business. I didn't have a clear plan or really even see myself as valuable yet, but I knew I needed to take action and start.
I spoke to a mom a few months ago who was wanting to start her own thing. She just never really took herself seriously or saw it as possible until actually listening to the podcast. She binged it. But even before taking herself seriously, she started a free group around something she was personally interested in and could share a lot of value in. I thought it was fascinating that when I spoke with her, she talked as if she was starting from ground zero with this business idea. She thought that she had to build everything from nothing.
And I had to point out that she already had an entire audience that was built from her just following her passion. But it's easy to discount that and to not see that as starting, especially if we did it without the intention of starting a business. We just did it because we wanted to do it, we were passionate about it. We tend to have a narrow view of what starting is, and if we haven't reached that, we discount ourselves as if we've gone nowhere.
And in a minute, I'll give even more examples because I promise, even if you have not started a free group around this skill that you might turn into a business, even if you haven't done freelance or worked on projects, I promise there are probably ways that you have started and that you just aren't recognizing it as. So in a minute, we'll talk more about specifics and examples and also do a little activity to help you really understand pieces of whether you've actually started or not. So you can uncover evidence that you're more ready than you think.
But I also want to talk about, in general, before we get to that, why this all kills our momentum. And it's all about the stories we have about ourselves. It's all about our self-concept. When you are the person who hasn't started yet, when you don't give yourself credit, you lose trust with yourself.
This is very similar to when I teach moms my time optimization method. I just did this last week with a new client and recognized this that it's often that moms have systems, but they aren't necessarily following the system. They schedule something and then prioritize something else instead. Or they have this whole idea of how they want their week to go, but they don't follow through with it.
And with every choice like that, when we have something planned and then we decide to prioritize something else, we lose trust with ourselves. We are no longer the person who does what she says she's going to do. It's the same thing with starting a business. If we don't take action, or if we perceive that we are not taking action, we lose trust with ourselves because we have this idea and we are not doing the thing we said we were going to do. We're not starting the business.
And the more we lose trust with ourselves, the more we actually dismiss our value. The more we start to believe that we are something we're not. We believe that we're lazy or incapable or don't know enough or don't know how to do this. And this becomes an identity problem when the story we tell ourselves is that we haven't started and we don't know how to start. But what I want to offer is that it's not a true identity for anyone listening.
And I'll talk about why in a second, but if you really dug into it, which I do with every client, there's so much more that defines you. And we need to tap into that and remember all of those things because those are the things that move us towards building a business that taps into our value. We need to move more towards that story and away from the story that disempowers us. The story that we haven't started and we don't know how to start and we don't know what we're doing.
When we are thinking that we haven't started and feeling bad about ourselves in the process, we stop taking action entirely because we think we're stuck or that we're floating aimlessly. When actually, when I talk to people and hear about what they've done so far, I see it completely differently. I see that they have taken action. They have achieved results.
They may not be ready to quit their job, or they may not have a mature business up and running, but they have taken action. They have started. And now they just need to see themselves as someone who has done those things so that they can benefit from giving themselves credit.
When you believe you haven't started, you show up like someone who hasn't started. And when you show up like someone who hasn't started, I promise you that you don't allow action to build momentum. Instead, you create reasons to stop after taking action.
So, I want to do a little exercise and prove you wrong. That's what I want to do right now. I want to prove you wrong. I want to prove that you actually have started. Stick with me here. I want to prove that things that you have done can actually build momentum and lead you to the next step, which does create the bigger results.
So, let's quickly redefine evidence for starting. You don't have to have an LLC. You don't have to be making any money in your business. You don't have to have left your nine-to-five. You don't even have to have a business plan or a business idea, and it's possible that you've actually started. If you are listening to this podcast and if you've made it this far into the podcast, congratulations. You've started.
