Welcome back to Superheroes in Heels! I’m Kimberley Borgens, your host, and in this powerful episode, I dive deep into an experience that nearly every woman entrepreneur faces but few actually talk about: the Valley of Doubt.
Are you feeling stuck between your ambition and the results you crave? Are you questioning whether you should keep pushing forward in your business or just return to a "normal" job? This episode is for you! I open up about the emotional journey that so many of us traverse when building our businesses, including the struggles with overthinking, perfectionism, people-pleasing, procrastination, and feeling like an imposter.
I share my own insights on how the entrepreneurial journey is truly like climbing a mountain—far from a straight path to success, it's filled with ups, downs, false starts, and setbacks. I also talk about the deceptive illusions created by social media, where others only share their wins and not the late nights, tears, and fears that happen in private.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
What the Valley of Doubt really is, and why nearly every successful woman must pass through it
The common symptoms: overthinking, perfectionism, people-pleasing, procrastination, and playing small
Why emotional discomfort, not lack of determination, is what causes most women to quit too soon
How “failure” is often just friction and not the end of your story
The critical importance of developing self-trust and resilience as you evolve into the leader your business needs
Real talk about why entrepreneurship feels so uncomfortable — and why sticking with it leads to breakthrough
Practical steps and a weekly challenge to keep you moving forward, one decision at a time
If this episode resonates with you, be sure to share it with another woman who might be standing in her own valley of doubt—I promise, the journey is easier with a friend walking alongside you. Remember, superheroes aren’t created when life is easy; they’re forged in the fires of challenge and uncertainty. Keep showing up, keep leading, and keep putting one foot in front of the other—your resilience (and success) is waiting on the other side!
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Welcome to Superheroes in Heels, the podcast where powerful women rise, lead, and own the room. I'm Kimberley Borgens, your host, fellow trailblazer, and unapologetic advocate for women in the world of business. With over 30 years of experience building success in a male-dominant industry, I'm here to empower you to do the same. Each week you'll hear bold conversations with inspiring guests who embody strength, resilience, a little dash of sass, and a little bit of grace. Together, we'll challenge the status quo, break through barriers, unlock your confidence, and unleash your inner superhero. You ready? Let's go. Welcome back to Superheroes in Heels. Today we're talking about the place that almost every woman entrepreneur visits, but very few people ever name it.
Kimberley Borgens [:
It's not failure. It's not success. It's not even resilience. It's the place kind of right in the middle. And I happen to call that the Valley of Doubt. So this is where your dream has become real enough That you've invested time into it, you've invested money, energy, you put your heart into it, you started a business, but where's the results? Right? They're not showing up fast enough for you. It's the place where women start questioning everything, and then eventually you question yourself. Well, if you've ever wondered whether you should just quit and go back to a normal job, Then this episode is for you because I really wanted to help you understand something that's powerful, that the doubt that you're feeling may not— it may not be the evidence that you're failing, right? It might really just be evidence that you're growing.
Kimberley Borgens [:
So I wanted to talk today about the valley of doubt. You know, most people will tell you as an entrepreneur, you know, entrepreneurship is like this straight line. You come in. You have the dream, you, you work hard, you become successful. But the truth is, that's not reality. Heck, I didn't even know what to expect when I started a business, right? And for most women, you know, the journey looks a lot like, you know, you get— you have an ambition and then you put in the effort and then the doubt creeps in and then you have to get through the doubt to get to the resilience of it. And after you get past the resilience, you start to see the results. Most people are coming in thinking, look, I'm gonna get here, I'm starting this business, and I'm gonna have results now.
Kimberley Borgens [:
It's like people go out and they network, right? And they're networking and they show up and they wanna sell something the first time they meet somebody. You wanna buy my product? Oh, you wanna come to my workshop? Right? Let me hand out this flyer and show up. But that's not the reality of entrepreneurship. That's the dream. That's the easy way. Unfortunately, the real way is a lot more like you climb the hill, right? You charge in, you're climbing that hill up, and you start to lose momentum and you start to lose some energy and you start sliding back, right? And then you're like, okay, I can't really climb right now. So I start to climb around the hill, right? Thinking, All right, I'll just keep going. It's just still momentum.
Kimberley Borgens [:
And then I get to climb up a little bit more, and then suddenly I fall back, right? I get back on, you know, I get back up, I start charging again. Like, I'm climbing, I'm climbing, right? I know, I know that this is the reality because I've seen it. You know, my husband climbed— he likes to climb mountains, okay? Likes to climb the hills. And he's climbed like Mount Fuji, Mount Shasta, Mount Whitney. And then on to, uh, up to Mount Everest Base Camp and Mount Kilimanjaro. So the man, he's put in some hours on climbing. So, you know, he was telling me that his hardest climb, uh, was, um, Kilimanjaro. And the reason is because, uh, you go up and you go down and Mount Everest Base Camp to get to the base camp, Mount Everest.
