You Don't Need a Six Figure Business

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Why does the entrepreneur world put the pressure on ourselves and each other to hit that elusive six figure mark? In a world with an average salary of $49,000, the business world puts such a premium on hitting six figures. Let's dig into why this happens -- and normalize making less than $100,000 in your business.

The episode:

Katrina Widener: Hi everyone, it is Katrina here for a mini solo episode today. I'm really excited to bring you this topic, because this is something that I talk about with my clients all the time. And I've talked about with other business owners, and other podcast guests, and other guest experts, which is this idea in entrepreneurship that your business is not worthy unless you're making six figures. A big reason why I wanted to talk about this is to really normalize the reality of running your own business, and normalize if that's your goal, great, go for it, but asking yourself really the reasons behind that goal, and breaking it down into something that's going to be helpful for you and actually helpful for you and your business long-term.

So one of the first things that I want to mention when talking about this idea of "you don't need a six-figure business" is the reality of the world that we live in. Even though the entrepreneurship world really prioritizes these six figures. Right, "six figures in six weeks, how to make your first $100k, how to have consistent $10k months." We see this messaging coming from all sides of us. We have coaches and courses and conferences all using this language as a marketing tactic.

I know personally I have a friend who had a consult call with a coach where the coach was like, "If you're not making $10k months, you need me," and she felt really put off by that conversation. And so she actually was like, "Thank you for having this call with me. I think we're not a great fit." And a week later the coach emailed her and was like, "Hey, are you making $10k months yet? Because if you're not, why'd you say no to me?"

We really have this prevalent culture in the entrepreneurship industry where we put a high priority on, for some reason, this magical six figure mark. Instead of normalizing the day to day of a business owner, the day-to-day of just an average worker in today's culture. When we sit down and we actually look at the figures pre-pandemic, the United States average annual salary was $49,000. When we even bumped it up and looked at the highest paid professions, the average pre-pandemic annual salary was around $80,000. And so my question and the thing that I really wanted to talk about today is why do we put so much pressure on entrepreneurs to make a hundred thousand dollars? Why especially are we putting this pressure on them and their first year of business or in their first five years of business even. When we sit down and we think about this idea of the $10k months or the $100k years it's coming from a lot of this "bro hustle culture" that the entrepreneurship industry can oftentimes be enmeshed with.

Part of what I want to break down today is just this idea that when we have this set as our goal, it's not actually strategically getting us where we want to go. If you listened to the podcast episode on overgoaling versus undergoaling you'll completely understand what I'm talking about here, but just to give a little bit of a briefer: If we are currently making $20k, $40k, $60k, and we have this ideal set in our mind that we need to have a six-figure business and that we won't be successful unless we're making six figures, then that's actually tricking our brains into scarcity mode. So when we're talking really strategically, thinking about "I want to achieve this thing that I've never achieved before" is forcing our brains to say, "I'm stuck in failure mode. I failed at it this year. I failed at it last year. I'm gonna fail at it next year." Because that's not something that we have ever actually achieved in our lives beforehand. The way that the subconscious works is that it is afraid of new things. It is afraid of anything we haven't done before, seen before, tried beforehand.

Some of these things based off of our unique conditioning are not going to be so huge that it's really going to get in our way. Right? They're not going to be "I'm afraid to... I don't know... Try axe throwing." I'm just going to make up something random. "I'm not afraid to do that. I'm a little bit afraid, but I'm not so afraid that I'm going to not do it whatsoever." Whereas something like "I'm going to be making this amount of money that I've never achieved beforehand." Your brain's like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't know what that looks like. I don't know what dangers come with that. I don't know what stress we're going to be putting ourselves in. This is terrifying." So even if our conscious brain has this goal set in mind, our subconscious brain will self-sabotage us to getting there. And if you want to learn about how to break out of that, go back to that undergoaling versus overgoaling episode. It will really, really give you a clear strategy for how to move through that.

This is why personally I don't trust most coaches or courses who put that pressure on a six-figure business. Because if they are putting that pressure on for you, then they're not explaining to you that whole strategy I was just talking about. They're not explaining to you how it is actually going to sabotage you, how it's not going to get you where you want to go at the end. For a lot of us, we don't need a $100k in order to survive in the life we're at. Yes. When we think about the 9-5 world, right? You're constantly looking for promotions. You're seeing how you can move yourself up in your company, how you can have career growth. That's what we also want in our businesses. We want to start out learning at what we're doing. Starting out paying our bills and joyfully living our lives and choosing our mental health over this hustle culture. And instead, the world that we've chosen to operate within is prioritizing that hustle culture. It's prioritizing like the "do do, do, do, do try, try, try, try, try." And it leads to a lot of burnout and a lot of overwhelm and if I'm being really, really honest with y'all it's turning into people not making six figures.

When we really break it down, the question that I want all entrepreneurs to ask themselves is "Why do I want this six-figure business?" Is it something where you have sat down and actually said, "I need this much money coming in for the amount of money that's going out." Or is it, "Well I feel like I won't be successful if I am not bringing in this amount of money. I feel like I'm a fraud or an imposter if I'm not bringing in this amount of money. I feel like I'm not valid in what I'm doing or that people won't take me seriously unless I'm bringing in this amount of money."

And that's when we need to stop and look at ourselves and probably do some journaling work or work with a coach and say, "Why do I have this block here?" If it is something where it's like, "I feel like I won't be taken seriously until I reached this six figure mark," where did that belief come from? Where did this manifest itself in your life? Was this something that you learned as a kid growing up? Is this something that you've internalized from your surroundings beforehand. And then breaking through that. Because the real honest truth about making six figures everyone, is this idea that "Once I make six figures I'll feel successful," when really it's not until we break down those blocks around making six figures, that we will make six figures and be that "successful".

It's not until we decide what success means to us individually, right? For me, success means yes paying my bills and living a life where I'm not afraid of running out of money or not being able to afford the things I want. But also it means never working Fridays. Also it means having time to go hang out with my niece if I want to, or sleep-in in the morning if I have not slept well the night beforehand. Or honestly taking a day off just because I frickin feel like it. Those things, that's what success looks like to me. And by prioritizing those things and falling in love with my business and doing the mindset work, that's how my income grows. It's not from this hustle culture. It's not from this "push push, push, push, push" energy. And this is honestly the biggest trap of the six-figure culture, is that it is keeping people from making six figures.

With all that being said, I hope that this kind of helps flip things in your mind a little bit. Maybe helps you take a little bit of a step back from where you've been at beforehand, or honestly even just validate something you've been feeling all along. That, "Hey. No. This is not what we need in order to be "successful". You get to determine what success is. You are the CEO of your own business. You are the person that makes these decisions. You get to choose what success is for you too." So if you guys have any thoughts or questions, please, please, please come find me on Instagram at @katrina.widener and I will help you work through this. I can give you some exercises if you need anything to work through it, or even just to say like, "Hell yeah Katrina, I feel the exact same way." I am there as a resource. Anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful day.