If you have thought enough about starting a business that you're investing time and energy listening to business resources, which is this podcast, that absolutely counts as taking action and starting. You can absolutely ride a wave of momentum from just that. So many of my episodes recommend different actions and offer ideas for next steps. If you wrap up with an episode and you aren't feeling a pull to the next step that you can take, listen to another episode.
Or maybe listen with an open mind on what the next action step could be. Listen with a little bit more intention. Listen with the identity of, "I'm starting a business." So let me listen in. Maybe right now you're just mindlessly consuming, which is fine, but maybe it's making yourself an active consumer with an intention to let any one episode that you hear from my podcast or any other resources lead you to the next action step.
So right there, if your ear is listening to this, you've started. And I want you to recognize that you can adopt the identity of somebody who has started because that identity will take you a lot farther than the identity of somebody who has not started, who does not know how to start, who does not know what to do. Let's give yourself credit because you're listening to a business resource. That's action.
And let's talk about some other things, because that's one I know for sure, because you're listening. But I want you to think about other ways that you've stepped out of thinking and into action. Because action is active. So how have we stopped overthinking and started moving?
I want you to explore, have you talked to anyone about your business idea or the desire for change? Even if it's just your partner, especially if it's your partner. Have you had deep conversations where the person on the other side has asked you questions or challenged you and you've had to respond to them? You've had to think differently. You've had to take your thinking and produce action responses.
Have you looked into materials if you're thinking about creating a product? Even if it was just out of curiosity. Curiosity is one of the best feelings to build momentum. It leads us to things and places that we never find if we're stuck in despair or self-doubt. Curiosity puts us in motion. It's a fantastic thing to lean into for momentum and action.
Have you reached out to anyone in your network? Have you watched a few YouTube videos about a certain topic that interests you? Have you gone as far as earning a certification or credential in a particular field? Or even a master's degree like I did because I thought I needed that to start a business. Spoiler alert, you absolutely don't need an MBA to start a business, and it's usually an antithesis for entrepreneurship.
But many of you, I'm sure, have earned a credential or a certification or some degree in a specific field, but you are not seeing that as starting. You are not seeing that as something that can build momentum. Some of you, I'm sure, have even offered your unique services or skills for free or less money than you're worth, and you're not counting that as well.
So are there times or situations where that has happened? I know that was the case with the two moms I talked about earlier. One is doing the thing she loves, but it's just not in an organized or sustainable way. So it feels aimless and like she's floating and it doesn't count. And the other had already organized an audience but since it was free and not necessarily created with the intention of starting a business, she felt like it didn't actually count.
I want you to ask yourself, if I assume that I've already started taking action on starting a business, what things would I count as evidence? Go to that place where we just assume that you already have taken action. What are the things that are evidence for that? If action didn't have to be big steps or massive results, what things have I done so far? What am I discounting as actions because it doesn't feel big enough?
So many of you are not lacking experience at all. You actually have a ton of expertise. I work with some of the smartest women I've ever met. It's amazing. I feel so lucky. You're not lacking experience and many of you are not even lacking action. Many of you have taken a ton of action. You're lacking recognition of both of those things. You're lacking the joy and the confidence that comes with seeing it as experience and action.
I know I went through a lot of questions there. Just a reminder, you can go to the show notes, jenna.coach/103 and there's always a full transcript of the episode, so you can go and search for those question marks and copy and paste it in your journal if you like journaling, but just capture those questions and really challenge yourself. I'm sure you're doing other things as you're listening, so that's a way that you can always come back to it.
The other thing that I want to mention is that so many moms I work with end up doing some sort of consulting or they stay in the field that they build their corporate careers in. They do that because they like the work. They just don't like the confines of a nine-to-five. And I always say, and I mean it with all my heart, corporate and companies that adhere to a nine-to-five were not designed for moms. So it absolutely makes sense if you like your work, but you don't like the confines of it. That you want to be doing the same work, but you want to be doing it as your own boss.