Kimberley Borgens [:
it's a lot like this too, is you're going up for a day, then you have to go down into the valley, and you're like, where did all that— all my energy I put into climbing up the hill, now I'm going back down and I'm gonna have to climb back up again? And I remember him telling me, man, that was the hardest part, is like, no, I'm climbing a hill, but no, I gotta go down again, then I gotta go back up again, and then I go down again, and then I go back up again. And he, he You know, shared with me that it was a little frustrating at times because you just want to go straight up. But you see, just like the real mountains, that's what entrepreneurship really is like. Right. The biggest problem that we have, especially social media, uh, the gurus out there, everybody says, right, you know, hey, in social media it's like skip the middle, like People show you that they launched, they show you that they made six figures, they got a book deal, they received an award, right? They had a sold-out event, and you're like, "Oh, I want to do that too." So let me go buy that guru stuff, right? But nobody posts on social media—not very often, at least—the nights that they sat on the floor and cried their eyes out because they weren't sure exactly how to pay that next bill. And nobody posts about the moments that they refresh their email like 47 million times, right? Waiting to get a client inquiry because they launched out this thing and they knew it was great and nobody bought it. And nobody really posts about the afternoons where they question— you question yourself whether or not you're capable. Right? You're capable enough.
That's not the problem. The problem is, is you're in the valley of doubt. And nearly every successful entrepreneur, every successful woman has walked through this valley of doubt. Yea, though I walk through the valley of doubt. Right? But we're so busy seeing all the success stories because social media makes it look like everybody's winning, right? The influencers, everybody's getting deals, everybody's getting advertisers, everybody's— but not everybody. It's just the few that show up in your feed a lot because they're paying the price. Now, in this valley of the shadow of doubt, right? Why do women get stuck here? I see it all the time, right? It's not because Women lack determination. We don't lack determination.
Kimberley Borgens [:
Most women who are listening to this podcast are some of the hardest working people that I know. Yeah, you know I'm talking about you. Determination is not your problem, is it? And honestly, neither is resilience. The issue is you haven't developed resiliency yet because you haven't moved through the valley. You're stuck in the friction of it all, right? The space between like, who are you today and who are you becoming tomorrow, right? There's the gap that creates this tension, right? And we're just like trying to force it. We're trying to push it without realizing that this tension creates behaviors. that look like problems but really are just the symptoms of what's going on. So what do those symptoms look like? Well, how about maybe overthinking? You're right.
Kimberley Borgens [:
You endlessly research instead of deciding. You're overthinking it. What if this happens? And what if that happens? That's a symptom. Perfectionism. You convince yourself that you'll launch when it's perfect and you're always waiting for the perfect time. You know, there is no perfect time. And how about people pleasing? That's a symptom, right? You're seeking validation instead of trusting yourself. Who cares if somebody's happy about it, right? Do the right thing.
Kimberley Borgens [:
Go for the good, right? Be, be the light in the world. And there's always going to be haters. You're not going to be able to please everybody. But if you please the one, right? If you made a difference to the one, you know the starfish story. How about the symptom of procrastination? Right? You're delaying the action because it just feels risky. It's a little scary. It's uncertain. And procrastination gets in your way.
Kimberley Borgens [:
Oh. Family members say, oh, she's just a procrastinator. No, you're just somebody who doesn't step into action because the feels, right? And, and how about the symptom of playing small, right? You shrink down, you shrink to be as the least visible possible for you to be comfortable. Look, I get it. I've been in all of these places at one point or another. I've had these symptoms, right? You get into the imposter syndrome, right? Like, I must be an imposter. I gotta pull myself back because somebody just might, like, get me. They might, they might see the real me.
Kimberley Borgens [:
Well, the real me— You think about that for yourself. The real you, really? Is the person who just keeps going anyway. We don't let imposter syndrome get in the way. And I want you to know these aren't character flaws, so don't go beating yourself up. That's not the goal of this. I don't want you to step into that space. They're just signs of identity expansion, right? You're expanding your identity. You're learning and you're growing.
Kimberley Borgens [:
And that's important, ladies. But a lot of times what happens is you don't realize that you're doing it. You don't realize that you're trying to become someone that you've never been before, and it feels hard. It does. I get it. It feels challenging. It feels uncomfortable, but growth is uncomfortable all the time. Look, I remember when my kids were growing up, I had these boys, right? And they would Like they would shoot up.
