In another article I have shared with you what mental models are and how they can limit your way of seeing things and interacting with the world. If you haven't read it yet and want to dig deeper, you can do so here: What is success and how does it relate to your beliefs? But where I want to help you reflect today is how the beliefs you could have about your business, about yourself, will affect your success as an independent professional and the results you can obtain in your business.
Here are 3 very frequent beliefs and their true origins. Working on what originates these beliefs can help you banish them and form new beliefs that are empowering (rather than limiting) and help you realize your goal of being a successful independent professional:
Number 1 - The sale is not for me
This is the first belief I systematically hear from most of the people I interact with and are (or want to be) freelancers. You feel identified? Here I am going to help you change the paradigm. Stop thinking that you are the one who sells to your client. Your client is the one who will decide if he buys from you. The only thing that you will do is help her to see the congruence of your services with her need and the benefits that she could obtain if she contracts your services. Once you take this pressure off yourself, the true beliefs that may be limiting you the most deeply begin to play. The sale has to do with valuing yourself, promoting your services and also your virtues. Selling is not just exchanging something for money. Selling is sharing ideas, inspiring, motivating.Sell your skills and achievements to make a career in a company, sell your way of being in a new group of friends, sell an idea to your partner when you are looking for consensus to make a decision. This is something that costs a lot of people who are excellent professionals. So if you are in that group, don't worry, you are not alone. Typically, you hide behind a supposed modesty of "I'm good, I don't have to be saying it." Well, welcome to the real world of business. Promotion is essential. If you don't tell (and show) others, your potential customers and the market that you are good (and how good), what are your differentiating characteristics, what is the advantage of your product and the virtues of your service, nobody will do it for you.sell your way of being in a new group of friends, sell an idea to your partner when you are looking for consensus to make a decision. This is something that costs a lot of people who are excellent professionals. So if you are in that group, don't worry, you are not alone. Typically, you hide behind a supposed modesty of "I'm good, I don't have to be saying it." Well, welcome to the real world of business. Promotion is essential. If you don't tell (and show) others, your potential customers and the market that you are good (and how good), what are your differentiating characteristics, what is the advantage of your product and the virtues of your service, nobody will do it for you.sell your way of being in a new group of friends, sell an idea to your partner when you are looking for consensus to make a decision. This is something that costs a lot of people who are excellent professionals. So if you are in that group, don't worry, you are not alone. Typically, you hide behind a supposed modesty of "I'm good, I don't have to be saying it." Well, welcome to the real world of business. Promotion is essential. If you don't tell (and show) others, your potential customers and the market that you are good (and how good), what are your differentiating characteristics, what is the advantage of your product and the virtues of your service, nobody will do it for you.This is something that costs a lot of people who are excellent professionals. So if you are in that group, don't worry, you are not alone. Typically, you hide behind a supposed modesty of "I'm good, I don't have to be saying it." Well, welcome to the real world of business. Promotion is essential. If you don't tell (and show) others, your potential customers and the market that you are good (and how good), what are your differentiating characteristics, what is the advantage of your product and the virtues of your service, nobody will do it for you.This is something that costs a lot of people who are excellent professionals. So if you are in that group, don't worry, you are not alone. Typically, you hide behind a supposed modesty of "I'm good, I don't have to be saying it." Well, welcome to the real world of business. Promotion is essential. If you don't tell (and show) others, your potential customers and the market that you are good (and how good), what are your differentiating characteristics, what is the advantage of your product and the virtues of your service, nobody will do it for you.welcome to the real world of business. Promotion is essential. If you don't tell (and show) others, your potential customers and the market that you are good (and how good), what are your differentiating characteristics, what is the advantage of your product and the virtues of your service, nobody will do it for you.welcome to the real world of business. Promotion is essential. If you don't tell (and show) others, your potential customers and the market that you are good (and how good), what are your differentiating characteristics, what is the advantage of your product and the virtues of your service, nobody will do it for you.