What I want to say about this is that if you're someone who wants to stay in your industry, how has the last decade, or however many years you've been in your nine-to-five role, how has that led to you starting a business? You may think it's a stretch, but I just want you to do a little thought exercise with me. And this is us changing our perspective on the last how many years of working corporate or a nine-to-five.
Let's say that you've worked in marketing your entire career. You have a degree in marketing management. You worked for an agency or maybe even were in a small marketing department for a larger company. Let's say you're the friend that people go to when they need an invitation for their kid's birthday party designed. This is 100% my sister. Anything creative, we all go to her and she's amazing.
I know there are others of you out there who are supporting people like me who can't even figure out how anything fits on her walls. There are plenty of you out there who are doing free work for the people you love. And let's say that you're that marketing person. You've been in the marketing industry your entire life and you want to create something of your own, you want to be your own boss.
Let's try on two different thoughts. This is a thought exercise. The first is that you want to start a business but have no idea where to start or what to do. You've stayed in your marketing role for what you think is far too long and have been miserable. And this feels heavy.
This is the version of you that loses trust with herself because she's beating herself up for her current life. She sees that she can be doing something more but doesn't feel that she's taken action. She doesn't see that she's taken action. There's no evidence, so she feels stuck. I want you to feel into that version of you. And it may not be marketing industry, right? It could be any other industry.
Same situation, let's say that you've built your entire career in marketing and you want to start your own business and you see the past decade as part of the process of getting you to where you are today, ready to start a business. You see that you're going to use your experience in different marketing departments to figure out what you're good at and what you want to offer. You see that you're going to think back to all your connections that you've developed in the industry and reach out to them for a coffee chat.
You wouldn't have had all of these connections without such an extensive career in the industry, and you see this as such a big opportunity. You look back and see that every time a family member or friend asked you for help on a flyer or an invitation, you see that as evidence that you are valuable and that you have something to offer and that you have been building your confidence and building your value for starting a business.
I want you to take a second and think about that for yourself and think about the feeling that you get when you're thinking about your entire career as something that adds value to your business and that has not been time wasted. In fact, has been so important to business development versus that first scenario where we just feel like we haven't started and we've wasted so much time and we're miserable and we're not living up to our full potential. It's very different experiences. It's very different feelings. And from those feelings come very different actions.
And maybe it's not marketing for you, obviously, but maybe it's video production, maybe it's photography, project management, event planning, sales, even coaching. If you were a leader in your company with direct reports, you've done coaching. If you're the friend who people come to because you're grounded and a great listener, these can be evidence that you've already started. There are no right or wrong answers. What we want here is for you to see yourself and your past differently so that it can create momentum for your future accomplishments.
When you see your career as building up to this moment where now you will take everything you know and turn it into building something of your own, you're energized to do the next thing. When we see the things we've done in our past as part of building the business, our identity shifts. Our confidence grows. You're someone who has already started and is building. Identity comes from what you recognize, not just what you do. Because I would argue that so many of you have done so many amazing things and you have not let your identity catch up to it.
So I challenge you to not only look back at all the things you've done in your career, but also all the things you might be doing now and discounting. I want you to write them down as evidence that you've actually started and see what comes up for you. I want you to actually do this and grab a piece of paper when you have a minute. I want you to open your notes app or your voicemail app, whatever feels easiest, and write down or talk through the evidence.
All the ways that you've already started, the conversations you've had, the things you've explored, the moments you've followed curiosity, the skills you've built over the years. I want you to notice how you think about yourself differently in doing that exercise. I want you to notice how differently you feel when you're thinking about the business after doing that exercise. I promise it will open you up in the best possible ways to that next step, whatever that might be.
The goal here isn't to convince yourself you're further along than you are. It's to recognize what's already true, that you're not at zero. You're not behind and you're definitely not someone who hasn't started. I don't even know you personally, and I know that just because of so many of the conversations I've had with moms. You are someone who has been building, maybe quietly, maybe unintentionally, but building nonetheless.
