Episode 505: Do you need to forgive yourself?
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Fiona Killackey: ello and welcome to episode 505 of the My Daily Business Podcast. Today, it's a quick tip episode, and that's really where I share a tip, tool or tactic that you can implement immediately. I think this is a big one in life and in business, but a really big one in business for sure. Before we get stuck into that.
I want to give a shout out to our podcast sponsor poppy ai. If you have worked with me in any capacity, you will see me shouting about Poppy AI because honestly, I feel like it is the best thing that I've added to my business in years. It is an incredible AI platform, but before you switch off and think, ah, it's just like chat GPT, and I'm already paying for that.
It is so much bigger. It is so much better. It is for creatives, particularly an incredible way of visually understanding what you actually want help with. You can put images, you can put PDFs, you can put Excel sheets, you can tag tiktoks, Instagram, uh, YouTubes. You can really do anything in there. You can put a big old brain dump mess, and it all makes [00:01:00] sense of it, plus the actual chat capabilities.
Means that you are chatting not just with chat GPT and any , new versions that they do, but also with Claude Grok with so many AI tools, so it is allowing you to have the power of Claude and Chat gpt and other AI tools. As well as all of these incredible functionalities, and the customer service is next level. There is a WhatsApp chat group. People constantly are sharing how they're using it to do X, Y, Z in their business.
It is just, it's an amazing, amazing platform. I love that they're a sponsor of this podcast. I have not taken on sponsorships for 500 episodes. But I am because I really strongly believe in Poppy. You can check out Poppy at getpoppy.Ai, and you can use the code Fiona, F-I-O-N-A for a discount. We will link to this in the show notes, and you can actually find that link, whether you're listening on Apple or Spotify.
It's just part of the overall synopsis for the show as well. The other thing I want to mention is our AI chat group. That is where we talk about ai, whether it's Poppy, whether it's [00:02:00] any other platform. We talk as small business owners once a month on a live Zoom call. We also have a WhatsApp chat in between as well.
If you want to learn how to actually harness the power of AI and how to actually really use it, not just hear about it and have a go, but actually see test cases, then check out our monthly group chat. For small business owners, it is at mydailybusiness.com /aichat. It's really affordable and it's a great way to come together and talk safely about what AI means in small business.
Again, you can join at mydailybusiness.com /aichat.
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Lastly, I want to of course, acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of this beautiful land where I host the AI chat, and that is the Wang and Rri people of the KO Nation, and I pay my respects to their elders past and present and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been seated. Let's get into today's quick tip episode.[00:03:00]
I have been having a lot of conversations, uh, that run along similar lines with many small business owners recently, and especially small business owners that have been in business for quite some time, and it's this theme of feeling behind and particularly feeling behind and feeling that. It's completely their fault.
So this idea of not really being able to forgive themselves for falling, quote unquote behind. One client recently moved and was talking about they felt that because that move was so huge for them and for the business that they have fallen behind in one area of business. I have another client who was talking about, uh, how they've hired a whole group of senior people in their business over the last.
12 months. And they were saying that because of that, they felt that because these people are coming in and working on all sorts of things, that they are not across as many things as they would normally be across. And also to quote them, they were talking about, I feel like I've gotten complacent with stuff and they don't feel [00:04:00] like they're on top of things in the same way that they were 12 months ago before they had this team or these, you know, people coming in really at the top.
And I get it because I've been there too. There are aspects of my business where I've had to forgive myself and I've had to think, gosh, I was going through a lot in that personal life, or there were circumstances that meant I didn't have as much time to market service offerings or new products or other things as much as I would like to.
Or there's other instances where I feel like I haven't forgiven myself for maybe not putting my foot down on things when I should have, which has led to costly expenses in the business. And so today I want to talk about. Why we feel this way and how to forgive ourselves and how to move forward productively because this is a quick tip episode and I really want you to get a lot out of the next few minutes and be able to actually implement this because that's the biggest thing from this podcast.
Implement what you are hearing. I guess the first thing is this sense of feeling behind. And really thinking about where that comes from. The first most obvious way I think is the [00:05:00] comparisonitis and this comparison culture. And I feel like social media is such a huge, uh, perpetrator of this, which is really this idea that we see other people constantly just sharing the best possible parts of their life.
They're sharing, oh, I'm working on something new. Or, Hey, let me show you my new collection. Or, Hey, we're doing this, or, oh, I've got this collaboration happening and we are hitting this revenue milestone, or. I don't know, maybe they're la mastering the latest marketing channel that has just come out and we think, why haven't I done that yet?
And we instantly feel this sense that we are behind the second thing. And you know, as somebody who works with people on AI and is championing parts of ai, I definitely feel like some major ethical issues with ai. But as somebody in that space, I know that I have a lot of clients and people just in my.