Kimberley Borgens [:
They'd have a growth spurt. And I don't know if you, you know, had kids that had major growth spurts, but I did. My boys are like 6'3, 6'2, and 6' tall. Okay, so they had some major growth spurts. I remember one go, oh my God, Mom, it hurts so bad. It hurts. My leg hurts so bad. And it's because their body was expanding.
Kimberley Borgens [:
It was uncomfortable and it hurt and they were growing. And I couldn't stop it, right? He couldn't just go hide in a corner and say, oh, just make it all stop like we do in business. I know this is a hard conversation. Look, women— why do women go back to traditional jobs? I can tell you it's a hard conversation to have, and you might not want to talk about it, but the truth is that many women go back to traditional jobs and leave the space of entrepreneurship Not because they're incapable. They leave because they're emotionally— their emotional discomfort is just way too heavy. It's emotionally difficult. It's that growth, right? That growth spurt that you're going through. You reach the valley of doubt and you assume you've made a mistake.
Kimberley Borgens [:
It's uncertain, and that uncertainty becomes overwhelming. The inconsistent becomes exhausting. The lack of validation becomes painful. How come everybody sees her but they don't see me? Right? And suddenly a job starts to feel really attractive again. Not because it's their dream, not because it's your dream, because it feels safer. Right? It's predictable. It's familiar. But the tragedy, right, in this— many women quit right before resilience is formed, right? They make a mistake.
Kimberley Borgens [:
All right, suddenly it's a bad thing. So I want you to really think about that for a minute. You don't go back to work because it's your dream. It just feels safer, right? You mistake the valley for the destination. It's not a destination. It's just a valley. You think, oh, this must not be working. When in reality, you're moving through one of the most important stages of business growth.
Kimberley Borgens [:
And yes, it's hard. I remember Bishop Miles Monroe. Now he's passed away in a plane crash several years ago, but I used to go to a Christian business conference and he would come and speak on a regular basis and we'd have lunches with him and things like that. And he, he once said like, the richest place in the world is in the graveyard, right? It's where the people died who never wrote their book, who never built their business, who never painted their art, Or sung their song, right? The richest places in the graveyard. That's a sad space to know that we have these dreams inside of us and we, we, we push it aside because of doubt, because it, it's scary, because growth feels hard. You, you probably— those people were probably in the graveyard But they were sitting in the valley of doubt. They didn't find their way forward. It was a dream.
Kimberley Borgens [:
It was a hope. It was a wish. And they took it with them. They didn't share it. They didn't get it out to the world. Is that what you want to do? Look, I believe that the valley of doubt has a purpose. Oh, boy.
Kimberley Borgens [:
Right.
Kimberley Borgens [:
It's where entrepreneurs develop self-trust. Look, I recently talked about it in a previous episode, right? It's, it's where you're developing that self-trust. It's before entrepreneurship, you know, you even start off entrepreneurship that many women, right? They, they spent years trusting their boss, trusting the company, trusting their title, trusting the paycheck, right? Their performance review. It's what paid the bills, right? It's what got you going. Now what's happening is, as an entrepreneur, you're being asked to trust yourself. Trust yourself to, you know, be the boss. Trust yourself to grow the company. Trust yourself to step into that leadership title.
Kimberley Borgens [:
Trust yourself to come up with the paychecks, right? And only the only way to do that is by you stepping in and performing the task and the necessary skills that the clients want to pay you for. And that's scary, right? It's quite terrifying sometimes, right? The valley isn't testing your business at all. It's testing your relationship with yourself. Hi, Kimberley. I'm Kimberley. Let's have a conversation. Right? You have to step into that space where you know, you're having that relationship with yourself and you have to trust it. You know, it's asking you the questions like, I don't know, can you keep moving forward when nobody's clapping for you? Can you make decisions before you're 100% certain? And can you even keep believing in yourself when the evidence hasn't arrived yet? Can you trust your future self enough to keep walking forward into Getting to that level of success, because that's where that self-leadership is truly born.
Kimberley Borgens [:
That's where that business is truly built. You're you're waiting for people to trust you when you're not willing to trust yourself. The breakthrough doesn't happen when doubt disappears. I just want you to know that that's a myth, right? The breakthrough happens when doubt no longer gets the final vote. Successful women still experience uncertainty. I know I do. I experience uncertainty quite often, right? The difference is, is I don't let it stop me. Successful women still have bad days.