Maybe you haven't been able to take a step back and see how your career has led to this place, but I want to challenge you to do that now because when you start to see yourself that way, you are going to show up differently. You're going to trust yourself more, you're going to stop waiting, and you're going to take that next step faster.
And if that next step is exploring working with a coach, let's do it. Let's explore it. There have been a number of moms who've reached out to me recently who have been quietly thinking, lurking, listening to the podcast, reading my emails, and we're talking about months and years here.
But they've decided that they are ready for support now in the next steps. They are ready for thought partnership and accountability. They're ready for a community of moms who are juggling the same things and creating amazing things. They are ready for direction, and they are ready to see themselves from an outsider's perspective, someone who might believe in them more than they believe in themselves right now.
And if you're one of those moms, if you're feeling ready for that conversation as a next step, as a momentum builder, I encourage you to schedule a free one-hour consultation with me. We'll talk through your biggest challenges and really understand the role coaching can play and getting you to your results faster than going at it alone.
As always, there will be a scheduling link in the show notes, jenna.coach/103. No matter where you're at in the process of building something of your own, I promise you're further along than you think. Having a conversation about that in that consultation may just prove it to you.
No matter what, I want you to celebrate yourself. I want you to be proud of yourself. I want you to do that exercise, and from that energy of seeing all the ways that you've taken action and all the ways that you've started, I want you to allow that to be momentum to keep going. Okay, mama, I'll see you next week.
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of How to Quit Your Job: A Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life and Business You Love. If you want to learn more about how I can help you stop making excuses and start making moves, head on over to www.jenna.coach. I’ll see you next week.
Welcome to How to Quit Your Job, the podcast for moms ready to ditch the nine-to-five and build a life and business they love. I’m your host, Jenna Rykiel. Let’s go.
Hi, mom friends. Last week, I had a free webinar that was all about how to start a business before feeling ready. I've been talking about the cost of waiting and why we even misunderstand that feeling, like wanting to feel ready. We misunderstand the dynamic of that with whether or not we can start a business.
And today, I want to talk about finding evidence for why not only you can do this, why you can start a business, but why maybe you've already started it. This was inspired by a recent conversation I had with a mom who wants to start her own thing and feels like she's floating aimlessly. But she's been working outside of the traditional nine-to-five for almost a decade. She's freelanced, she's had short-term projects and contracts where she's been able to do something that she loves, and yet, there was an energy in the call that she was experiencing life as if she hadn't achieved anything yet, as if she hadn't done the thing.
And I know this is the story for so many people. I touched on this concept in episode 100 because I talked about my own experience with this. I talked about it in terms of celebrating, but it's also a sense of not recognizing our achievements, where we're achieving things and creating results and actually doing the thing, and yet we aren't giving ourselves credit for it. Over the last few weeks, I've been talking about the cost of waiting to get started and why we wait to feel ready.
And this mom that reached out to me, she reached out because all of that messaging resonated with her. She wanted to stop waiting to feel ready, and she wanted to just get started on this business that she couldn't stop thinking about. But what I learned in that conversation with her is that she actually had already started. And that's the person I want to talk to today. The person who has actually started but who isn't giving herself credit for it.
And if you're listening to this and you want to tune out because you're like, "Nope, that's not me. I haven't started yet," I want to challenge you and say stick around because maybe it is you. I want to challenge you that maybe you have started and you just aren't giving yourself credit. Maybe it's not that you've created your freelance business and have been working outside of corporate, like this mom. Maybe it's not to that extreme. But I want to challenge you, and what I'll talk about in this episode are ways that you probably have started and are just not giving yourself credit.
Maybe the idea that you have of what starting means is wrong. And it's holding you back from seeing the next step of what you could be doing to continue building and growing the business because you've lost a little trust with yourself because you believe you haven't started yet. But really, nothing has gone wrong. You just might be misunderstanding what starting looks like and not giving yourself credit for starting.
