Episode 132. Stepping Powerfully into the Rest of 2023

How has everyone’s year been so far? At the time this episode is released, we are on the cusp between June and July. Which means that we are rounding out the first half of the year, and we’re getting ready to step powerfully into the second half of 2023.

In honor of that, I want to offer several really thought provoking insights that will help you, first, think about what you’ve created and who you’ve become so far in the year. Second, who you are becoming for the rest of 2023. And third, what you want to create for the rest of the year

The middle of the year is such a magical, playful time for us to reconnect with our vision and dreams. To really ground back to why we do what we do. To recommit to the next level self that we’re becoming. And to evaluate how the first half of the year has gone without shame or judgment.

If you, too, have really, really big dreams and a vision for what you want to make happen, the Thought Leader Club is where you want to be. I want to extend an invitation to those of you who have an inkling that TLC is the room you want to be in , in the new year.

Our next cohort of TLC officially starts in March 2024. This is THE room to:

Start putting in the reps to create your thought leader career and become highly prolific and consistent at building thought leadership
Build a body of work that lets you become known for your unique thought leadership, your story, and how amazing you are at what you do
And ultimately set yourself up for making your 1-3 year dreams a reality

To join us, you can head on over to cheryltheory.com/program to learn more about the program and submit a brief application. Afterwards, we will book a sales call.

For those of you who have never been on a sales call with me, let me give you a quick rundown of what you can expect. When you book a sales call with me, you walk away from the call with the exact next steps in your business and you’ll get even clearer on your vision for what your path looks like to become known for your unique thought leadership.

By the end of our conversation, you’ll confidently be able to pinpoint the exact 3 blocks that are slowing you down and keeping you from moving forward. And guess what? It doesn’t have to do with not having enough time or money. The sales call is also where you can ask questions about my process, coaching style, and how our community can support you and provide tangible help with your specific business goals. It’s also a super fun space for you and me to get to know each other more!

For full transparency, my goal on the sales call is not to “convert the client at all costs”. But rather, this truly is a safe space for you to understand what your specific hurdles are, what your concrete next steps are, and then make an informed decision about joining us inside The Thought Leader Club. You can head on over to cheryltheory.com/program to learn more and apply, and I cannot wait to see you on a sales call.

Now. Let’s dive into what you’ve created and who you’ve become.

In This Episode:

What you’ve created and who you’ve become – Evaluating how the past 6 months, quarter, or month has gone
Who you’re becoming and what you’re creating in the rest of 2023
Becoming known for your thought leadership in the rest of 2023
Let’s recommit to our vision and goals and step powerfully into the rest of 2023

What you’ve created and who you’ve become – Evaluating how the past 6 months, quarter, or month has gone

Let’s really recognize, celebrate, and marinate in who you’ve become so far this year, in just the first 6 months of the year alone.

Here’s the thing about reflecting on your growth thus far.

What often happens when people evaluate how their year or quarter or month has gone, they tend to only look at it from the lens of externally validating metrics. The most common one I see is how much money you’ve made in the past 6 months, for example. Because let’s say your goal was 10k in sales for June 2023, but you only created 3k by the end of the month.

If income was your only measurement of evaluation, you’d likely feel really dejected about the month and that sets a shaky stage for your brain as you enter the next month, quarter, or rest of the year.

Because the way your brain sees it, you’ve failed on this metric in the past x number of months. Then you become so fixated on how in the past number of months, you didn’t hit this goal. This is a really unhelpful frame of mind for you and your business to continue the rest of the year on.

So what are actually helpful ways of evaluating the year thus far and who you’ve become so far?

What I want to offer is to evaluate based on indicators that are indicative of your future potential, rather than a hard number from the past.

For example, what are the aligned actions and habits you’ve been building upon or implementing on, that will for sure contribute to you moving closer and closer to your goals?

