Episode Summary

In this episode, the host, Jen Ingram speaks about how to deal with the doubts that creep in when one is considering whether to continue with their regular job or fully commit to their side business. She starts by taking the listeners back to where they were a few years ago, then to where they are now, and finally has them envision what their future could look like if they stayed on their current path or took a leap into entrepreneurship. Highlighting that these feelings of doubt can stem from being used to high achievement, a lack of belief in oneself, or discomfort with getting out of one's comfort zone, Jen urges listeners to examine these feelings and decide which path they are okay with.

About the Host:

Jen is a Dream Catalyst and Business Mentor saving hustling female solopreneurs from the chains of corporate America. Her passion lies in helping women through their self awakening so they can finally break free, turn their side hustle into the business of their dreams, and live a life full of time, location and financial freedom.

Jen is a California girl at heart, now living out her dream in the Midwest, traveling, coaching female solopreneurs and sharing her own story of triumph and empowerment across speaking platforms. When she's not traveling, she enjoys spending time with her college aged son and her rescued Pit Bull.

After 20 years of various project manager and corporate trainer roles while juggling a wide array of side gigs, she has mastered the ability to help women see what they cannot see, believe they are meant for more and take aligned action to make it happen. With an MBA in Change Management, and a Health and Life Coach Certification from the Health Coach Institute, Jen is an expert at creating both the business process changes and the personal habit changes needed to finally Break UP with corporate and go all-in on your side hustle or long standing passion project.

Connect with Jen on Facebook or Instagram!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jenelleingram/

Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/wholelottashift/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejenelleingram

Free Gift: https://mailchi.mp/4f4ae02ebe45/beat-the-odds

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I'm not going back there.

I can't go back there.

In fact, in order for me to go back there I would have to change who I am again

because I've already become a new person To be here today Talking to all of you

with a microphone in a Facebook group on a podcast I had to change who I am in

order to, in order to be able to do that.

Welcome to a whole lot of shift podcast, the podcast for multi passionate women

with an entrepreneurial spirit, where we provide inspiration, motivation, and

education to help you shift away from all the shoulds and supposed to's to what's

truly possible for you in your business and your life, all on your own terms.

You ready, girl, let's make shift happen.

Hello and welcome to another episode of a whole lot of shift.

I'm your host Jen Ingram and I'm so glad that you're here today.

Today I am talking about whether or not to stay the course or pivot as

you're thinking about your side hustle.

It is already the end of January 2024.

I can't believe it.

And It's about that time of year where if you've already set up your New Year's

resolutions, this is where so many folks kind of fall off the wagon and those New

Year's resolutions start to get pushed to the side and people kind of start

asking themselves, well, Is that even really a goal that I want to continue to

try for or they have realized in trying to create the new habits that they'll

need in order to achieve the goal that creating some of those habits are a

little bit tougher than they thought.

And part of that has to do with the fact that it means that you're you.

As a person are going to have to change.

And that's scary for a lot of folks.

So I wanted to talk about that today, but I wanted to talk about how this

relates to your side hustle and just entrepreneurship in general, because if

you have ever felt like, okay, maybe, maybe I just give up on this dream.

Maybe this isn't it.

Maybe I'm better off just staying the course and.

maintaining my corporate job.

I've done all right with it.

You know, even if I don't like where I'm at right this

moment, I can find another job.

I've, I've always done that.

I'll work it out, right?

Kind of those thoughts of how long do I keep trying?

At what point in my quote unquote successful.

Sometimes it feels really hard.

I don't know You know, not even sure if I'm doing all the right things.

I don't know what I'm doing.

And you have all this doubt.

First, I want to tell you completely normal happens.

It happens all the freaking time.

But the other thing that I really wanted to talk about is when

these thoughts start to come up.

is to stop and ask yourself where some of this could be coming from.

So I'm going to kind of walk you through a little bit of an exercise today, but

I'm also going to touch on kind of the why is this happening, where is this

coming from, and what can you do about it.