So today, I want to talk about what starting is not, that I sense a lot of moms mistakenly bucking themselves into this category of not ready or not started because they misunderstand what starting actually is. So we're going to talk about what starting actually is and is not. I want to dig into why this thought error really kills our momentum and maybe puts us in a position where we took action but weren't able to keep it going to create the next level of results.
We're going to find evidence for starting. I'm going to walk you through some questions and thought exercises that will help you see yourself as further along than you think. And by the end of this episode, you're going to have quite the identity shift. You're going to be giving yourself credit for the business that you have been building. Maybe unintentionally, but I promise you, if there's a business that you can't stop thinking about and that you've been considering and wanting, then you're further along than you think.
So it's important that we have that identity shift, and I will dig into that a little bit more, but that's what it's all about. When we focus on the gap between where we are and where we want to be, so maybe you're still in a nine-to-five and want a successful business. There's this gap of where you are and where you want to be. When we think about that gap, we feel terrible. We feel like we haven't achieved anything. We feel like we've wasted a lot of time and energy. We feel like we're floating aimlessly. We feel like we have nothing to show for the time and energy that we've invested in our career.
But when we focus on the progress, when we focus on the gain, what we've achieved, what we've actually already achieved, and how we've already started and taken action, we tap into a part of our identity that deserves to be out there. It deserves to be recognized. It's there. We've done the things, but we haven't allowed it to be part of what defines us because we are not recognizing it.
So let's get clear on what starting is and is not. In episode 101, I gave some of my own personal examples and client examples of what starting looks like because I wanted you to see what it actually looks like. It's not comfortable. It's not big grandiose actions. It's not revolutionary ideas. But I also want to be clear that starting does not have to mean that you quit your job and you have a fully-fledged business. It doesn't even have to mean that you have a clear idea of what the business would be.
Starting means that you're experimenting, you're trying things, you're seeing your own unique skills and value. You're testing things out to see what could build into a sustainable business. It doesn't have to mean that you're making money from the thing or the skill that you eventually want to build into a business. You don't have to be making money to have started.
I talked recently about my experience with donating free coaching to an organization, and that was starting. I was still in my corporate role. I was still clueless about how to build a business. I didn't have a clear plan or really even see myself as valuable yet, but I knew I needed to take action and start.
I spoke to a mom a few months ago who was wanting to start her own thing. She just never really took herself seriously or saw it as possible until actually listening to the podcast. She binged it. But even before taking herself seriously, she started a free group around something she was personally interested in and could share a lot of value in. I thought it was fascinating that when I spoke with her, she talked as if she was starting from ground zero with this business idea. She thought that she had to build everything from nothing.
And I had to point out that she already had an entire audience that was built from her just following her passion. But it's easy to discount that and to not see that as starting, especially if we did it without the intention of starting a business. We just did it because we wanted to do it, we were passionate about it. We tend to have a narrow view of what starting is, and if we haven't reached that, we discount ourselves as if we've gone nowhere.
And in a minute, I'll give even more examples because I promise, even if you have not started a free group around this skill that you might turn into a business, even if you haven't done freelance or worked on projects, I promise there are probably ways that you have started and that you just aren't recognizing it as. So in a minute, we'll talk more about specifics and examples and also do a little activity to help you really understand pieces of whether you've actually started or not. So you can uncover evidence that you're more ready than you think.
But I also want to talk about, in general, before we get to that, why this all kills our momentum. And it's all about the stories we have about ourselves. It's all about our self-concept. When you are the person who hasn't started yet, when you don't give yourself credit, you lose trust with yourself.
This is very similar to when I teach moms my time optimization method. I just did this last week with a new client and recognized this that it's often that moms have systems, but they aren't necessarily following the system. They schedule something and then prioritize something else instead. Or they have this whole idea of how they want their week to go, but they don't follow through with it.
