Trusting Yourself and Letting Go of Shoulds

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Entrepreneurs are often told we have to do business a certain way. Whether it's from a coach, a course, or our own subconscious, "shoulds" tend to determine the course of our actions (or inaction). Join Katrina and guest expert Brooke Monaghan as they share how to embrace experimentation and tolerate failure so you can start doing business your own way.

Brooke Monaghan is a coach, mentor, podcaster, and writer who helps entrepreneurs and leaders bring their greatest gifts to the world, align with their values, and honor the lifestyle that they desire. Her work focuses on helping business owners and team leaders unlearn the conditioning that has them ditching their instincts, intuition, and integrity in favor of doing business the “right” way.

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The episode:

Katrina Widener: Hi everyone it's Katrina. I'm here with Brooke Monaghan. And today we're going to be talking about a ton of amazing mindset stuff that I'm really excited for her to share with you. But first I want to explain how I found Brooke, because I love telling people this. I saw someone sharing her stuff on Instagram and I immediately was like, "Oh my gosh, I could have written this myself, these are literally the thoughts that happen in my brain, who is this person?" And I went and ended up following her from there and reached out to have her come and speak at group coaching which I'm really excited to have her come. I'm honestly just really stoked to have her on the podcast and share her thoughts because they are so aligned with mine, it's almost scary. So thank you so much coming.

Brooke Monaghan: Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here and yeah, we are totally on the same wavelength. So it's a good thing that we have a time limit on these bite-sized episodes, cause I think that we could just talk about this stuff all day. I'm super excited to be here, thank you.

Katrina Widener: Oh my gosh we could just sit and riff on this forever, but we won't. We'll spare you guys. Before we dive in and really get started, would you mind introducing yourself, and what you do to everyone who's listening?

Brooke Monaghan: Sure! So I am a coach and I work with entrepreneurs who are looking to create a more sustainable way to grow their business and to really step into building a business that's really aligned for them. Meaning something that they feel like they can bring their full selves to, something that leaves room for their genius, their unique take on things, and actually feels not soul-sucking to show up to.

Before I started doing coaching, I was doing project management and process improvement work specifically to help people build more efficient businesses. And when I went out on my own and working with more business owners, I found that I was doing so much mindset work with people around why they were holding themselves hostage to all of the stuff that they felt like they needed to do, and the way that they felt things needed to be in their business. And really helping people sort of wake up to the fact that, "Hey, you're a business owner, you got into entrepreneurship so that you could do what you want, and you are not allowing yourself to do that. So let's give your way a shot, and build this in a way that actually works for you so that you can continue to show up to it. And if you keep showing up to it, you figure it out." So that's why I always put sustainable growth first, and that's what I do with people. So it's the best.

Katrina Widener: Oh, my gosh. I mean, yes, yes, yes, yes to everything that you were just saying. I think I talk about alignment on every single podcast episode that I do, because I just can't keep my mouth shut, but this is one of those ones where I'm like, "Yes, this is somebody else who's as jazzed about alignment as I am." I love that you have a "should audit" because those are literally things I talk about with my clients all the time. So everything that you stand for I'm just 100% behind.

I kind of wanted to just start out by talking about this idea of building a life with no "shoulds" and how people really get started doing that. The first steps that they can take along that mindset journey.

Brooke Monaghan: Yeah. I mean, I think that first thing that you really need to do is start to get clear on what you actually are doing. It sounds so basic, and it almost feels like cliche at this point that everyone's talking about your why, but people keep talking about your why because it matters. People are not making this up and we hear about it, and we think about it, and we're like," oh yeah, that sounds great." But are you actually practicing listening to what you know that you want. We're so good at telling ourselves that we don't know. "I don't know what I want. I don't even know what I want to do. I don't know how I would do things if there weren't any rules. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know." I think that the first place to start is to practice listening to what you do know.