So first, Speaking to those thoughts of doubt and hesitation, do I, do I,

and I'm really talking today about my side hustlers who are still working

in a full time job, or maybe, maybe you don't have a full time job.

Maybe you're working like a couple part time jobs and then trying to

build your business on the side, but something of that nature.

It gets really, really tough sometimes because You, I mean, you constantly feel

like, man, I'm, I'm working all the time.

There's kind of those periods of hustle and then there's periods where things go

easy and, and sometimes it kind of, the pendulum kind of sways back and forth.

And so when you get into those moments of hustle, there's sometimes

you're thinking, what am I doing?

And of course, if you're here and you're listening to this, I already

know you're highly ambitious.

You're ambitious as fuck.

And so the other problem that starts to come into play is that you're probably

really freaking good at what you do.

You put a lot of.

Effort and care into what it is that you do, and you've put in a lot of energy

over the years into creating a career for yourself and getting yourself to the point

that you're at right now in your career, in your job, or even if you're just

working a couple part time jobs right now.

You've gone out and made the connections to get those jobs, to do something

that works well for you and your family while you build this out, right?

Like, you hustled for that, you worked for that, and you're a high achiever.

So it's not like you're just showing up half ass.

You're showing up in your career as you have always done and been a high achiever.

So you're doing really well.

And this is where it gets tricky and it gets difficult because

you're probably getting some praise.

And things for doing a really good job, even though it might not be every day.

You might feel like, Hey, I'm not getting paid enough.

I feel undervalued.

And there might be a lot of truth to that.

There might be some times where you feel like, man, I just

always in the person that.

Ends up getting a lot of work dumped on them.

And then that also kind of makes you feel undervalued.

But at the end of the day, you're an achiever.

The end of the day, you've always done really, really well.

And so it gets tough when you know you're doing a really good job.

You're a problem solver.

You show up, you make shit happen.

Day in and day out, and it feels really freaking good to do that

because that's what you've done.

Probably most of your life is you've been a high achiever, right?

So this starts to get really difficult as you're trying to build

out your business and you're not.

quite seeing the outcome that you desire just yet in your business.

Maybe you're just getting started and you're just starting

to make some connections.

You don't really have hardly any sales yet.

You know, whatever the case may be.

And so it gets really tough because you're used to.

Succeeding, frankly, right?

So you start to doubt, God, am I even doing the right thing?

You know, maybe it's just that I just need a different job.

I'm just not in the right job.

I just need a different job.

And maybe if I just made a little bit more blah, blah, blah, you know.

Maybe that's what it is.

And maybe I can be happy with that.

I'm probably just feeling frustrated right now because I feel undervalued

or I'm having trouble making ends meet.

Or it's this particular job or this particular role, or it's my

boss or whatever it is, right.

That you're telling yourself.

And so you kind of get stuck.

Like, do I stay the course with where I'm at and I continue on in my career or do I?

pivot and I do something really scary and I stay down this path of creating

something of my own and is it worth it?

Can I do it?

Because I'm not seeing the results just yet.

Like it's really scary.

So the first thing I want to talk about is, okay, where does that come from?

Where does all this doubt come from?

Well, some of it I just talked about.

You're used to always being a high achiever.

You've always been really successful at what you've done.

So when you're going into business for yourself, there's no longer

an organization behind you, a boss behind you, a coworker, a you know, a.

Bestie, whatever it is saying, yeah, girl, you're doing awesome.

Blah, blah, blah.

Oh, look at you.

Oh, thank you so much.

You're doing such a fabulous job at, you know, at this role or,

or whatever it is that you do.

There's nobody there to tell you good job.

There's just you and you're not yet seeing the results that would indicate.

Good job, you know, cause of course you're equating probably number of customers

sales numbers, all of that in that is the results that you're looking for and

if those aren't really high, then you're just kind of feeling like a failure and

you're thinking, what the hell am I doing?

Like.

Who am I?

What am I doing?

Right?