And with every choice like that, when we have something planned and then we decide to prioritize something else, we lose trust with ourselves. We are no longer the person who does what she says she's going to do. It's the same thing with starting a business. If we don't take action, or if we perceive that we are not taking action, we lose trust with ourselves because we have this idea and we are not doing the thing we said we were going to do. We're not starting the business.
And the more we lose trust with ourselves, the more we actually dismiss our value. The more we start to believe that we are something we're not. We believe that we're lazy or incapable or don't know enough or don't know how to do this. And this becomes an identity problem when the story we tell ourselves is that we haven't started and we don't know how to start. But what I want to offer is that it's not a true identity for anyone listening.
And I'll talk about why in a second, but if you really dug into it, which I do with every client, there's so much more that defines you. And we need to tap into that and remember all of those things because those are the things that move us towards building a business that taps into our value. We need to move more towards that story and away from the story that disempowers us. The story that we haven't started and we don't know how to start and we don't know what we're doing.
When we are thinking that we haven't started and feeling bad about ourselves in the process, we stop taking action entirely because we think we're stuck or that we're floating aimlessly. When actually, when I talk to people and hear about what they've done so far, I see it completely differently. I see that they have taken action. They have achieved results.
They may not be ready to quit their job, or they may not have a mature business up and running, but they have taken action. They have started. And now they just need to see themselves as someone who has done those things so that they can benefit from giving themselves credit.
When you believe you haven't started, you show up like someone who hasn't started. And when you show up like someone who hasn't started, I promise you that you don't allow action to build momentum. Instead, you create reasons to stop after taking action.
So, I want to do a little exercise and prove you wrong. That's what I want to do right now. I want to prove you wrong. I want to prove that you actually have started. Stick with me here. I want to prove that things that you have done can actually build momentum and lead you to the next step, which does create the bigger results.
So, let's quickly redefine evidence for starting. You don't have to have an LLC. You don't have to be making any money in your business. You don't have to have left your nine-to-five. You don't even have to have a business plan or a business idea, and it's possible that you've actually started. If you are listening to this podcast and if you've made it this far into the podcast, congratulations. You've started.
If you have thought enough about starting a business that you're investing time and energy listening to business resources, which is this podcast, that absolutely counts as taking action and starting. You can absolutely ride a wave of momentum from just that. So many of my episodes recommend different actions and offer ideas for next steps. If you wrap up with an episode and you aren't feeling a pull to the next step that you can take, listen to another episode.
Or maybe listen with an open mind on what the next action step could be. Listen with a little bit more intention. Listen with the identity of, "I'm starting a business." So let me listen in. Maybe right now you're just mindlessly consuming, which is fine, but maybe it's making yourself an active consumer with an intention to let any one episode that you hear from my podcast or any other resources lead you to the next action step.
So right there, if your ear is listening to this, you've started. And I want you to recognize that you can adopt the identity of somebody who has started because that identity will take you a lot farther than the identity of somebody who has not started, who does not know how to start, who does not know what to do. Let's give yourself credit because you're listening to a business resource. That's action.
And let's talk about some other things, because that's one I know for sure, because you're listening. But I want you to think about other ways that you've stepped out of thinking and into action. Because action is active. So how have we stopped overthinking and started moving?
I want you to explore, have you talked to anyone about your business idea or the desire for change? Even if it's just your partner, especially if it's your partner. Have you had deep conversations where the person on the other side has asked you questions or challenged you and you've had to respond to them? You've had to think differently. You've had to take your thinking and produce action responses.
Have you looked into materials if you're thinking about creating a product? Even if it was just out of curiosity. Curiosity is one of the best feelings to build momentum. It leads us to things and places that we never find if we're stuck in despair or self-doubt. Curiosity puts us in motion. It's a fantastic thing to lean into for momentum and action.
