The Mountain Is You: Have you conquered Self-Sabotage?

[Pesso]

Hey Readers,

We’re finishing up reading The Mountain is You by Brianna Wiest, and we’ve covered everything from why and how self-sabotage happens, how to identify your emotional triggers, building emotional intelligence, to releasing the past and building a new future, and finally shifting from Self-Sabotage to Self-Mastery.

This book was absolutely more general personal growth and development than directly related to your business. But so much of this can be directly applied to you as a business owner, and can have a massive impact on how you approach and run your business. 

So let’s talk about how you’ve implemented what you’ve learned from the book. I’d love to hear what ideas resonated the most with you, what you learned, what it’s been like to actually enact those changes, and how they’ve impacted your business. 

Don’t forget to RSVP to our Live Discussion that we’re holding Tomorrow, Tuesday August 27th, to chat together about the book and what we’ve learned. Hope to see you there!

We’d love to hear your answers in the comments:

• What resonated the most with you from this book?
• What have you done in your business as a result of reading this book?
• What effects have you felt on your business so far?

Don’t forget to:

• View and Subscribe to all threads about this book
• RSVP to our Live Discussion

Happy reading,

Pesso

[CareyJo]

What resonated with me - I felt like what I knew before I read this book and what I've learned reading it, stagger by comparison.  Learning that there is so much more to our behavior and emotions, based on our brain's subconscious activity was mind blowing.  Yet, a lot of it resonated with me because it was familiar and now I know why.

What I've done in my business since I read it - become more aware of when I'm avoiding work because I simply don't want to do it and questioning if I really want to do something else.  I think the older I get, the more I just want to sew all day and not open a new business.  I'm really questioning now - do I want to do events because I really love them or I love the IDEA of them?  Can I really get motivated enough to WANT to do them, day in and day out and make a business from it?  It has really caused me to reflect.

Effects felt - none on our current business other than recognizing I'm avoiding a little more than I care to admit or would like.  My plate is so full.  I'm nearing retirement age and I truly need to think about whether or not I want and/or need to slow down.  Most people think of retirement as 65-70 but my husband's goal is 60 and he's younger than me.  Do I want to go gang busters on something new for 10 years only to shut it down?  What do I really want and what am I feeling about it?  Emotional intelligence is definitely something new to fully embrace and it makes me sad that I didn't know about it 30+ years ago!

[TheRealChipA]

@CareyJo It sounds like we are in the same relative station in life.  63-year old here (in another week! LOL).  We had the amazing opportunity to open a second location for Piper’s, and I seriously thought about it.  But then I started thinking about the whole picture — things like…. Even with a successful, profitable and proven business model I’d still have to go back to full-time or more-time.  Did I really want to do that since Piper’s could now run without my needing to be there every day.  Also, did I really want to get into what could be a higher pressure situation, renting from someone else, etc?  I finally decided that being asked to open a second location only served one purpose — to stoke my ego, to make me feel good about what we had created.  Was that enough?  Not at my age.  It’s time to embrace the next phase of my life, one that I’m looking forward to quite a bit.

In general, I wish I’d had that mindset when I was younger.  I still could have been successful, but I’d probably also have fewer regrets about roads not taken.  I guess that’s what we call emotional intelligence, eh.  

[CareyJo]

Thanks for the reflection!  You're right - we're in the same boat!  You're about 7 years ahead of me but we definitely have the same focus/mindset.  It really helps to hear it from someone else and gives me something to think about!

[Pesso]

I think this brings up a really interesting and deep point, @CareyJo -- what is the line between self-sabotage and self-protection? When is it avoidance because of being afraid, and when is it avoiding a situation that you don't want to be in? When is something just feeling like too much and when is something actually too much? 

I don't think there's a hard line answer for any of those, unfortunately, which makes it all the harder to make a big decision like the one you're facing. There's nothing wrong with deciding not to open a new business out of realization that it's not fully what you really want -- versus deciding not to open up a new business out of fear that is holding you back from what you really want. 

This is tough!

[Pesso]

Thanks so much for sharing your experiences and thought processes here for your similar situation, @TheRealChipA ! I love that you were able to fully self-discover your motivations and reflect on what you actually wanted to prioritize in your life. 

[Pesso]

I am so glad that you got so much out of the book, @CareyJo ! I love your level of self awareness and self reflection, and really appreciate all of your shares throughout. 

That's so wonderful that you've been using that reflection and awareness to pinpoint and try to analyze what and why you're feeling and avoiding work. It's a really important thing to analyze and assess and I'm rooting for ya!

That's a really good question and there definitely is no objective answer than anyone but you can land and decide on -- but you can absolutely talk it through with your husband and other business owners who are or have been in similar positions. Love that @TheRealChipA jumped in below!