So that's, that's the first thing, right?

That's probably why some of these thoughts of what if I,

what if I just stayed the course?

I just, I just stayed the course in my career.

I've made it this far.

That's where the first one can come from.

The second place could also just be a lack of belief.

in yourself, a lack in belief of what's possible, a lack in belief of what you

can do, that you can do it on your own.

A lack in belief of what kind of business is possible.

And that belief and trust in you and that you're making the right decision.

And that taking the risk is worth it.

That's really, really tough to believe.

We have been taught our entire lives to see and then believe, you know, the

phrase I'll believe it when I see it.

Right.

And so we wait until we see something and then we believe.

The hardest part about entrepreneurship is that you've

got to believe in order to see.

It's one of those things, have you ever, have you ever bought a new car?

And I don't mean like, new car, new to you car.

Okay.

It doesn't matter.

Used, new, whatever.

But, but you've got a vehicle that that you've come into possession of

and you start driving around town.

You're like, Oh my gosh, I really, I really dig my new

car, whatever, blah, blah.

And all of a sudden you see a million other cars, just like yours.

all over the street, right?

You're like, now I had not seen a single one of these cars in this color until now.

I, I didn't realize how many of these there were in this town.

Right.

Have you ever had that experience?

Right.

And it's because now that we're in possession of it, right.

We're looking for, for that evidence.

My mind just went blank with what it's called, but right.

And so now you see it, we are truly taught our whole lives and we truly

become dependent on the idea of.

I'll believe it when I see it.

But with entrepreneurship, you're being asked to believe it so you can see it.

And that's really scary.

If you've never done that before, that could be one of the reasons why

you're experiencing a lot of doubt and questioning, should I be doing this?

Is this the path that I want to go down?

You know, should I be making a pivot?

What have you?

The other thing is that it's simply something that's outside

your comfort zone, right?

I mean, it, it's requiring you to do some really, really crazy things that

you've probably never had to do before.

Right.

I think I said in a prior episode that clocking in and out of a job every day is.

Kind of easy.

You might not love it.

You might really freaking hate it.

It might make your stomach churn, but technically speaking, clocking

in and clocking out is easy.

Having to build something from the ground up by yourself for yourself

to rely on that income stream.

That's scary.

That is way outside your comfort zone.

It might be something you've never done before.

And it might be something that you.

Maybe there's not even anybody close to you that, you know,

that has even experienced that.

So that could be another reason.

So in thinking of that, right, understanding, okay, why are

some of these thoughts coming up?

I think is really helpful because then you get to kind of take a step back

and go, okay, okay, now I can see this.

I can see that I've always been a high achiever.

So this is now where you get to start to figure out.

So where are the gaps?

If I've always been a high achiever and I'm always used to having some sort of

recognition for my achievements, how can I recreate that for myself now?

What do I need?

What kind of support system do I need?

Who, you know, what kind of hype girls do I need in my, in my space, right?

Like, what do I need to be doing for that?

You can start to ask yourself, okay, Hey, is this something that

I just don't believe is possible?

Is this something that I believe is only possible for other people?

Oh, it's possible for them, but it's not possible for me.

Is it a lack of belief?

Is it that it's just so far outside your comfort zone to just.

You just don't, don't like that.

You don't like having to reach beyond that comfort zone.

It's not something you're used to doing every day.

And so now you've got to figure out, okay, well, how can I

start forcing myself to do that?

What are some little ways I can force myself outside my comfort zone so

that I can start training my brain?

Hey, but did you die?

Right?

That's like that meme whatever, but did you die?

You could start training yourself.

Hey, I did that really scary thing and I made it right.

So understanding why some of these thoughts are coming up is very helpful

because then you could start to figure out, okay, where can I fill in the gaps?

What's missing?

I also want to provide you with another way of how you can overcome some of

these feelings of doubt where you're questioning, should I keep going?

Should I just give it all up?

You know, how much, how much money am I investing in this

dream and is it worth it?

