There are six common patterns of beliefs and behaviors that tend to hold female entrepreneurs back, particularly those with ADHD tendencies, and in this straight-talking solo episode, I am going to discuss what to watch for, why they happen and most importantly, what to do about it. 

Some of us are lucky to just have one of them, but these patterns tend to travel in packs, so it's likely that you're dealing with a couple, several or even all of them.

No matter how smart, strong, skillful, and savvy you are, these patterns are really really common and very effective at holding you back from the success you're striving for and deserve.

If you are struggling with distractibility, perfectionism, procrastination, people-pleasing, impulsivity, or time blindness, it is harder to reach your entrepreneurial goals and fulfill your business’s potential. 

This episode is full of insights gained from managing my own tendencies and from working with clients just like you.  

And, before you listen, remember this: none of these obstacles will prevent you from being successful as an entrepreneur, but they do make things take longer and be more strenuous. So, let’s get them under control so you can have more success and a lot less stress. 

Mic Drop Moment 🎙️

"You do not need to be available and accessible at all times. We've been conditioned to think we always have to be responsive to others, but you can change your mindset on this."

— Diann Wingert  

Take the "What's Holding You Back" Quiz and get your customized series of emails designed to support your entrepreneurial journey. 

Don't keep these insights all to yourself - Share this episode with someone who's ready to get out of her own way and fulfill her business dreams! 

Okay, so we are going to go through the 6 most common patterns of belief and behavior that hold us back in business. They also hold us back in life for that matter. And I'm going to share them in the order of frequency based on my quiz by the same name as this podcast episode, “What's holding you back?”. Hundreds of entrepreneurs have already taken this quiz, so I'm going to share the results in the order of how common these particular results are in the entrepreneurs taking the quiz. And by the way, you may not identify as an entrepreneur so this episode is for you if you are a freelancer, side hustler, professional services provider, sole proprietor, small business owner, coach consultant, or creative.

If any of these labels apply to you, this episode and the quiz are for you. And we're not just gonna name them and claim them, I mean, what good does that do? I'm going to give you some quick, actionable strategies to begin to tame them. So are you ready, okay, here we go. Number 1, without the drum roll, distractibility. Distractability affects so many entrepreneurs, including myself, and it didn't surprise me at all that this is the number one struggle holding so many of us back. Now I tend to believe that distractibility is related to a high level of curiosity. I can speak for myself. I am always interested in whatever and whoever is around me. I'm very easy to distract because of that curiosity.

While you do have to be aware in order to take advantage of opportunities, being overly distractible will mean you will be much better at starting things than finishing them, I know that hurts a little. I once had a coach tell me that the only thing I really needed to learn as a newbie entrepreneur was to get better at tolerating what she called the monotony of success. Obviously, that did not draw me in but what I eventually understood it to mean was avoiding giving in to my natural curiosity, AKA distractibility, in order to create systems, because systems make things smoother. And because I'm a problem solver, a smooth running business has fewer problems, hence, the monotony of success. One of the things that I've come to understand is highly distractible problem solvers are really good at putting out fires, so they often unconsciously attract and even create more fires to be put out.

So some simple but effective ways to deal with your distractibility, AKA curiosity, are the following. Batch your tasks, and then reward yourself with something fun when you finish. Now this only works if you withhold the reward till you finish the batch. Close your open tabs on your laptop except the one you're working on. And if you need to bookmark them or otherwise breadcrumb them because you're worried you won't find your way back, do that. Having fewer open tabs helps your brain be less distractible.

Trust me, it really works. Also, you wanna know the best times of day for you to do your focused work and do your very best to protect them by time blocking them. Disable your notifications and let your team and your clients know when you'll be accessible again. Nobody can be a beck and call girl round the clock and get things done, and it's extremely distracting to have so many interruptions. I am a big advocate of only checking email twice a day. And while you may debate that with me, many have, it really can be done. Also, I highly recommend noise canceling headphones because it'll be much easier for you to avoid distractions and get into the zone.

So, you ready for number 2? Perfectionism. Perfectionism affects the majority of female entrepreneurs, and my hand is raised for this one too, I believe it is related to expectations. Those I have of myself, but also those I believe others have of me. It's one of the reasons why I like the 4 tendencies framework and use it with my clients. Now most people who are perfectionists are so in one area of their life, their business, for example. But others apply impossibly high expectations in all areas of their life across the board. So their life may look really impressive and even enviable from the outside, but that perfectionist is never fully satisfied and really can't take in positive feedback from others.