There are some things that you do know. It could be simple things. When I started my business, I mean, I have never worked more than probably 30 hours in a week. Why? Because I did not start my business to hustle. That's why I left my job. That's not to say that it's wrong to do that, it's just that this story that you hear, "That's the way that you have to do things." It is not true. You can figure out another way to do it, but it's really difficult to figure out your own way of doing things. If you don't even know why you're doing this or what you want from this. So I think that that's the first place to start. I always talk about starting with your vision. It doesn't need to be a vision statement necessarily. But just practicing tuning into, what do you know? What do you want from this? Allowing yourself to sort of let your mind wander there and get clear on what you're building? That's really the essential first step because once you get clear on that, then you can start to understand what's getting in your way and why you're telling yourself you can't do that. And that you have to keep doing it everyone else's way instead of giving your own stuff a shot. So I always start with vision. I think that that's the number one place to start.

Katrina Widener: It's interesting because this is an exercise that I have a lot of my clients do. Especially back when I was a life coach first and I wasn't specifically for entrepreneurs. And It's what I call an ideal day exercise. So anyone who's listening you can do this at home, it's a great place to start when it comes to vision. It's literally sitting down and free-writing -- and I recommend using a pen and a paper old school style; your subconscious brain will thank you. -- literally writing out what your ideal day looks like. And not like my ideal day in the life that I have right now, but my ideal day in my ideal life. For some people they get surprised by what they've written down. It's almost like letting your subconscious brain play. And it's really sitting down and saying "What am I eating? Where am I waking up? What does my surroundings and my environment look like? What am I doing during that day?"

Sometimes people are like, "Oh my gosh, I wrote down that almost everything was family-based, and I'm currently single. And its such a big thing that I didn't even know that I wanted." And then they can build a business where there's time to spend with their family. It really can inform these, "I don't know," statements. It's allowing your subconscious mind to really flow out and be like, "No, I know what I want. You're just not listening to me."

Brooke Monaghan: Right! And like, you are running a business. I feel like I always need to reiterate that, you are in charge, act like it.

Katrina Widener: Yes!

Brooke Monaghan: Because if you come to me and you're like, "Oh my gosh, I don't want to do all of this stuff, blah, blah, blah." And I say, "Well, you don't have to," and then you fight me on it? It's like, "Something's going on there!" You know, there's something deeper going on there that you really want to hold on to all of these things that you're being told you have to do. We get so wrapped up in "I don't know. I don't know. I don't know," that we aren't even listening to ourselves. And sometimes it takes a lot of practice. Like I spend four weeks in the beginning of one of my programs literally just being like, "You need to be tuning into what you think," exercises just around that. You can't skip over it because if you're not really engaged in this process of figuring out how to build your business based on your own ideas, of course you're trapped in a "should". Of course you're trapped in everybody else's way. Of course you can't figure out a way out of that, because you've already decided that you're not worth listening to.

Katrina Widener: Yeah. It's so interesting cause it's really that fear that's coming up. Right? It's this "I don't trust myself first and foremost, but also I don't necessarily think that I need to learn about myself enough to start to trust myself" because that's really where it starts. We are not going to trust ourselves if we don't even know what we want. We're not going to trust ourselves if we don't know who we are, how we operate, or what our passions are, what we'd really love to do. Because oftentimes it's this fear of like, "I don't know enough. Or the way that I want to do it hasn't been done by other people. So therefore it's not valid or it's not worthy," and you're right. It's that mindset stuff. When they say it's 80% mindset and 20% business strategy, they're not kidding. And I'm saying this from personal experience, right?

I didn't start out year one making the kind of money that I'm making now, or as aligned as I am now. Enjoying my business as much as I am now. Doing the services and offers that I love. Right? It's a process it's learning. And it's starting to really figure out, what is the way that you're can work for you?

Brooke Monaghan: Right. Totally. Yeah. And speaking to what you just said there, you need to start to listen to what your vision is and have that kind of in place before you can really truly do this. Then look at that. Look at what you wrote down, look at what you are brainstorming, and take note of what you're telling yourself. What are you holding as true? We all have all sorts of thoughts, swirling in our heads about why we can't do the things that we actually want to do. Which by the way, especially for women, there's some really deep reasons why that comes up. Being told that like, "you don't know the way the world works. You don't know how business actually works. You're being totally unreasonable." All of that stuff. You need to take note of what that running thing is that's going on in your mind. And you're not even going to know what those thoughts are if you're not even allowing yourself to look at what you want.