And so I'm going to kind of take you down a little bit of a, of an

exercise, take you down a path here.

If you'll, if you'll go with me This is something that I've done in in some of

my coaching and obviously the way I'm going to walk you through it today on

a podcast is very different than how it would be if you were in person or if you

were you know, in a one on one session, but I'm just going to kind of, take

you through some of the steps, right?

So when you're at a crossroads like this, and you're really trying to

determine, okay, do I take this step forward or do I stay where I'm at?

What am I doing?

Really, the question is, you technically have three options, right?

So one of the things, and I was reminded of this, it's been a

little bit, it's been a little bit since I've done this exercise.

I think I might've done it.

Yeah.

It was just this last fall.

But I I was reminded of this this last month when I made the crazy

mistake of getting back on LinkedIn.

So this is how I was reminded of this and I knew I wanted to share

this with all of you because it really can be a really powerful way

to think about what you want to do.

Okay.

So the first thing is you can kind of.

Take a little bit of a trip down memory lane.

Go back maybe one to two years ago, right?

Go back to where you were before you ever thought, okay, I'm going to

actually start taking actions towards this idea of a business of my own.

Go back to.

Where you were before that, what were you doing?

Where were you?

Where were you working?

Think about what that life looked like and what you were experiencing,

what you were doing for fun.

And I want you to go back there and imagine that you just stayed that course,

that you just kept doing that thing.

You stayed right where you were.

Obviously it had been working for a little while.

Right.

So what if you just went back?

What if you just went back to where you were?

I can guarantee if you did go out onto LinkedIn or something and you looked

at some of your old connections, you will find a lot of the people that

were in your life or in your workplace at that time are still right there.

So you could go right back to where you were.

There's a really good chance That those same people are right there,

it would feel really comfortable.

You would know it.

Well, you'd be able to go right back into it.

Wouldn't even take much effort.

So really think about that.

Think about what it would be like to just take a step back and physically

take a step back into that space.

One to two years ago.

Where were you?

What was that life like?

Cause you can go back there and you can stay right there.

It's pretty easy.

So many people do it.

You could be like the other 90 percent of people out there and nobody would

say shit to you about it because the other 90 percent are doing it.

Nobody's going to say anything.

You just go right back.

It's pretty easy.

And then I want you to think about where you're at right now.

Right here, right now, you're already in the place where you've taken some

sort of action towards a new business.

Maybe it's a side hustle, maybe you've actually quit a full time job and

now you're just working part time.

Depending on wherever you're at, right?

What's your life look like now?

Probably not too bad.

You've probably made some new friends.

You've made some new connections.

You've started doing things to change your mindset.

You're listening to this podcast.

You're opening your mind up to new ideas, new opportunities.

Where are you working?

What are you doing?

What does your success look like for you now?

What are you doing for fun now?

Maybe you're going to vision board workshops and meeting new people.

Hey, I don't know.

Um, and, and so think about that, right?

Where, wherever you're at right now, you've look.

You've already taken the steps towards a side hustle, so you could, you could

decide, eh, I'm not far enough into it.

I could let it all go right now.

I've been pretty successful.

And you could stay exactly where you're at, what you've already built up to,

because hey, you were to get to this spot.

You've worked here.

You're not going to just lose contact with all these people.

You can maintain all the networking and relationships that you've

got for yourself right now.

That could still happen.

That doesn't go away.

You could still be listening to this podcast.

You can probably continue on doing the same things that you've been doing.

And so imagine if you do stay on the path that you've, that you're on right

now in your career and whatever your income streams look like right now.

What does that look like in another three to five years?

Maybe you get another, maybe you even get another promotion

because you are a high achiever.

You get some more commendations, right?

That feels really freaking good because again, as I mentioned in the beginning

of this episode, you're probably really freaking good at what it is that you

do and you know it and others see it.

And so you just stay the course at another, you know, think

about what that could look like in another three to five years

and think about all that you would have because you've already built so much.

Right.