Perfectionism does not make you crazy, neurotic, obsessive, OCD. So please don't latch on to these pathological labels and explanations. Perfectionism is a really common trait, it is not a personality defect. It also says nothing about your ability to succeed as an entrepreneur. Remember, all behavior is habit forming, so perfectionists can do really excellent work that their clients and customers are thrilled with. But the problem with perfectionism is that everything takes too much time, which hurts your profitability and prevents you from feeling really successful, which will eventually lead to burnout. My simple but effective ways for dealing with perfectionism are affirmations.

Now affirmations are old school, they've been around forever, but they still really, really work. And in the show notes, I'm going to link to a particular way of doing affirmations that I swear by and suggest to all of my clients. Affirmations work because they change our opinion of our self and our work over time by rewriting our self talk. They're not new, but they still work, and I highly recommend them. They also don't have to take much time. Having an accountability partner is one of the best ways I know, especially if you can find another perfectionist you trust and respect. Share your imperfect stuff with them and accept their opinion, and do the same for them.

The funny thing about having a recovering perfectionist accountability partner is that what you can do for them, you find it hard to do for yourself, and it works in reverse. So show them your less than perfect stuff, and when they approve of it, hit publish. This will take a little bit of time to override the self doubt that comes with making this change. But man, can I tell you how much energy and time you'll get back in your life if you practice doing it. Speaking of practice, last suggestion for perfectionist is to put a time limit on it. A perfectionist is gonna keep on tweaking and tweaking and tweaking a blog post that no one's gonna see anyway, or social media graphic that again, no one's gonna see anyway. Not until they think it's good enough, but until they run out of time or are simply exhausted. This is never a win, and it never feels like a win.

So I suggest that you decide ahead of time how much time the task should take. How much time you want to give it, and pretend you're not a perfectionist when you make that estimation then stick with the time limit. Set an alarm and set a halfway point alarm so you can pick up the pace, this will take practice like most of the suggestions. I do not believe there's any such thing as an instant sustainable fix, but it's so worth it over time to wean yourself off of something that eats up all of your time, all of your energy, all of your focus, and never really feels like enough. That is always a path to burnout, so this is well worth working on.

Okay, ready for number 3, procrastination. Now it was a close call between perfectionism and procrastination. I got almost as many people choose that in the quiz as their top obstacle. But procrastination, again, affects most entrepreneurs, and my hand is raised yet again because it certainly applies to me. I believe it's related to expectations, what other people expect of me, what I expect of myself. Most people like most perfectionist, most procrastinators do it selectively. They will procrastinate, resist, and avoid tasks that they hate, tasks that they're confused about, tasks that they don't know how to start, tasks that they think are too hard, they're not prepared for, they resent doing or they have negative associations.

Plenty of people procrastinate on stuff just because they find those tasks boring. And if you're like me, you may treat boredom as a life threatening condition. So we absolutely have to hack the system to get ourselves to leap over the procrastination, resistance, and avoidance, and get shit done. Now on the mindset side of things, procrastination does not make you lazy, unmotivated, stupid, a self sabotager, or an imposter so stop being a character assassination with yourself. Procrastination is an extremely common behavior again, not a character trait. It also says nothing about your ability to be a successful entrepreneur. So let go of the guilt and shame and make a plan to outsmart it.

Here are some simple but effective ways that I use and recommend to my clients. One, plan ahead, now if you are an ADHD or like me, learning to plan ahead is something you need to be patient with. But start by making a date with 1 dreaded task on your schedule. It's actually probably not even on your schedule. It's probably on a scrap of paper that you keep losing. You feel me? So make a date with that dreaded task. Do it first thing in the morning. If you're a morning person, do it at your ideal time, the time when you're most likely lead to be productive and in the zone. Do it at the beginning of that period of time, whether that's morning, afternoon, or evening.

But do it before you do anything else and before the day gets away from you. Create accountability, just like with some of the other strategies, accountability, accountability, accountability is magic. Tell someone you are doing the avoided task and when. Let them know when you finished it or have them ask you to tell them when you finished it. I use Voxer for this with my clients, and it is literally genius. If there's a task they've been avoiding, and I know it's something that's really going to move the needle in their business. I will ask them to take a selfie of themself when they have finished the task and send it to me on Voxer. It may sound childish, and you may not think you should have to need it. But really, does it do you any good to judge something that simply is a part of your nature? I need this kind of accountability for things that I'm really dragging my feet on as well.

The last suggestion is put a time limit on it. Most of the time, we over estimate how long something will take when we are resisting it. I have shared before that I once estimated it would take 45 minutes for me to update my bookkeeping. But when I actually had some accountability and put a time limit on it, I discovered it only took me 17 minutes. A third of what I estimated because I finally got myself to do it. Okay, number 4, people pleasing. You've heard me before refer to the unholy trinity procrastination, perfectionism, and people pleasing, so don't be surprised if you're finding ding ding ding damn, I have all of these, it is not at all unusual.