What are the mindset shifts and beliefs you’ve worked on strengthening which make reaching those goals so much more within reach? How have I been practicing specific messaging skills or content best practices? How is my ability to self coach and bounce back whenever I catch myself in a mindset spiral?

Because if we’re only looking at past metrics like how much income you’ve made, you’ll likely miss out on the other measurements and indicators that clearly indicate that you’re on the brink of that next level and you’re on the cusp of hitting that next goal.

But now you’re so ashamed of how the past 6 months have gone, you end up slowing down or even wiping away all of the momentum you’ve built up to this point.

To help you take the time to reflect on what you’ve created, I want to share 7 prompts for you to answer for yourself:

1. What are all the results I have created and why am I so proud of what I’ve created?

2. What are all of the ways I clearly have made progress towards my goals, irrespective of whether I’ve hit the goal or not?

3. What were the skillsets or tools that really helped me see momentum towards my goals? Are there specific actions, habits, skills, or tools that will definitely have a long term impact on my goals?

4. How was the quality of my thinking, self coaching, and overall mindset in the past 6 months? How did I take care of my mind and mental wellbeing these six months, and how did it impact my ability to take action and show up for my goals? Where could I have supported myself better?

5. What challenges came up in the past 6 months and how am I proud of who I was during these events?

6. Where did I quit on my own goals and didn’t show up, even when I say that I would? (For example: Did I show up in ways that I wasn’t proud of? Where did I procrastinate?) And what led to me not showing up for my goals (such as not taking care of my mind and regulating my nervous system, not preparing for busy weeks in advance, etc)?

7. Now, with all of this new awareness, what’s my plan to continue into the rest of the year powerfully, with enthusiasm and relentless commitment, so that I will continue taking aligned action to work on my goals and support myself while doing so?

In order to expand into the version of who you’re stepping into for the rest of the year, you need to first appreciate, recognize, celebrate, accept, and also neutrally evaluate your growth thus far.

The truth is, you can’t level up while hating yourself the entire time. You can’t hate yourself into the next level version of you. You can’t shame yourself into the next level version of you.

That would be a deeply painful journey, and my guess is that you’ll end up beating yourself up so much to the point where this journey of entrepreneurship no longer feels worth it and you may even end up taking yourself out of the “game” of entrepreneurship entirely. Simply because your brain convinced you that you’re not capable.

Perhaps even because you were looking at the wrong metrics or indicators. When in fact, there were actually so many signs of growth and potential that’s peeking through from beneath the surface and you’re actually on the cusp of breakthrough.

For one of our incredible clients, Nicole, it was because she focused on the specific indicators that predicted her future potential, that’s how she is about to finish off the first half of 2023 with an absolute bang and will cruise right into the second half of the year.

Here’s the back story: When Nicole first reached out about coaching in Q3 of 2022, she was pivoting niches in her coaching business, she had a lot of mind drama about her audience, whether she’s confusing her audience with her pivot and she had the dream of becoming a YouTuber but she felt like she should put her YouTube dreams on hold.

During our coaching together, a lot of our work was spent on reconnecting Nicole to the work she really wants to do in this world. Besides working with clients in a coaching and workshop capacity, which is what Nicole was able to do during our time together, she also had this deeper desire to start her YouTube channel. But it took a while before Nicole finally published her first YouTube video.

It took months and months and months of coaching, working on Nicole’s identity as a content creator and also her belief that what she wants to talk about in her video is not confusing to people, that it is of value to people, and that it is what she wants to be known for.

For the many, many months before Nicole officially launched her channel, someone looking in from the outside might think “Oh well, Nicole didn’t even start her YouTube, so this is a failure.”

But behind the scenes, Nicole was working hard on her identity and untethering from her fears of starting her dream. Behind the scenes, it was clear to me, as the coach, that Nicole was on the right path and she was literally on the brink of a breakthrough. As Nicole’s coach, it was clear to me what her future potential is.