Have you reached out to anyone in your network? Have you watched a few YouTube videos about a certain topic that interests you? Have you gone as far as earning a certification or credential in a particular field? Or even a master's degree like I did because I thought I needed that to start a business. Spoiler alert, you absolutely don't need an MBA to start a business, and it's usually an antithesis for entrepreneurship.
But many of you, I'm sure, have earned a credential or a certification or some degree in a specific field, but you are not seeing that as starting. You are not seeing that as something that can build momentum. Some of you, I'm sure, have even offered your unique services or skills for free or less money than you're worth, and you're not counting that as well.
So are there times or situations where that has happened? I know that was the case with the two moms I talked about earlier. One is doing the thing she loves, but it's just not in an organized or sustainable way. So it feels aimless and like she's floating and it doesn't count. And the other had already organized an audience but since it was free and not necessarily created with the intention of starting a business, she felt like it didn't actually count.
I want you to ask yourself, if I assume that I've already started taking action on starting a business, what things would I count as evidence? Go to that place where we just assume that you already have taken action. What are the things that are evidence for that? If action didn't have to be big steps or massive results, what things have I done so far? What am I discounting as actions because it doesn't feel big enough?
So many of you are not lacking experience at all. You actually have a ton of expertise. I work with some of the smartest women I've ever met. It's amazing. I feel so lucky. You're not lacking experience and many of you are not even lacking action. Many of you have taken a ton of action. You're lacking recognition of both of those things. You're lacking the joy and the confidence that comes with seeing it as experience and action.
I know I went through a lot of questions there. Just a reminder, you can go to the show notes, jenna.coach/103 and there's always a full transcript of the episode, so you can go and search for those question marks and copy and paste it in your journal if you like journaling, but just capture those questions and really challenge yourself. I'm sure you're doing other things as you're listening, so that's a way that you can always come back to it.
The other thing that I want to mention is that so many moms I work with end up doing some sort of consulting or they stay in the field that they build their corporate careers in. They do that because they like the work. They just don't like the confines of a nine-to-five. And I always say, and I mean it with all my heart, corporate and companies that adhere to a nine-to-five were not designed for moms. So it absolutely makes sense if you like your work, but you don't like the confines of it. That you want to be doing the same work, but you want to be doing it as your own boss.
What I want to say about this is that if you're someone who wants to stay in your industry, how has the last decade, or however many years you've been in your nine-to-five role, how has that led to you starting a business? You may think it's a stretch, but I just want you to do a little thought exercise with me. And this is us changing our perspective on the last how many years of working corporate or a nine-to-five.
Let's say that you've worked in marketing your entire career. You have a degree in marketing management. You worked for an agency or maybe even were in a small marketing department for a larger company. Let's say you're the friend that people go to when they need an invitation for their kid's birthday party designed. This is 100% my sister. Anything creative, we all go to her and she's amazing.
I know there are others of you out there who are supporting people like me who can't even figure out how anything fits on her walls. There are plenty of you out there who are doing free work for the people you love. And let's say that you're that marketing person. You've been in the marketing industry your entire life and you want to create something of your own, you want to be your own boss.
Let's try on two different thoughts. This is a thought exercise. The first is that you want to start a business but have no idea where to start or what to do. You've stayed in your marketing role for what you think is far too long and have been miserable. And this feels heavy.
This is the version of you that loses trust with herself because she's beating herself up for her current life. She sees that she can be doing something more but doesn't feel that she's taken action. She doesn't see that she's taken action. There's no evidence, so she feels stuck. I want you to feel into that version of you. And it may not be marketing industry, right? It could be any other industry.
Same situation, let's say that you've built your entire career in marketing and you want to start your own business and you see the past decade as part of the process of getting you to where you are today, ready to start a business. You see that you're going to use your experience in different marketing departments to figure out what you're good at and what you want to offer. You see that you're going to think back to all your connections that you've developed in the industry and reach out to them for a coffee chat.
