Shownotes
If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “I’m just not good at this” and it made you question whether to keep going, you’re not alone. In this episode, I’m exploring how this common belief shapes your experience and can hold you back from growth. Plus I’m sharing my own example of how this mindset block meant giving up on Instagram four years ago, and what I’m doing now instead.
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Transcripts
If you have ever heard your inner voice tell you I'm just
Speaker:not good at this, and you've been discouraged enough by that to
Speaker:stop even trying, but your goal is important to
Speaker:you. This episode is for you. Out
Speaker:of all the podcast episodes I've done so far, I think this one
Speaker:feels the most vulnerable to me. And you know, I could talk about
Speaker:this concept, this in general terms, how these beliefs
Speaker:hold us back when we tell ourselves we're not good. But I think it's more
Speaker:helpful if I share a real experience from my
Speaker:life that normally I would typically avoid bringing
Speaker:attention to it because there's a little bit of embarrassment and shame behind it.
Speaker:Now, before I get into my example, I want to be clear about
Speaker:today's topic. So as I prepared for this, I was
Speaker:thinking a lot about the different scenarios where we feel like
Speaker:we're just not good at this. And there are so many circumstances
Speaker:where, where we might have this thought. And this episode
Speaker:in particular though, is those times in our lives when we
Speaker:genuinely want to do something. We work at it for
Speaker:a while, and despite those efforts, we feel like we just
Speaker:cannot seem to get the traction that we desire. And so this
Speaker:can be really frustrating. If you're not sure what I mean.
Speaker:I'm going to take you back and tell you a little bit of a story
Speaker:around when I started my own business.
Speaker:So it's 2018 and although I'm still working full
Speaker:time, I start a side hustle. I feel like everyone was
Speaker:and everyone was also on Instagram and curated feeds
Speaker:were all the rage at the time. So I start to pay attention
Speaker:to what others are doing. I sign up for free master classes,
Speaker:webinars. I even pay for some courses about how to build an online
Speaker:business. And some of those did include tips for and how to grow
Speaker:your Instagram account. So how do you get in front of more people to share
Speaker:your message? When I left my full time
Speaker:job in the spring of 2019, I'm starting to feel
Speaker:more excited because I have time finally to focus on making more content,
Speaker:better content, and starting to really feel like, okay, this
Speaker:is my time. And I'm also watching my other
Speaker:entrepreneur friends who I've met grow their audiences and
Speaker:start to really build up their businesses. All the while,
Speaker:I cannot seem to gain any meaningful
Speaker:traction. I keep listening to more advice, trying new tactics,
Speaker:but none of they're just barely moving the needle. And to
Speaker:say I'm discouraged would be an understatement.
Speaker:Frankly, I'm embarrassed and everyone can see the
Speaker:low numbers. So at the end of 2020, when I
Speaker:decide to pause and reevaluate my business,
Speaker:I actually feel a ton of relief when I stop. Then at
Speaker:the start of 2021, when I decide, okay, I'm pivoting my business,
Speaker:I'm going to focus on teaching online presentations
Speaker:during a pandemic. I'll add, my YouTube channel started
Speaker:to gain some traction and I focused all of my attention
Speaker:there and let go of Instagram. My
Speaker:inner voice had already been screaming, you're not good at
Speaker:Instagram. And now that YouTube seemed to be working
Speaker:well, this seemed to be further evidence that I was
Speaker:not good at it. This just compounded and added to this
Speaker:belief. Now let's Fast forward to 2025
Speaker:this year when I decide that it's time for me to pivot. I
Speaker:really wanted to start teaching about momentum. And I recognize
Speaker:that Instagram could be a really useful tool for
Speaker:reaching a new audience. And this content feels like a really good fit
Speaker:for Instagram. So this starting to feel like a fresh start,
Speaker:especially because the algorithm is completely different. The platform
Speaker:so much has changed. And also I've changed. I am not the same person I
Speaker:was from five years ago or four years ago when I stopped.