Arena who feel like the business world is moving so fast and it is. It is moving so fast. Technologies, platforms, strategies, there's new things constantly [00:06:00] emerging and it can feel absolutely impossible to be keeping up with that. Another massive thing, and it's really because we could be our own worst enemy, is that we are often the harshest critic, you know, way harsh tie, but that critic is huge and can be very, very loud in our own head.
We can set these ambitious goals and then. Life happens and maybe we don't meet them or we meet them, but it takes longer than we thought and then we think, oh, I'm such a failure. I have absolutely felt like that on numerous occasions across my business, and not just at the start, I have to say I felt like that recently in certain parts of my business as well.
And then of course there are actual things that happen often. You know, massive setbacks that are external. They're external forces or they're things that we did not see coming. They could be health issues, they could be family emergencies. They could be like a global pandemic. Hello. That force us to put certain parts of the business on a back burner.
And that's not a failure. That is life. That is life. My [00:07:00] people, my friends that are listening, that is life and it's something that we need to really take on board. We are not in control of everything that's going to happen to us. The other thing I want to mention before we get into like actually how to forgive yourself, is to think about the cost.
I often talk to people about the long-term cost of something, and I think there is a massive long-term cost. If you don't forgive yourself, you waste a whole bunch of energy and you put yourself through a lot of guilt and a lot of shame and a lot of berating yourself, uh, when that energy could be used towards something actually positive or something that's actually going to move you forward.
The other thing that can happen is that you start panicking and that you rush into. So often I see it scatter gun marketing, just throwing stuff, throwing stuff at, you know, social media ad spend, throwing stuff at an agency. Oh, they can help me, uh, giving into anything that comes along because you, you want this magic bullet to happen, and so you make these decisions from a place of panic or inadequacy rather than strategy.
The other thing is you rush to catch up. [00:08:00] So you may hire somebody because you've got a spot available as opposed to going, are they the right person for this job? And that can be a huge, massively costly, expensive exercise if you then have to let them go and then hire somebody else and so forth. And the other massive cost is that you take a confidence hit, you really start thinking, well, maybe I'm just not that good at X, Y, Z.
And I've definitely thought that. And you know, I'm really lucky to have a very supportive husband who really comes in strong when I'm feeling like that and helps me build myself back up. So then how do you do that? Whether you have somebody supportive or not really? Like how do you practice self-forgiveness?
And here are. I guess some approaches that I think have been really helpful. I think the first is to understand the context. Really think about what else you were dealing with at that time. It could have been a really big health challenge from you or a family member. It could be that you were going through some [00:09:00] personal stuff.
It could be hormonal changes. If you are in that time of life, it could be. That your children, maybe you have a child that really, really needed you. Maybe they were going through some stuff at school or at uni or in their own relationships, and you needed to be there for them because this matters like context matters.
You are a whole person with a whole life, and I often talk about your business should support your life. Your life shouldn't support your business, and really making a distinction between those two. The other thing is to think about. What actually happened. You know, maybe you dropped the ball on something, but maybe that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.
Maybe you haven't learned about, I don't know, this latest AI platform, and that's okay. Just acknowledge the actual thing. Have you, you know, maybe you're behind on updating your website. Maybe you have this email list that you haven't actually contacted for a few months. Just put it down, like put it down in writing.
Just name it, but don't shame it. Just name it, name it. The other big thing is [00:10:00] to really get clear on what you have accomplished. Maybe you are, you know, thinking, oh my gosh, my website really needs to be updated, or I really need to be hitting up the media more than I am. I. And yet you're not looking at all the other things that you have been able to achieve.
Maybe your client relationships have gotten better, maybe you have actually improved some of your processes. Maybe you've, I dunno, just kept the business going. I think when I ask people in the podcast interviews, I ask. A lot of people at the end, you know, what are you most proud of? The amount of people that say, I'm so proud of just keeping this thing going for as long as it has.
And I feel like that is something we overlook a lot of the time. Recently, my son started school, my youngest son and I talked about it with my husband and he was like. Well done. You know, you got them to school, which was a huge part of starting a business in the first place, was that I would be there for them going to school.
That I would, you know, be there to be able to go to things on their first day, go to sometimes assembly or sports stuff or, and I don't go to all of that stuff. I have to be really like [00:11:00] transparent. I don't go to everything, but I do go to a lot and I do, I am there for school pick up, school, drop off, all of that.
And so recognize what you have accomplished as opposed to focusing on what you haven't done. And then I think a really key, crucial thing, and for me this came up a lot in Covid, was to separate like who you are as a person from what you have produced. You know, separate that identity from action because like you are not.