You wouldn't have had all of these connections without such an extensive career in the industry, and you see this as such a big opportunity. You look back and see that every time a family member or friend asked you for help on a flyer or an invitation, you see that as evidence that you are valuable and that you have something to offer and that you have been building your confidence and building your value for starting a business.
I want you to take a second and think about that for yourself and think about the feeling that you get when you're thinking about your entire career as something that adds value to your business and that has not been time wasted. In fact, has been so important to business development versus that first scenario where we just feel like we haven't started and we've wasted so much time and we're miserable and we're not living up to our full potential. It's very different experiences. It's very different feelings. And from those feelings come very different actions.
And maybe it's not marketing for you, obviously, but maybe it's video production, maybe it's photography, project management, event planning, sales, even coaching. If you were a leader in your company with direct reports, you've done coaching. If you're the friend who people come to because you're grounded and a great listener, these can be evidence that you've already started. There are no right or wrong answers. What we want here is for you to see yourself and your past differently so that it can create momentum for your future accomplishments.
When you see your career as building up to this moment where now you will take everything you know and turn it into building something of your own, you're energized to do the next thing. When we see the things we've done in our past as part of building the business, our identity shifts. Our confidence grows. You're someone who has already started and is building. Identity comes from what you recognize, not just what you do. Because I would argue that so many of you have done so many amazing things and you have not let your identity catch up to it.
So I challenge you to not only look back at all the things you've done in your career, but also all the things you might be doing now and discounting. I want you to write them down as evidence that you've actually started and see what comes up for you. I want you to actually do this and grab a piece of paper when you have a minute. I want you to open your notes app or your voicemail app, whatever feels easiest, and write down or talk through the evidence.
All the ways that you've already started, the conversations you've had, the things you've explored, the moments you've followed curiosity, the skills you've built over the years. I want you to notice how you think about yourself differently in doing that exercise. I want you to notice how differently you feel when you're thinking about the business after doing that exercise. I promise it will open you up in the best possible ways to that next step, whatever that might be.
The goal here isn't to convince yourself you're further along than you are. It's to recognize what's already true, that you're not at zero. You're not behind and you're definitely not someone who hasn't started. I don't even know you personally, and I know that just because of so many of the conversations I've had with moms. You are someone who has been building, maybe quietly, maybe unintentionally, but building nonetheless.
Maybe you haven't been able to take a step back and see how your career has led to this place, but I want to challenge you to do that now because when you start to see yourself that way, you are going to show up differently. You're going to trust yourself more, you're going to stop waiting, and you're going to take that next step faster.
And if that next step is exploring working with a coach, let's do it. Let's explore it. There have been a number of moms who've reached out to me recently who have been quietly thinking, lurking, listening to the podcast, reading my emails, and we're talking about months and years here.
But they've decided that they are ready for support now in the next steps. They are ready for thought partnership and accountability. They're ready for a community of moms who are juggling the same things and creating amazing things. They are ready for direction, and they are ready to see themselves from an outsider's perspective, someone who might believe in them more than they believe in themselves right now.
And if you're one of those moms, if you're feeling ready for that conversation as a next step, as a momentum builder, I encourage you to schedule a free one-hour consultation with me. We'll talk through your biggest challenges and really understand the role coaching can play and getting you to your results faster than going at it alone.
As always, there will be a scheduling link in the show notes, jenna.coach/103. No matter where you're at in the process of building something of your own, I promise you're further along than you think. Having a conversation about that in that consultation may just prove it to you.
No matter what, I want you to celebrate yourself. I want you to be proud of yourself. I want you to do that exercise, and from that energy of seeing all the ways that you've taken action and all the ways that you've started, I want you to allow that to be momentum to keep going. Okay, mama, I'll see you next week.
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of How to Quit Your Job: A Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life and Business You Love. If you want to learn more about how I can help you stop making excuses and start making moves, head on over to www.jenna.coach. I’ll see you next week.
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