People pleasing affects many entrepreneurial women don't rank as highly on this one, but most of my clients do. And there are also men who deal with this, but it's extremely common in women because of our social conditioning to put the needs of others ahead of our own. Also, the female hormone estrogen biologically programs us to do so. It is referred to as the tend and befriend hormone for a reason. Also, 42% of us are obligers, this is the 4 tendencies framework I referred to earlier. And when you are an obliger, you internalize the expectations of others and prioritize meeting them over meeting your own expectations. It's a little bit more defined way of explaining people pleasing.

Now if you have a service-based business and your team consists of other women, you may have a really hard time setting limits, enforcing boundaries, and dealing with conflict. Does this sound familiar? So people pleasing does not make you weak, passive, a pushover, or anti feminist. Unless you are just completely antisocial, everybody cares about what other people think of them, and almost all of us would prefer to be liked. So people pleasing is a common behavior. It's not a shortcoming, and again it says nothing, and I repeat not one thing about your ability to succeed as an entrepreneur.

Some ways that I deal with people pleasing and I find a lot of success with my clients I recommend them to are boundaries. You do not need to be available, accessible and responsive at all times. Most of the time people discover when they actually start to implement boundaries, they thought other people were breaching their boundaries, and what they discover is they breach their own boundaries. So oftentimes, we have to do a little bit more mindset work around this, because we've been conditioned to think, we always have to be responsive to others. And again, if you have ADHD-ish tendencies, responding to others will usually give you a little squirt of dopamine, even if you feel resentful, isn't that fascinating?

So what I recommend is set office hours, communicate them, and stick to them. This is a big area of what I help my clients with so if you know that dealing with people pleasing, boundaries, and all of the things related to that are the number one thing holding you back, we should probably talk. Okay, clear communication. If you ever feel disrespected did or taken advantage of by your clients, your team members, or people in general. I guarantee, and I say this with all respect and compassion. I guaran-freakin-tee you are not being clear in your communication about expectations and responsibilities. Now this is not the same thing as blaming you for other people exploiting you.

I am well aware that there are people who will attempt to exploit us, and we don't have to do anything to invite that from them. I am only talking about cleaning up our side of the street, and being more clear about what we can do, what we will do, and when we will do it. And most women I have worked with need some serious help in this area, including myself. The other area with respect to people pleasing is beliefs. The biggest boss up I know for most female solopreneurs is in the area of mindset around people pleasing. Changing our beliefs about assertiveness, ambition and authority are critical. Direct communication and clear boundaries need to be thought of and embraced not as bitch behavior, but boss behavior. And I don't mean bossing other people around or being a boss. You may work completely by yourself and not even have an assistant.

I am referring to being the boss of your own time, energy, and effort. Okay, enough said, moving on to impulsivity. Impulsivity is common to most entrepreneurs, again, including me. I am very close to all 6 of these. I believe my impulsivity is related to my need for excitement, my passion for life, my spontaneity and being Enneagram 7. I have always been interested in being a part of whatever's going on and interacting with life as it happens. So while you have to be able to act quickly and take advantage of risks and opportunities as an entrepreneur, if you are overly impulsive, then you have not determined the difference between an option and an opportunity.

You are probably saying yes to way too many things, including many things that do not have a return, till they're actually wasting your money and time. You will engage in poor decision making, changing direction too often and confusing your team, Diann adding a lot of unnecessary emotion and stress to your business. I had a coach tell me that I needed to learn how to be better at being bored. Obviously I did not like that, but they did help me realize that being bored, it was kind of like that tolerating the monotony of success advice I got that I mentioned earlier. Boredom is not a life threatening condition, but impulsive people frequently treat it as though it is, so we will literally jump at anything that, you know, can give us a little bit of dopamine in the moment, because we may be momentarily bored.

So what I learned for myself is that I need to make sure I am getting enough excitement and stimulation in every area of my life so that my business can run smoother and with fewer problems. So what causes fewer problems in your business? Being a leader who sets the course and follows it. And when I say leader, if you're self employed and you are literally working for yourself by yourself, you need to still become the leader of yourself, by setting a course and following it, and not being someone who changes their mind every time something new and exciting comes along, squirrel time.

Now that doesn't mean that we don't take risks or give ourselves permission to change direction. I am currently undergoing significant changes in my business, but I'm not doing it impulsively. I'm thinking it through and attempting to the best of my ability to do it strategically and with feedback from others. So here are my simple and effective ways to deal with your impulsivity or spontaneity if you prefer. Number 1 is to create a fun culture in your company, even if you were completely alone. Make it fun! Start your day with a dance party, wear a unicorn onesie to meet with your clients on Zoom. Play any kind of fun music in the background to lift your spirits. There's nothing that says that business has to be boring, and you are not a person who tolerates boredom very well if you struggle with impulsivity.