One of the things that we're going to talk about in the group coaching is embracing experimentation. And the reason that I talk about this is because we get stuck in a cycle so often of just doubling down on stuff that we already know doesn't work for us, just because we think that we need to do it that way. I don't care how much you try to throw yourself at all of these strategies. If you don't understand why you're holding yourself to all of these things that don't even work for you, it's almost impossible to really step into a new way forward that's actually sustainable for you.

Katrina Widener: Oh my gosh, 100%. I agree with everything that you're saying.

Brooke Monaghan: Surprise, surprise.

Katrina Widener: No. Right. And it's interesting too because I feel like so many people look at "successful" business owners and they're like, "but they did it this way, so I have to do it that way." I want to let everyone know, I do group coaching now. I started out as a life coach doing one-on-one coaching. I then switched gears when I learned that was not aligned with me, and started doing life coaching specifically for entrepreneurs. I did an entrepreneur book club. I did one-on-one coaching exclusively for years. And it was slowly making decisions of, "Actually this is more aligned, actually this is more aligned, actually this is more aligned," until I got to the place where I am now. And I'm not pretending that I'm probably not going to discover new things about myself and get even more aligned as the years go on. Instead we're trusting, "This is what this person did. This is what my business coach did", which hot second to say like I know that's what you want deep down inside is a roadmap of how to make business work but that's not going to work for you. Allow yourself to trust yourself a little bit and find a coach that brings that part out in you because, no, thank you.

Brooke Monaghan: Right. And you're one step ahead of me, because then the next place that I always go is to that trust piece of like where are you putting your faith? Because, you are already putting your faith in something, you've decided to continue to try shit that doesn't work for you over and over and over again. You have no evidence of the fact that it works because it's not working. You keep doing the reels. You keep doing the post every single day. You keep trying to do the email list. You try to get on another platform because that's what you were told you're supposed to do. You keep doubling down on this stuff, even though it's not working. Why? Because that's where you've put your faith. Why then, does what you want to do get one chance, and if it doesn't work it's like, "well, see, I told you it was never going to work." If you gave your own vision the kind of faith and trust that you're putting into everyone else's stuff, you'd figure out how to make it work.

Katrina Widener: Totally.

Brooke Monaghan: Entrepreneurship will make you feel nuts because if you're really moving forward toward a vision that you're not seeing someone out there do, that will make you feel like you are bananas because there's no proof. But you're doing stuff with no proof right now! So, right? So can we make that shift toward just continuing to show up for your vision?

Carol Dweck has some incredible work around growth mindset and one of the things that she talks about is shifting from a success mindset toword a mastery mindset. And if you're focused on mastering what you're doing versus it always being about the quick win, how much more resilience you have and how you can keep showing up for it over and over and over again. If you can get clear on what your vision is then you can shift into mastering that vision. Saying, "This is the way that I want this to look and you know what? I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to figure it out." Because then if things don't work out, you can say, "Okay, that didn't work, but what can I shift?"

That's a piece of sustainability that's super important. You need to know what you're doing, you need to know why you're doing it, and you need to be focused on your own lane and making this vision come to life for yourself, and mastering a new way forward for yourself in order to have the resilience to keep showing up. Just continuing to do everything that you think that you "should" do with no result is not experimentation. It's not real experimentation. We already know it doesn't work for you. Can we stop?

Katrina Widener: Yeah. It's interesting because earlier when you're talking about, you sit down with new client and they're like, "These are the things that I am doing that I hate." And you're like, "Then let's not do them." And they're like, "But wait I have to do it because of this, and this, and this, and this." What if you had that amount of conviction about your own ideas is basically what we're saying. I want to also remind people that there are times when I've worked with someone that I've know and love and trust and are brilliant and they've been like, "You should do this, or oh, you should stop doing that." And it's also taking the balls to say, "Hey. No this isn't aligned with me. I'm not going to do that. Or I am going to do this. I'm going to trust myself," as the underlying message. I'm going to trust in that.