The business mistakes you've made, you're not the delays you have. Um, I don't know if you have an outdated website. Doesn't mean you're an outdated person. You not understanding the latest AI tools doesn't mean that you have no understanding of technology. They're just actual situations. They are not.
Reflections of how valuable you are as a member of society, or how valuable you are in your family, or how worthy you are. I know in Covid when I was really worried about how I was going to continue my business, I had a lot of business coming in. It was, I was very lucky, but I did not have the time [00:12:00] because I had a child at home being homeschooled.
I had a baby, uh, that we couldn't get care for because, you know, people weren't allowed to come into your house. And so I was, I had this real identity crisis with who am I if I don't? Have this business. And I think that's something to think about, like, you are not the action or the mistake or whatever that you think that you're making.
And then I think the strongest sort of way out of this is thinking, what can I learn from this? Maybe I need more support. Maybe I need, uh, some more time in my calendar to, to upskill on something. So maybe I need to really set strong boundaries. Maybe I need to have more realistic expectations that in the season I am in life, it's not going to happen as you know, as much as it did in the season before.
Uh, and so I feel like really think about the lesson. What is it that you need? What can you learn from it? And then to go forward, really thinking about like, where am I? I love this Arthur Ash quote. I've used it so many [00:13:00] times in my newsletter, in this podcast, everywhere, which is start, what is it? Start where you are with what you have, with what you can do.
Maybe I'm completely stuffing that up, but really start where you are. You cannot change. You can't go back two years and. Fix things and change things. You just can't. You can only start from today onwards. So what is one small step you can take this week? The other thing is to ask, get support. If you are feeling behind on technology or skills, hire somebody.
Go on to Upwork and find someone who's A, who's amazing at it and ask them to teach you. A lot of the time people just think, oh, I can go into Upwork or find a consultant and I have to get them to do the job. You could actually find them and be like, can you teach? Can I pay you to teach me? How to do this or how to set up some templates or how to do X, Y, z.
I have recently done this myself and found somebody who's really good at a particular platform that we're using and I said, can I pay you to teach me how to use that platform? Uh, I think the other big thing is to really get like ruthless in what you have to put forward. So where can you really cull things?
You [00:14:00] can't do everything at once.
I have this tool that I work with clients in and we call it a Fix This S list. And what I tell them is, you can't fix everything at once, but you could look at that list. Let's say there's 20 things in there that you need to fix, and then assign them to quarters. What can you do in the next quarter? What can you do in the quarter after that?
You cannot do everything at once. And so that is a really crucial thing to think about as well. What can you prioritize? And the other thing to think about is just. Really looking at what success means to you. You know, maybe success is not about, I don't know, a particular revenue or being on every platform or you know, being the most incredible.
UpToDate AI expert or any sort of thing. Maybe success to you is having time with your family. Maybe success to you is having the weekends off. Maybe success to you is turning your computer off at, you know, two o'clock every day. Maybe success is being able to take time off later in the year. Like what does success mean to you?
Because often I think that helps with the whole kind of forgiveness, because you gotta remember, business is not a marathon. It's, oh, sorry. You gotta remember, business is a marathon. It's not a sprint. There is no like behind because there's no like one timeline that everyone in business is supposed to follow.
Your business journey is exactly that. It's yours, it's uniquely yours. So I just want to say, if you feel like you've fallen behind, I just want you to think about like acknowledging what's happened, understanding your context, recognizing what you have accomplished, separating your idea identity. Separating your identity from your mistakes and learning these lessons, but ultimately to practice forgiveness and then start where you are and prioritize and get support if you need it.
But just remember that there's not some gold star if you get there quicker than everyone else. You are going at your own pace, and we all feel like we're behind at times, but the point is not to get to a point where you are berating yourself about it, but where you [00:16:00] can stop, acknowledge and forgive. So that is it for today's episode.
You can find all of the show notes and links to anything I talk about, including Poppy ai, which again, if you're going to go on over to get Poppy and it's P-O-P-P-Y, get poppy.ai. Use the code FIONA for a discount. Honestly, it's. Been incredible for my business and so helpful, but you can find links to that and anything else at my daily business.com/podcast/ 505.
Thank you so much for listening, and if you have a business friend who really needs maybe this lesson at the moment and to forgive themselves please share this podcast episode so they can learn how to do this for themselves. Thanks so much for listening. Bye.
See you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to the My Daily Business Podcast for a range of tools to help you grow and start your business, including coaching programmes, courses and templates. Check out our shop at mydailybusiness.com and if you want to get in touch, you can do that by email at hello@mydailybusiness.com or you can hit us up on Instagram at mydailybusiness_. You can find us on TikTok at mydailybusiness or find me Fiona Killackey on LinkedIn. I look forward to connecting.