Fast forward to today, it’s been about one month since Nicole posted her first video. At the time of recording, Nicole has now published two videos. And you know what’s absolutely insane? Her first video has already garnered over 7,000 views, her second video currently has over 100,000 views, and she has over 4000 subscribers. In literally her first month. This is the breakthrough I knew was coming for Nicole.

But again, if we had only looked at the surface level black and white indicator, there was definitely a period of time when It looks like Nicole wasn’t hitting her goal of starting her YouTube channel.

If we actually zoom in closer, there was so much work we were doing behind the scenes that was clearly indicative of the momentum that Nicole was building up, quietly, surely, and powerfully.

THIS is such an exemplification of why it is so important to not only reflect, celebrate, and marinate on what you’ve created and who you’ve become so far in the first half of the year.

But also, to measure in ways that are actually helpful to the momentum you’re building so that you can start the second half of the year as your best self.

Who you’re becoming and what you’re creating in the rest of 2023

I know we all have big dreams and goals for the rest of the year.

But what happens more often than not, is that people get super attached to the outcome and will only let themselves breathe a sigh of relief after they get to the goal.

And if they don’t get to the goal, they’ll punish themselves and shame themselves and sabotage all of the momentum they’ve built thus far.

For example, so many entrepreneurs will get really debilitated by their thought of “This isn’t working, things aren’t working” if they didn’t sign a client that month or for the past number of months.

In such scenarios, it is the attachment to the goal that will literally cripple the entrepreneur to the point where they can’t get themselves out of the pit of despair. And you wonder why the next month, they create the same result, or the lack of results, I should say.

Right now, as we embark on a conversation about who you are becoming and what you’re creating for the rest of 2023, I first need you to understand that it is very, very important for all of us to start to unwind and unbind ourselves from the attachment towards any goals we set for 2023.

Not because the goal is the problem, but it’s what can often ensue when our minds are unmanaged and we end up using the goal to cripple our businesses and sabotage our momentum.

Here’s an exercise to help you identify all the unhelpful thoughts you have about your goals. I want you to first think of your goals for the rest of the year. Is it to sign 10 1:1 clients? Is it to start a weekly or biweekly podcast show? Is it to revamp your wardrobe and level up your self image and self concept? Think of all of the specific goals you would like to make happen by December 31, 2023.

On a scale of 1-10, where 1 is “I don’t think it’s possible at all” and 10 is “I know it will happen”, how would you rate yourself on how much you believe that the goal is going to happen?

If you said any number besides 10, that is going to be a clue in where you have thoughts that might creep up and slow you down over the next 6 months.

If you wrote a number besides 10, then follow up by asking yourself why. Why don’t I believe that this is for sure going to happen? And see what comes up.

Is it because you only signed 3 clients in the past 6 months so you feel like 10 is just unrealistic? Is it because you feel like your messaging isn’t clear enough? What are all the thoughts coming up for you? Write them all down.

Then, there’s two things to do next:

First, come get your brain coached on all of these thoughts. This is exactly what we do inside The Thought Leader Club. We break down each limiting belief one by one by one so that you can creatively, boldly, and passionately show up for your goals, day after day, week after week in the remainder of the year.

Why this work matters is because your current identity is creating your current results, which works out when you love your current results.

But if you’re not liking your current results, what identity do you have to step into, what needs to shift inside you, and what beliefs do you have to let go of in order to align your results with where you want to go? So come get coached!!

Second, align yourself with the skill sets you need to make your goals happen. Start to really sharpen specific skill sets and learn to master the tangible tools. Become that future version of you who is a master of their craft. This includes the craft of entrepreneurship and all the skills that an entrepreneur might use to grow their income and impact. Inside The Thought Leader Club, we help you become that next level entrepreneur who’s really sharp at the skills of building your thought leadership.

When you join our program, we’ll first do a deep dive into what you really want to become known for, then we’ll creatively and methodically craft out a plan for you to build a body of work that highlights your unique thought leadership. At the same time, you’ll start to see that you’re capturing the attention of your audience because every piece of content you put out will now always tie back to your ever-growing expertise.