Speaker:I've grown a lot and I feel like, okay, I'm going to give this thing
Speaker:a real shot. It feels like it's a clean slate
Speaker:situation that I've got going. And yet,
Speaker:and yet I cannot seem to silence this inner
Speaker:voice that is yelling, okay, but Kat, you're not
Speaker:good at Instagram. Why are you putting yourself through this all over
Speaker:again? Like, truly, these are coming up and these fears are rising up in
Speaker:me. But here's the thing. I
Speaker:know this belief is faulty. I also know this
Speaker:belief is just way oversimplified
Speaker:because I was taking a look at the data, or data, however you like to
Speaker:say it, and that was looking at how many followers I had.
Speaker:So I drew a very simple conclusion. I must be bad
Speaker:at this. This number is not changing. It's not really going up. What was
Speaker:happening is I had a fixed mindset. I wasn't
Speaker:just saying to myself, I'm bad. I was also
Speaker:saying to myself, and that's just how it is
Speaker:in this case. There is no room for growth, no
Speaker:room for nuance, and truly no curiosity,
Speaker:because we know that a growth mindset is a curious one.
Speaker:It's asking things like, I wonder why what I'm doing isn't
Speaker:resonating, or what can I change and test and see if that
Speaker:works better? Or are there Things that I've tried and have
Speaker:sort of worked, and maybe I can lean into those and try them a little
Speaker:bit more. I could also ask, what kinds of questions have
Speaker:I not been asking that I should be asking?
Speaker:In other words, it's just so much more open when you take on that growth
Speaker:mindset. When we give in to the belief
Speaker:that we're just simply not good at something, we are shutting that
Speaker:down, shutting down growth, shutting down curiosity.
Speaker:And what's happening is it's a protective mechanism.
Speaker:Your brain is saying, don't keep going because maybe something bad will happen or
Speaker:only bad things will happen. What if you try harder and you
Speaker:just embarrass yourself? Or what if you lose your credibility?
Speaker:Or what if nobody takes you seriously? These are all genuine fears
Speaker:and concerns that can come up. And so your brain is trying to pump the
Speaker:brakes and saying, slow down, don't do this. This is
Speaker:risky. So our brains are assessing this risk and
Speaker:trying to protect us from any harm. But when you
Speaker:know this is happening, when you start to notice that fixed mindset of just
Speaker:saying, I'm just not good at this. Maybe I'll never be good at this. That
Speaker:is a chance to push back and to challenge the
Speaker:belief. It's about saying instead of, I'm not good
Speaker:at this, saying, I'm not good at this
Speaker:yet. I have more to learn and
Speaker:there's room for me to grow. Those are all very, very different
Speaker:mentalities. I want to be clear that this is not about being
Speaker:delusional or lying to yourself, because I think it's
Speaker:okay to acknowledge when you're not there yet. Sometimes we truly are not
Speaker:good at something yet. And I also admit there
Speaker:are some things that we'll never be amazing at. There are things I just
Speaker:maybe don't have a natural talent for. But when it's something that really
Speaker:matters to you, don't give up on it. Get curious
Speaker:and start to get creative. And most importantly,
Speaker:you want to get clear on what good really means
Speaker:to you. Are you improving and getting better than
Speaker:when you started? If so, celebrate that. Did you
Speaker:maybe reach a personal milestone? Well, that's amazing.
Speaker:It's hard to do. But I really encourage you to try
Speaker:not to fall into that comparison trap, measuring yourself
Speaker:against other people who. Who, by the way, might have hidden advantages
Speaker:that you can't actually see. And yes,
Speaker:there will always be people who are naturally talented,
Speaker:and watching them improve faster than you can be really
Speaker:discouraging. It is not easy. But when you
Speaker:see someone who's doing well, maybe Try tapping into the curiosity
Speaker:and saying, well, what is working? Why is this working? And
Speaker:is there something I can learn from from them doing that
Speaker:switch? It doesn't come naturally, but it is possible. And
Speaker:if you have been working on a goal and your inner voice is telling you
Speaker:you're just not good at it, I want to invite you to push back, to
Speaker:challenge the belief and to get curious, to ask new question,
Speaker:new questions and reevaluate what good
Speaker:really looks like to you. Which is something I am doing right now
Speaker:with my current experiment. And over the past few podcast
Speaker:episodes, I have shared about my efforts to return to making content
Speaker:on Instagra Instagram again, starting with talking about my method. And
Speaker:then I also shared a bit about how I was adjusting my mode. But today
Speaker:I do want to share a bit about how I'm working on my mindset because
Speaker:I am not lying when I say that my inner voice just screams you, you
Speaker:are not good at Instagram. Or just straight up, you're bad at it. That goes
Speaker:through my head more often than I want to admit.