The problem here is that you may not believe in yourself. You do not think your product is special and you are not sure of the results of your service. Then you feel uncomfortable promoting or selling because you feel that, deep down, you are cheating. In one of my favorite books (The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, by T. Harv Eker), when he talks about promotion he gives an example similar to this one that I want you to also take advantage of: if you had the cure for a terrible disease, and in front Of you there is a group of people suffering from this disease, in which way would it seem correct to you not to speak up and promote this cure just so as not to seem conceited or modest? I think with this example you have given yourself an idea of where I want to take you. So, as you continue to reflect on it, I move on to the next belief.
Number 2 - if I aspire to have high rates, I will become a bad person
There are two reasons why you might have this belief. First, that you believe that with high rates your customers will not buy your product. In that case, the one that is bothering you is the belief related to the sale, because what you perhaps feel is that the value you offer is not enough to charge that price. Now if what you think is that with high rates, you will have more money and this represents a problem in itself, this is the belief that is bothering you: "the ambition to have a lot of money will make me a bad person". In my opinion, beliefs about money are the most damaging and unfortunately too frequent. It has sometimes happened to me to meet people who want to have their own business and they tell me about their idea very excited but they clarify (expressly) that their intention is not to make a lot of money.Just enough to live well and maybe a few tastes each time. It is a great limitation to think like this. I don't want you to focus only on money, but on the contrary: don't take it all away! If you put a dimension of this style to your business, you are setting a ceiling for success. When you delve into the reason for this you find this common belief: it is that money makes people bad. I am sorry to inform you that money is only a tool and the only thing it will do is enhance what is inside you. So when you see people who are really mean and hurtful with a little money (or power) don't kill the messenger. It is not about money or power, they have only emphasized characteristics that were there.So do not worry and focus on growing your business and having a lot of money (all you need and want). You can always choose what to do with it. A magician will never come and will exchange your good attitudes for other negligible ones. You can choose to reinvest in your business, create a new one, help your relatives or people you don't know and who are struggling, dedicate yourself to traveling and inspiring others, etc. Money is a tool, like a hammer. That it can be used both to build a boat and to destroy it into a thousand pieces. It is a tool and you choose whether you use it to build or destroy your own story.help your relatives or people you don't know and who are struggling, dedicate yourself to travel and inspire others, etc. Money is a tool, like a hammer. That it can be used both to build a boat and to destroy it into a thousand pieces. It is a tool and you choose whether you use it to build or destroy your own story.help your relatives or people you don't know and who are struggling, dedicate yourself to travel and inspire others, etc. Money is a tool, like a hammer. That it can be used both to build a boat and to destroy it into a thousand pieces. It is a tool and you choose whether you use it to build or destroy your own story.
Number 3 - If I don't try hard, if it doesn't cost me, if it doesn't hurt… I'm not deserving enough
This belief is born from the well-known "No pain, no gain" (so painless, there is no gain) that we hear so often when we want to get in better physical shape and tell us that if it doesn't hurt, our muscles are not working enough.
In the business world it is also used very often and has a certain grain of truth. If you are not dedicated and consistent, you will not have results. If you don't stretch out of your comfort zone, it's very difficult for you to achieve surprising goals. But there is a belief that can limit your business and it works this way: effort is not always equal to pain, to abhor what you do, to suffer it. When you love your job, when you dedicate yourself to your professional passion, you may work long hours and you may find it difficult to do some things that you are not used to, but in general you have a high level of constant satisfaction because you are doing what you like. Then that belief can arise… "As it is not hurting, as I am not suffering and I am actually enjoying it, then I am not doing enough."That is the belief that it can be harmful to your business. Because, contrary to this, what can make your business subsist beyond the hard beginnings, is precisely the passion you have for it and how much you enjoy what you do.
Now you know, these 3 beliefs can play tricks on you and limit your success, but if you are aware of them and learn to manage them, you will have 3 tools in your favor, helping you build the business you really want and with which you want to live and enjoy the next years of your life.