I also strongly suggest that you reward and celebrate every single victory, big and small. And let's just say that doing the task that you've been avoiding, you know, when we talked about procrastination, doing the task you've been avoiding should not just be, well, glad that's over with. Celebrate and reward it, make it a victory. Keep doing that. It's really, really important to keep the dopamine flowing, because we're less likely to make impulsive, reckless choices if we're giving ourselves enough dopamine on a regular basis. I think it's really helpful to infuse creativity, passion, and excitement into as many routine tasks as we possibly can. It might look silly to other people if you work in a co working space and your partner may suspect you have completely come off the hinge if they are also working from home, but this is your business.

This is your brain and you need to do you boo. I also think it's important to have a healthy respect and a high level of awareness for just how addictive just about anything can be these days, so please know your triggers. Food, booze, drugs, sex, shopping, social media, even investing in your business by buying programs and courses can be so addictive and people who are impulsive simply get hooked more easily. I have seen many women virtually ruined their financial security by impulsively buying things and calling it investing in their business. So curb your enthusiasm, know your triggers, and make sure you're getting your need for dopamine met in plenty of places, so you don't trash your business without intending to.

And last but not least, is time blindness. Time blindness again affects most entrepreneurs. Once again, including me, I got 6 out of 6 folks. Now I I'm the eternal optimist, so I prefer to call it time optimism because I always seem to think I have more time than I actually do. I have time for this, and oh, this will just take a minute, are almost always on my mind, but I've had to learn that these thoughts make me late and sometimes get me in trouble with other people who are more punctual. So being time blind or time optimistic basically means that you lose track of time, you do not estimate how long things actually take.

You overestimate how much you can get done in an hour, a day, a week, and if you are an entrepreneur, you may not have to worry about getting fired for tardiness anymore. But if you are late to a scheduled Zoom meeting or you missed deadlines on promised deliverables. This can really give other people the impression that you do not value them or their business, and I know that that's not true. So some simple but effective ways to deal with time blindness our time optimism if you want to adopt my term, are set timers and reminders. Now I know this is old school, and you may say, that doesn't work. But you know what, you are constantly evolving.

You are constantly learning and growing, so even if it didn't work in the past, it works for lots and lots of people. So give it another try, knowing that some of us need several reminders for the same appointment. So use as many as you need, and make the commitment to using them be shame free. I've known many people to say they don't work, but when we started to unpack it, what really came up is that they expected they would set a timer or a reminder, immediately stop what they were doing, and obey it, and when they didn't, they felt bad and gave up. Some people need several reminders, because if they're in the zone, especially if you are prone to hyperfocus, you're probably going to need several reminders for the same appointment to kind of lure you out of that state of focus.

No shame, okay? Use a timer cube for your short tasks because they have a tendency to take way longer than necessary if you're not paying attention. I love my little timer cube, I have it right here. It's got 5, 15, 30, and 60 minutes on it. And that's another way I can kind of gamify getting things done, especially when they're the things I really don't feel like doing. Lastly, add buffer time to your tasks and appointments, so that you can start to learn to give yourself a little white space, a little time cushion. Now this one is a little bit harder to convince yourself to do, so start with 1 of the others first. As a therapist for many years, I always booked my therapy clients back to back to back because I knew I would not end a session until I saw the little light on the wall alert me to the fact that the next client was there. That one took a lot of work to try to wean me off of, and I still slip up.

So, that's all 6! Which one of these obstacles is your nemesis? Are you willing to believe that you can tame this? You can neutralize it? And maybe if you can't eliminate it, you could at the very least dial down its control over what you're able to succeed with in your business. Even if you have more than 1, remember most people do, and I promise you every single one of them can be managed and maybe even eliminated. Just start with 1 obstacle and one of the suggestions. Only 1, I know you overachievers out there, I see you. Don't overwhelm yourself, because if you do, you're going to get frustrated, and you're going to give up. And the worst thing of all is for you to talk yourself out of your big beautiful dreams.

In wrapping up, if you haven't yet taken the What's Holding You Back quiz, this is your invitation to do so. The link is in the show notes, and regardless of your answer you are going to receive a customized series of emails from me that will point you to podcast episodes, blog posts and practical tools for moving the needle on that particular obstacle. If this episode spoke to you, and you can think of 1 person, just 1 person in your network that may not yet know about The Driven Woman Entrepreneur Podcast. Will you do her a favor and share it with her? The link to make that super easy is also in the show notes. I'm thanking you for it, and I bet she will too.