Speaker:So what are some of the things I'm doing to address my mindset? The first
Speaker:is I am embracing this. This idea of yet you
Speaker:are maybe not good at this yet, but it doesn't mean that you'll
Speaker:never be good at it. So just taking on that has been a really
Speaker:big thing. Just adding that word yet is something I'm working
Speaker:on. It's active work. The second thing is
Speaker:embracing this mindset or this belief that it's important
Speaker:to focus on making this easy and fun first.
Speaker:Before we start to refine and spend lots of time digging into
Speaker:all the little tactics I could change. I really want to
Speaker:rebuild how I feel when I'm using the app so that
Speaker:I focus on having fun. Because when I am truly having fun with
Speaker:it being experimental, I am being more
Speaker:true to myself. I show up as myself and I just show up
Speaker:more authentically when I'm having fun. Like what I'm
Speaker:doing right now. This feels good and feels fun to me. And I think I
Speaker:show up more as myself, which is related to the third thing I am trying
Speaker:to do, which is just trying to be me and
Speaker:not trying to be other people. This is something I really do feel like I
Speaker:fell into before. In those early days of Instagram, I was trying to
Speaker:emulate other creators to emulate the feed that I thought
Speaker:was attractive to the people in my prospective audience,
Speaker:but it never felt 100% me. Which is not to say
Speaker:that it wasn't authentic before because when I was showing up on stories,
Speaker:I was very much myself. But the feed just felt like I
Speaker:was trying to be someone else. So right now I am just letting
Speaker:go of trying to emulate other people and trying to figure out
Speaker:what is truly me while also asking what is resonating with
Speaker:people. And then the fourth thing is reminding
Speaker:myself that every single path is different. There are a
Speaker:couple of times in my life where I have gained traction maybe quicker than
Speaker:other people, and in particular YouTube. I actually have two
Speaker:YouTube channels that got monetized pretty quickly once I was
Speaker:creating content consistently on them. The the one
Speaker:there, the one that you might know, is my kind of Cat Mulva Hill channel.
Speaker:It's got tutorials and it's the online presenting stuff.
Speaker:And that gained traction because during a pandemic I was
Speaker:teaching people skills they needed. I also noticed that there were videos I wish existed
Speaker:and they didn't. So I started to make those. The other channel is
Speaker:more personal and this was about deciding to track my
Speaker:gray hair journey, because in 2020 I decided to go gray
Speaker:and I didn't see very many other young people. I was in my
Speaker:30s at the time and I was looking for videos and I
Speaker:couldn't find other videos, so I started to make them. In a way, I was
Speaker:sort of filling a void that I noticed was missing. But right
Speaker:now I'm actually entering a very busy space with a ton of
Speaker:voices already. People talking about improvement and mindset and momentum
Speaker:and habits and behavior change. I'm still doing
Speaker:it because I believe the momentum formula is
Speaker:offering a new perspective on behavior change.
Speaker:And I think, or I'm pretty sure this is going to be an uphill
Speaker:climb. But I still believe that the effort is worth
Speaker:it. But it does mean that it's probably going to be slower,
Speaker:steadier, where I have to just keep showing up. It's not
Speaker:necessarily filling a void like the other two things did.
Speaker:So don't expect the same thing to happen. Keep my eyes
Speaker:on my lane and focused on my own performance,
Speaker:not comparing myself to other people and also making
Speaker:incremental changes. So staying curious and
Speaker:staying open because that growth mindset makes it
Speaker:a lot easier for you to find momentum and to keep it.
