Are you sabotaging your own success?

Working hard in your career or business but not achieving the success you want?

Sick of falling short of your goals and feeling like you’re failing?

Want to move up a gear in your career or business but not sure how to make it happen???

One of the biggest problems that most women leaders struggle with is not their lack of experience or expertise; it’s actually their resistance to success.

Put simply we get in our own way by allowing self-doubt and fear of failure take over our chimp brain causing inaction and paralysis

Through my own experience and the school of hard knocks, I’ve uncovered 4?things that female leaders and business owners can do to overcome this resistance and make things happen

1.?Get Comfortable Taking Risks

When I first had the idea of starting my Personal Branding business, I was terrified of failing and did everything to avoid it by trying to second guess the outcomes.... COVID hit 6 months after launch and put pay to any planning or forecasting, I had to learn to roll with it

No one sets out to grow a business or begin their career to?fail and for me there was a lot riding on this…pride and ego for one thing; the desire to prove to everyone, including myself that I could do it

It's human to resist taking risks and avoid disruption at all costs if we feel we might fail. It’s called self-protection

But the fact is, achieving success almost always involves taking?a risk or ten

Nothing ventured, nothing gained is an absolute truth

Taking risks?involves uncertainty and change.?So you need to learn to love uncertainty and not try to over plan or over analyse what might happen, but go with the flow and evolve! I found that part really tough.

But once you unlock this mindset, you’ll prove to yourself you can do it and taking risks becomes less of a challenge

You’ll become more confident and empowered.?And the best part is that you will change other people’s perceptions of you as a leader

Here’s a bit of recent feedback from one of my clients who was existing in the shadow of her boss and resistant to take the lead for fear of failure

Hi Mel,

Hope you're well.?

I just wanted to let you know that I delivered the workshop I wrote myself - it was a great success and it might have opened up some new work too.

Thanks again for your support to empower myself and feel comfortable taking on the challenge.

So, no matter how big and ambitious your leadership or business goals may be, you can become more comfortable taking risks with the right approach.

2.?Learn to fail forward

One of the first things I help my coaching clients with is how to?fail forward.

It being the tennis season, I was watching a programme about Billy Jean King the other day. She remarked that she never considered losing a match to be a failure, but more of a research exercise. That’s an enviable mindset and one we should all adopt

Now, don’t get me wrong, failing is crap! But fear of failure is even worse

Whilst no-one wants to fail, some of my most spectacular failures have also helped me build a powerful personal brand and latterly a successful business.

For example my previous 2 attempts at running my own business both failed for good reason but they were also huge learning opportunities. Those so-called ‘failures’ didn’t stop me creating FirstWoman, they taught me what and where I needed to be in place for me to thrive and succeed

Failure is a way to quickly identify your strengths and weaknesses and learn from them. You can choose to get back in the saddle and become more resilient, or you can choose to let your failure define you and give up

If you choose the saddle, you have the opportunity to show to those that matter what you are made of, and you build resilience and wisdom plus it provides valuable life experience to share with and help others

Having the ability to leverage and maximise from adversity and use it as fuel to move forward is a powerful leadership and indeed life skill

3.?The Most Visionary Leaders aren’t afraid to stand apart

The world accommodates those who fit in but rewards those who stand out

Today’s most successful female leaders are known for their expertise in specialised areas. They develop quality and original content with thought-provoking, inspiring and sometimes controversial insights to elevate their authority and grow their influence.

They are anything but vanilla in approach

To position yourself as a leading voice and thought leader in your niche market, you must first craft your own distinctive and powerful voice

But it can be difficult for women to stand out and speak up. We worry that we don’t have anything unique or valuable to say, or that we will be robustly challenged or appear ignorant. Sticking your head above the parapet is not without risk.

So instead of speaking up to share our thoughts we take a step back. I see this happening everywhere, here on LinkedIn, in the work place, in meetings, network events, even amongst my friends when there is a lively debate

But if we don’t use our voices, we miss out on the opportunity to help, support, and inspire others, and we deprive the room of our ideas and perspectives.

So get into the habit of sharing your thoughts, start in a safe space if that’s easier but remember that staying quiet is doing both you and your audience a disservice

4.?Having a Growth Formula

Personal branding is about having a future facing brand and development plan that works for you

If you’re a senior executive, female entrepreneur, or small business owner who is struggling to find those high-profile, lucrative careers, or new customers clients, then you’re probably missing the most critical ingredient to secure your pathway to success: a plan and a winning formula to help you build up your personal and business brand value.

My growth formula is called Personal Brand Elevator, a 3-stage process which propels you forward, because it’s no use looking back 'wondering what if', that’s not the direction you are heading

The programme has 3 stages

• Where are you now (unpacking your Personal Brand)
• Where do you want to be (future brand ambition)
• How to get there (how to amplify your brand for greater impact)

You can find more on my website or in the features section of my profile, theres a playbook entitled Personal Brand Elevator

Hello, I'm Mel

I help Professional Women and Female Founders

?? Build a powerful Personal Brand

?? Become more visible with greater impact and influence

?? Feel confident and empowered to put themselves out there

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www.FirstWoman.co.uk