Then, we will then spend the rest of our time together to:

Start putting in the reps to create your thought leader career and become highly prolific and consistent at building thought leadership
Build a body of work that lets you become known for your unique thought leadership, your story, and how amazing you are at what you do
And ultimately set yourself up for making your 1-3 year dreams a reality

Simultaneously, at each stage of your business, you’ll learn new information about yourself and who you are becoming, the decisions you want to make next, and how to sharpen what you’ve already done.

In our coaching, we will keep you tethered to your larger, long-term vision no matter what comes up in your life or business. There will be times when you want to waver in whether you want to keep going, and this is where coaching will hold you to your highest standard and stay connected to your dreams of having a successful business and becoming a thought leader. I got you, but more importantly, you got this 🙂

Who you’re becoming and what you’re creating for the rest of 2023 is predicated upon the shifts you’re willing to make both internally in terms of your mindset and identity, and externally in terms of the tangible skills you learn to sharpen. Mindset and skills are distinct but together, they are a very, very powerful combination.

Becoming known for your thought leadership in the rest of 2023

I want to take some time to chat about your thought leadership and what you’re going to become known for in the remainder of the year.

Specifically, what do you want to become known for by the end of the year, and how can this be your guide for the rest of the year? How can this be the filter through which you make decisions? How can this be your north star, even on days where it feels totally discouraging and invalidating?

Building a business that’s out of touch with what you truly, deeply want to be known for is a miserable way to build a business and highly unsustainable.

I see time and time again, a lot of entrepreneurs will consume and learn a lot of “best marketing or sales practices” and they will creep around at what their colleagues in their niche or industry are doing and talking about.

Because they’ve consumed so much noise around them, it becomes harder to delineate between what is it that everyone else around them is doing or saying or teaching or preaching, versus what they themselves really want to do and say and want to become known for.

For example, if you’re a business coach, you don’t have to sell, “I help you make 5k 10k months”, just because everyone else is. If you’re in the health and wellness space, you don’t have to sell, “I help you lose weight”.

These are just “coach boxes” that you’ve put yourself into. These aren’t rules that will make or break your business.

If you continue to follow what others are doing or saying, what often happens is that you might be attracting clients, but these are clients who were not the right fit to begin with. You end up being unhappy and unfulfilled in your own coaching container!

You created this business to help people and to feel deeply connected to your work, but that’s not the case when you’re heavily subscribing to the “boxes” and “shoulds”.

So please, remember this. It’s important to build a business that is in alignment to you.

I know that you all, my people, value building a business that’s in alignment with who you are. Lead with what you truly want to be known for. We can figure out how to leverage best practices afterwards.

But we need to know what’s your north star first and foremost, so that we can then select the best practices and tools to help you amplify what you want to be known for and truly build a business by design.

Let’s recommit to our vision and goals and step powerfully into the rest of 2023

As we start to transition from the first half of 2023 into the second half of 2023, please take the time to recognize what you’ve created and who you’ve become.

The version of you on January 1st 2023 is probably already mind blown at what you’ve created and who you’ve created, what you’ve navigated and experienced in just the first 6 months of the year. No matter what your business results looked like this year, you still have 6 more incredible months ahead of you.

Whether you’re deeply satisfied with how the first 6 months went or maybe you felt like you didn’t hit the mark, please don’t let the past be the reason you slow down for the rest of the year.

Let’s recommit to our vision and goals and step powerfully into the rest of 2023 and create incredible results in our lives and businesses and become that next level version of ourselves that the version of us today would be so proud of.

Remember, you are already doing something that most people will never even try to do, even if they deeply desire it for themselves. Be in awe at who you’ve become in just the first 6 months of the year. Then taking committed, relentless, aligned action to make it happen in the rest of 2023.

Sounds good? Awesome. Let’s get to work.