Kimberley Borgens [:
I don't know, I have one at least once a month, and no, it's not that time of the month, right? That's all long gone for me, right? Those days that— those bad days of the month, they feel bad to me. They're painful. They hurt. I don't like them at all, but I still experience them. And successful women, they still wonder if they're doing it right. Am I making the right decision? Am I stepping into this right contract? Am I negotiating this the right way? We still wonder those things. We're just not going to let them hold us up anymore. Right? We don't stop treating doubt as a stop sign.
Kimberley Borgens [:
You know, we, we have to stop saying doubt is here and I must stop. No, it's not a stop sign.
Kimberley Borgens [:
Right?
Kimberley Borgens [:
Successful women have to treat it as it's part of the journey. And eventually resilience appears. Not because we're born resilient. Yeah, kids fall down all the time, but how many of them fall down and cry and just want you to pick them up? That's the valley of doubt. That's the, I need comfort because I feel uncomfortable, right? We don't want to be those women in business. You can be, but I'm telling you, you're not going to succeed very well. Right. We weren't born resilient.
Kimberley Borgens [:
But because we walked through that valley long enough to become resilient, that's when the results start to show up. So think about that for yourself. When you first started, right? Even when you first started your very first job. Right? Did you, did you trust yourself enough to know how to do that? Right? That I was going to give back the right change from the cash register, that I was going to cook the food right and make sure nobody got sick when I was working in fast food in high school, right? It's these things that we, that we do that we, we didn't trust ourselves, but somebody else was walking alongside us. If you need a coach to walk alongside you, reach out. I'd be happy to support you. I'd be happy to coach you. I have a couple of spots open right now because I, I've got some people who are striving on that success line.
Kimberley Borgens [:
They've been doing really great and they're taking it on. So if it's something that you're interested in, let me know. All right, ladies, let me wrap this up. No more. You have to understand you're going to walk through the valley of doubt. You are. You, you have to. It's the growing space.
Kimberley Borgens [:
It's a space where you're stretching and you're growing. You're having a growth spurt. You just have to trust yourself enough to get through that. So this week, here's my challenge for you. Come on, superheroes. Put that cape on, tighten it up, and go, all right, I gotta do this. What you wanna do is you wanna ask yourself this question. What if the thing that you're calling a failure is actually just friction? What if you're not stuck? What if you're just simply in the valley? What if for you this week you are focusing on the movement, the one decision, that one conversation, the one post, the one offer, And that one step, because resilience isn't found sitting still.
Kimberley Borgens [:
It just isn't. It's discovered while you're moving. If you could take that one thing this week that gets you moving one step closer to the big goal, gets you walking through the valley. So you can get up the other side. That's your challenge this week. Look, come find me on social media if you choose. But if today's episode really resonated with you, share it with a woman who might be standing in her own valley of doubt right now. Please share this episode with her.
Kimberley Borgens [:
Help her find the peace that she can still keep moving forward and she doesn't just quit and go back. It's— and, and just so you know, here's the bonus of sharing it with somebody, right? It's so much easier to go through the valley of doubt with a friend who understands it, understands where they're at. Come on, you got this. Somebody who can support you, somebody who can cheer you on, and you can cheer them on also. That's why you would share this. But doubt isn't the end of the story. Right. It's often the chapter right before the breakthrough.
Kimberley Borgens [:
So remember, superheroes, you aren't created to have an easy life. Like, think about the movies. You've seen the movies, right? Superheroes, they aren't created when everything is easy. They're going through battles. They're challenging things that, you know, they're being pushed against. They're being, you know, People are trying to wipe them out. Okay, same thing in business. You've got to go through those challenges in order to get to the other side, to get to that breakthrough, to get to that success.
Kimberley Borgens [:
We are created to be superheroes because we keep moving forward even when, right, we're not sure how the story ends. Hard work isn't what creates success. I want to be very clear. It's getting through the doubt, trusting yourself, and moving through the hard times that get you to success. So, ladies, put on those heels, grab that cape, keep showing up, keep leading, keep walking through the valley because your resilience is waiting on the other side. Be blessed, my friends.
Kimberley Borgens [:
Thanks for tuning in to Superheroes in Heels with Kimberley Borgens. If you're walking away feeling a little braver, a little bolder, and a whole lot more powerful, mission accomplished. Be sure to subscribe to the show and leave a review. It helps us to reach more women who are ready to unleash their power and lead with confidence. And if you do leave a review, you might just hear your name in an upcoming episode. If today's conversation lit a fire in you, share it with your network and join us inside the Hive Society at where powerful women gather to break barriers and rise together. Until next time, keep showing up, standing strong, and heels or not, keep embracing your inner superhero.
