Excuses that are keeping you stuck

I am so excited to talk about this because I think about this all the time when I do it myself, and it's five excuses that keep you stuck, and I think that I go through. One or two of these excuses on the daily of why, you know, I'm not doing something or you know, I know where I should be.

Why am I not there? And nine times out of 10, it's one of these five excuses. So I wanted to share them with you just to basically shine a light on them so that you can kind of, you know, when. You're running into a mindset issue, you can kind of look and say, Oh, okay, I remember Allie talking about these and yep.

The first thing is the most common one, I would say, and that's I don't have time. Right? We've all said I don't have time to do something. There are a million reason and nd excuses of why we don't have time, right? We have something else to do.

We have kids, we have an appointment. We are tired, you know? So we need to take a nap and we don't have time. We have to prepare dinner. We all have to eat. We have to work out. We have to stay healthy. We just don't have time to do this one thing in our business that we're supposed to. But let me tell you this, and I wrote about this in my book, Empowered Every.

That we always have time for what is important to us. We always have time for what's a priority for us. So think about it, if your child has a game, a sports game, say they have football, soccer, whatever it might be, and being in attendance to watch your kids' games is a priority for you. You will always have the time to do that, right?

I use that example because, for me, I always will have the time to do that. I will not schedule a phone call at that time. I will not prepare dinner at that time. I will be at that game because that is a priority for me. Right? So we need to look at it as our business.

Maybe you don't want to do or don't find as much enjoyment about. We used that prior. We used that excuse that we just don't have the time. Right? So we need to stop using that excuse of we don't have time. It's not that we don't have the time. And sometimes, you know, “The, the I don't have the time”.

Excuse is just a cover up for, it's not important to me. It's not a priority. So we need to switch that next time you have something that you need to do in your business, and the excuse I don't have time comes up, I want you to change that excuse too. It's not a priority, then you can look at it differently.

Okay? So if you say, That thing is not a priority for me, that's a signal, right? That's either something that needs to leave your business and no longer be a part of your business or, or. It's something you need to outsource. If it's something that has to be in your business, then you need to outsource it, right?

I'll just use, legal as an example because I do this. If you have on your to-do list, file a trademark, right? And in order to do that, you need to do a bunch of research and you need to figure out how to do it. And you keep saying, I just don't have time. Is that something that you can just take out of your business and not have?

No, it's important to have a trademark in your business, or multiple. So taking it off your business and out of your business together is not an option, right? So you look at that and you say, Okay, filing that trademark is not a priority to me right now. That's a signal either. Either you let it sit on that to-do list or you outsource it, right? To an attorney like myself that can file the trademark for you, right? 

It's not that you don't have time, you have the time. It's not a priority. So next time you say, I don't have time, change it to it's not a priority. And then find a way to either get it out of your business altogether or to outsource it to get it done, or make it a priority and get it done yourself.

Number two, no money. I don't have the money to do that. This one's multifaceted, right? And I am speaking to people that are in a situation where they are safe. They have some level of, you know, shelter, you know, access to internet. Water, food, all that I'm talking about. I don't have the money in a mindset or in a situation of a business owner that is in a safe environment where they can thrive as a human being.

I'm just making that disclaimer because there are situations that people don't have money, and that's a real life-threatening thing. So I'm not talking about it in that situation. I'm talking about it as an excuse to keep you stuck as an entrepreneur. Right. And this is a hard one for me because early in my business I took a course that, again, I probably didn't have the money for, but I wanted it.

And so I found a way to make it work. And I think that has power in itself spending money that you don't have. I never am never advocating that people do that, but for me, I had enough cushion that I was able to spend the money to get the course, and then in the course they. You need to hire before you're ready.

You need to hire these people in your business because you can't grow the business if you don't have these people. So I thought, that's right. Like, how am I going to grow if I don't have anyone doing all these other things for me? Right? Like setting up my systems and doing this and that. And so I hired all these people to do these things for me, but I had no money coming in to pay those people.

Right? So, I'm not advocating that you do that at all, but what I am advocating for you to do is to stop using the excuse I don't have the money. When that comes up, you have a couple options. You can say, I don't have the money, and you can not do anything, or you can go out and make money. You, Here's where you need to have a little bit of hustle.

How can you do so? To make more money. And now does that take time? Yes. Does that, A lot of times that I don't have money, throw us back into that. I don't have time. Excuse. Yes. But think about it this way. Okay, I need more money, so I need to create a new offer that I can launch today. Well, you know what? I just had don't have time to make that, to make a new offer.

Okay. So making a new offer is not a priority like we talked about before. If it's not a priority, then maybe. Making money isn't a priority, right? So maybe making that money. Isn't an excuse, it's just, you know, not a priority for you, right? So we need to stop saying we don't have the money because we all have the ability to make more money.

It might not be straightforward, it might not be, you know, the best way possible. It might, you know, not be easy. But we all have a way to make money. Even there's stuff sitting around all our houses that we could sell on Facebook Marketplace or eBay, or at a garage sale. But again, it takes time and effort.

And is that a priority? So we need to stop using the, I don't have any money. We all have the ability to make more money for what we want. 

So the third thing that stops us 100% of the time is, Fear of success, fear of failure, fear of what other people will think. I had a coaching call with one of my clients the other day and she was saying, You know, I just, I am just not someone that puts my face on social media and, you know, I just, I'm not.

You know, comfortable with it. And I'm just so worried, like people are going to be like, Oh, why is she doing that? And you know, I just don't want my mom to judge me. And you know, if I put her on Facebook, a lot of people I went to high school with will see me. I live in a small town. Well, so what, So what?