There's nothing wrong with that.

All these new friendships, all these new relationships that you've brought

in, all these things you've learned about what a retreat is, and maybe

you even gone on a couple at this point, you, you could still do that.

You, you've managed to do that this year, or in 2023, I guess we're

only in January of 2024, although maybe you already have done some

of that in January of 2024, right?

So in another three to five years.

If you just stayed on your current career path as it is, where would you be?

And kind of step into that,

okay?

The third option, because remember I said there's three options, the third option

is that you take a step forward and you start doing the really scary things.

And you fully show up for this side hustle for this business, you stop

fearing the amount that you're maybe investing or putting into the business

and you go for it and you believe before you can see and what starts to happen.

Your side hustle starts to income starts to replace your regular job income.

Pretty soon.

You're now you're now making double the income because you've still got your job

and your side hustle is really taken off.

So now all those worries about what you may have spent on investing and trying

to get that side hustle off the ground.

That starts to go away

and then you get to make, you get to make a decision on your terms

about leaving your job and going full time in your business and what

that looks like and what writing that resignation looks and feels like.

And imagine that you're able to do all of that and no longer feel tied down,

no longer feel locked into something that you don't even really like being

a part of, no longer feeling like.

You need to be part of a culture that you don't even like that, you

know, is just, it's not even you who really talks like that anyways, right?

All that corporate lingo.

Oh my God.

Anybody followed corporate Erin on a, on Tik TOK, the reason why she's taking

off on her account so well is because it reminds so many folks of what they're

experiencing in corporate America.

And it's, it's, it's comical.

It's it's because nobody,

and you're not going to have to talk like that.

When your side hustle is taken off because you believed it.

Because you stepped outside your comfort zone and now all the worries

that you have today when you were having all these doubts, they're gone.

They're long, like you can't even imagine what it's like to have those doubts.

In fact, you kind of forgot about it.

Had you not maybe journaled about it or mentioned it to

someone else who brought it up?

You forgot that was even a fear.

It's such a thing in the past because your business has taken off.

And done everything you wanted it to do for you because you decided it was

going to, because you decided it could.

What does that feel like?

How amazing is that?

And really think about that.

And maybe you do take these three options and journal about each one of them.

What are you doing in each one of them?

Who are you with?

What are you doing for fun?

What are you doing for rest?

Do you feel rested?

Are you happy?

What are you getting to experience?

What are your worries?

What are your fears?

What are your dreams at that point?

And think about that in each of these scenarios.

If you went back, if you stayed the course right where you're at, Miss

Miss Independent High Achiever.

Or if you did the really scary thing and you really finally showed up a

hundred percent for your side hustle and you fucking made it happen.

And then once you've gone through those three options, then I want you

to go back to the very first question.

Should I stay the course or should I pivot?

Should I stay at this job, clocking in, clocking out, or should I continue

to try and build this business?

What do I really want?

And am I willing to push past these feelings of doubt and

fear that I'm having right now?

And think about that.

Maybe journal on that and really take a good look at what the answers are to

some of those questions that I just gave.

I'll tell you some of this really, the way this really, really hits for me.

I'll tell you my biggest ick is LinkedIn.

I'm not a fan of LinkedIn.

I get in there occasionally just because I guess I feel like it makes

me a little bit up to date with the times, like what's going on,

but truthfully, I can't stand it.

I feel like it's like.

Oh my God.

It's a cross between all the things that I hate about corporate America, right?

All the freaking jargon and lingo and the BS that's, that's being put out there.

It's a cross between that.

And then you've got like your gifted kid program bulletin board.

And I feel like that's like the LinkedIn.

Feed, right?

You know what I'm talking about?

Like, you remember like when you were in school and the gifted kids, they

always had like their own special little, Oh, like look at us, the,

you know, we win all the awards and we, we do all these nerdy things.

And then and so there's like all this praise for all of that crap.

Oh, I just, I just got another certification in blah, blah, blah.

Right?