Brooke Monaghan: Totally. Nobody on earth knows more about your situation and what you want, and how you can move things forward for your business than you. I think that this is worth saying with any mindset work at all. The expectation is not that you do any of this perfectly, or that you always believe in yourself, or that you always are fully confident. That's not realistic or sustainable for anyone. We can start to almost hold that against ourselves and create a whole secondary spiral that drains all of our energy. It's not about making it go away, or about making yourself wrong for the fact that you're a human being with like normal emotions. It's actually about being like, "Okay yeah, I know you're going to show up every time that I try to step forward. I know you're going to do this, and I'm just not going to let it control me for the next 20 minutes." After that you have permission after you've done the thing, then you can freak out if you want to. I don't even care. Get it out of your system. Let the emotions move through. You don't need to be superhuman and you don't need to have full confidence all the time, but it's just about being conscious of what's motivating your decision making.

Katrina Widener: Definitely. And I love that you brought that up too because I think that, I know that people think about this all the time with even just introverted versus extroverted, right? People assume that all extroverts have no social anxiety or all extroverts are fully confident. And the thing is, is that there's no one on this planet that is fully confident all the time. Right? That's just not the way that it operates. And just because you're looking at a business who's further along than you, all that means is that they have new fears and new confidence issues, new self doubts. It doesn't matter where you are in your business. It doesn't matter how much money you're making or if you have employees versus not having employees. There are people that I know who are perfectly happy being like, "I never want an employee. I'd never want to reach six figures. I am good where I am. This is perfect. This is all I want to do." And I know people who are like, "I want to have a humongous company. I want to master my industry," and you know what? Props to them too. That doesn't mean that either of them are prone more or less to having confidence issues or self-doubt issues. It just is part of the human experience.

Brooke Monaghan: Yeah. And you just learn how to work with it. You know, you learn how to move forward scared. You learn through trial and error what is a discomfort of being out of alignment versus what's a discomfort of growth. You learn what's a feeling of "Eww I don't want to do that." And what's a feeling of, "Woah that's a stretch. I really want to run away, but I'm not going to". You make new connections for yourself. You literally create new neural pathways over time of being like, "Ooh, scary. That's good. Ooh, challenging. That means I'm going to learn something. Ooh, hard. That can be fun too." Right? It's scary, but there are some coaches that will hold space for you to take the time that it's going to take for you to move through that. And who know that everyone moves at their own pace. And we find our way to those people, I think based on aligned values and you can get support. We are focusing, we're staying on our own lane and we are focusing on the beauty that we can bring to the world.

Katrina Widener: Exactly. Well thank you so much. This has been amazing. Do you have any last pieces of advice or tidbits to share with anybody who's in that space?

Brooke Monaghan: The thing that I always say whenever it's like, "What's your main takeaway," is just if you trust your integrity, meaning what is coming from deep down inside of you, it's usually whispering at you. That's actually aligned with your values and with what you want. If you trust that and you move forward with that, you cannot be wrong. Right? So whether it gets you to the result that you want or not, you're going to learn something from it that's going to point you in the right direction. And if anyone tries to tell you to do something that feels gross for you or misaligned for you, trust your integrity enough to say no and figure out a different way because you can. People have figured out all sorts of crazy shit. You can figure this out. Trust your integrity to move forward and you'll be good. It's hard, but it is so worth it. And it's the sort of hard that is worth leaning into. Hustling is not the sort of hard that is worth leaning into.

Katrina Widener: Thank you so much for this. I agree with everything that you have said today and I love it so much. How can everyone find you after listening to the podcast?

Brooke Monaghan: Yeah. So the best place to go is if you go to my website, brooke-monaghan.com/links. You can get on my email list and when you get on there you're going to get all of my stuff. You'll immediately get a follow up email that's like, "here's the free training that you can take." I have a great free training on how to create a really aligned offer. I have a hub where I have behind the scenes videos of how I'm bringing sustainable and aligned practices into my own business. One-stop shop brooke-monaghan.com/links.

Katrina Widener: Perfect. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast, I really appreciate it.

Brooke Monaghan: Thank you so much for having me. This was lovely.