First of all, your mom loves you. She's not going to judge you. She's going to be happy for you. Second of all, who cares what someone from your high school thinks? What are they going to say to you? Like, Oh, hey, saw you're trying to build a business and create a better life? You know, for yourself and your family, and ultimately the community and women in general, in the world, not cool.

Like, no. What are they going to say to you? And you're going to be like, Oh, sorry, you're still, you know, doing the same job you've been doing for 20 years, like, That needs to stop. Our fear of judgment from other people has to stop because otherwise it will stop us. If we don't stop it, it's going to stop us. So please, please, the fear of judgment from others has to stop.

There's always fear around things, right? Fear is there to keep us safe. It also has the ability to keep us stuck. Fear is one of those things that we just truly, truly need to push through. Because if we don't, we will remain stuck. And that's, that's the, the antithesis that is the opposite of what we are trying to do.

So don't let the excuse of fear keep you stuck. Please. The fourth excuse is imposter syndrome. And oh man, this is, This is like prevalent with everyone. I was watching, Bear Grills running Wild. I don't know if you guys have seen it. It's, we like to watch it with our kids. It's on, Disney Plus, but, Basically it is a bunch of actors that are in Disney's Marvel movies.

Right. And, and they go do a challenge in the wild with Bear grills. And, it's a fun little show to watch, but one of, oh, I cannot think of his name. One of the actors, he said, you know, basically it was his first big acting gig was being the lead in the movie. It was, the Asian character and he's awesome.

But he was saying that he was at like ComicCon. Or one of these events, and he was on stage with all these other people that had played Marvel Heroes, right? So Angelina Jolie, [00:11:00] and you know, I don't watch a Marvel movie, so I don't know, but think about all the other leads and think about sitting on a stage with them.

And he said he was sitting up there on a stage with all these other actors that had been acting for so long and they. You know, they all had equal leads as to him and his movie, and he was like, I sat up there and just felt like an imposter. I had such imposter syndrome of just being up there with all these actors who had done tons of movies before, and here I am, my first big movie just sitting up there.

And that's imposter syndrome. So even the biggest celebrities, right? The people that we look at that we think are so successful, everyone suffers from imposter syndrome. But again, the people that aren't stuck are the people that push through it. And I get it. Even the littlest things, like sometimes on Instagram captions, I'm like, who am I to be saying this?

Like sometimes I still suffer from mar, you know, mindset issues. Who am I to be talking about changing your mindset? But you know, If everyone that suffered from imposter syndrome never did anything, there would be like 1% of the content out there. There would be like 1% of the successes. So don't let yourself fall into the trap of imposter syndrome.

You know, like when you think like, Oh, I have imposter syndrome. Just remember, you're not alone. Everyone feels it. , everyone feels it on some level, and it's not something that ever goes away, right? You're never like, Ugh, I've arrived. So it's something that you just have to deal with and accept and. You know, basically walk the road with, you know, just keep it there.

Know it's there. Know it's always going to be there. It's your friend. You know, keep it, keep it in your good graces and know that you are not going to let it stop you. Okay. And then last one is that the market is too saturated and. When, back in the day when I did my photography business, I believed this wholeheartedly.

I was like, You know what? I'm doing portrait and wedding photography and you know, I'm in a town and there are just so many, like I can throw a rock and there'll be another photographer. Like in my apartment building. There was another photographer, like they were everywhere. And so I was like, Why am I doing this?

And then, Sat back and I got some perspective and it was, and this applies to anything, one, because I wanna, Right. I had a passion to do it. I, I love photography. I do it as a hobbyist now, but back when, when I did it, I, I truly loved it. You know, two. I wanted to be an entrepreneur. My dream was to be an entrepreneur.

And so other people doing it couldn't stop me from, from achieving my dream of being an entrepreneur at three. No one was going to do it like me. I was holding that camera, I was creating the images, and no one else could do it just like me. Why? Cuz we have different eyes. We have different brains. We have different heights, different styles, different cameras, different lenses, right?

But this applies to any aspect of. S you know, like your aesthetic and the information that you have in your brain and the experiences that you've have, and the education that you have, and the courses you've taken, and the courses you've created, all add up to this unique, unique, conglomerate, this unique.

Thing that is you. And so sure there may be 5,000 web designers in your town of 6,000, but you know what? You are you, you do it differently because of everything that makes up you. And I know that it's hard when it's like, Oh, you're so unique. Just use your uniqueness. And you're like, Ugh. Well, I don't even know what that is.

You don't have to pinpoint it, just do it your way. Again, don't look to other people, don't look to what they're doing, just do it your way. Remember that a saturated market ultimately means there's a demand, right? A lot of times there's not a ton of people in a. Where there's not the demand for, right?

Because people don't wanna be in a market where they can't make money and they, they are ultimately going to fail. So it's okay that there's a saturated market. It's okay that there's a lot of other people in the space, right? Like, just think about shoes like, or you know, like, what if Nike never came on the seed?

You know, like, and just because Nike's there doesn't mean that Adidas or Puma are on or any other shoe can't be there, right? It's a whole fabric that makes up our economy in commerce is having multiple businesses doing the same thing, right? So don't let that oversaturated excuse stop you from, you know, living your dream, you know, following your passion.

So let's go over the five excuses that keep you stuck, that you're not going to let, keep you stuck anymore. Number one, no time. Number two, no money. Number three, fear, number four, imposter syndrome, and number five, that the market is saturated.