Like that's half of the LinkedIn feed.

And then the other half is just overwhelming BS, right?

But one of the things that I like to do when I start to have those

feelings of doubt is I go out there because let me tell you where I

was at just a couple of years ago, all those people are still there

and I can go out there and I can see them and I can see that they chose to

just, they chose to stay the course and they're still doing the same things.

The same type of companies, some of them at the same exact company that they've

been at for years and years and years.

Underpaid, undervalued, all the things and I'm reminded, Oh yeah, I already

made the really gutsy decision that I was not okay with that for my life.

That's not the life that I want to lead.

I already made the decision to move onward and upward in my mind.

What my mind is.

Onward and upward.

I'm not going back there.

I can't go back there.

In fact, in order for me to go back there I would have to change who I am again

because I've already become a new person To be here today Talking to all of you

with a microphone in a Facebook group on a podcast I had to change who I am in

order to, in order to be able to do that.

And in order to release all the doubts, I, in order for me to go

back, I would have to change back.

I can't do that.

There's, it just doesn't work that way.

I'm not that person anymore.

So I really, really love this exercise of taking a moment to truly step into.

Take a step back, go back a couple years and think about where you would be.

Come, come to the center where you are now.

Think about if you just kept going on this road, you just kept down this

path or you take a step forward into the big unknown, the big scary step.

What's that look like?

And then you get to really think about, okay, so am I doing this or am I not?

Which one of those am I okay with?

All right.

I hope that this helped some of you guys, especially as we're entering February.

And for so many people, this is the point in time where they start to go you

know, I wrote down some goals, but they seem like maybe they were a little far

fetched and I'm just not sure right now.

I think this is a great exercise.

Kind of take a look at some of those goals.

You know what?

Tell you what, you can kind of follow the same steps in the same exercise

for some of those smaller goals.

Go all the way back to what I talked about in the beginning of this podcast

and ask yourself, is it because you're such a high achiever that all these

things have always come easy for you?

And now you set a goal that's not just easy that you're not

getting commended for immediately?

Is it a goal that you just, that you, you have a lack of belief in

because you're trying to see it in order to believe it and you need

to believe it in order to see it?

Is it something that's requiring you to get so far out of your

comfort zone that maybe you need to take some baby steps, right?

And then take, and then take yourself through this exercise.

You could do this with any, any one of your small goals.

You can do this with a bigger picture of what you want for your life,

what you want for your business.

This works in so many ways.

Anytime that doubt is creeping in and you're thinking, Oh my

God, I just want to give up.

I'm, I'm kind of tired.

Like, I just don't know.

Like, what am I doing this for?

Go through these steps.

I promise you, you will walk away.

Here's what I love about this.

You will walk away with a stronger sense of what to do.

And I think that that's the goal.

So much so often we sit here and we go, I just don't know what to do.

Well, this is going to help you going through these steps is going to help you.

So All right.

I hope that you guys enjoyed this and apologies.

I sometimes I get so into talking.

I don't check the comment box.

So if you were catching this live be sure to leave me a comment.

I'll come back in and check the comments.

Great apologies.

And if you're not in the Facebook group, what are you doing?

Come on over to Facebook in the whole lot of shift Facebook group.

We would love to have you.

I I've got in my 2024 goals to have a lot more of these live sessions

and to really start bringing in some experts into the group.

And I'm currently working on some ways that I can do that.

So super excited about all of that.

But I will let you all go.

I hope that you all have a fabulous week and I hope that you all enjoyed this, but

until next time, keep making shift happen.

Bye guys.

Hey shifters, thank you so much for tuning in to another

episode of A Whole Lotta Shift.

If you heard something today that inspired you or resonated with you,

please head over to iTunes and leave us a review to help others as well.

Your review helps me give as much motivation and

inspiration as I possibly can.

And don't forget, you can catch all the outtakes, bonuses, special live

stream interviews, and much more over at A Whole Lotta Shift Facebook group.

Until next time, keep making shift happen.