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I’ve put a lot of work into my business, and it has evolved a lot over the years. But more specifically in the last year, I’ve made some drastic shifts.

So I want to talk about some of the unconventional business changes I made to finally start growing.

And by that, I don’t mean they are wacky or extremely “out there” but this is advice that you likely don’t see from other creators.

This is like behind-the-scenes stuff I think a lot of creators do, but it’s the stuff you don’t really see.

And my business for a while there… it was “growing” but not really headed in the direction that I wanted it to.

I’ve always wanted to be a person that shared information on more than one topic. I want to be a bit more free in the niche that I was in.

But it was something I was too afraid to do up until recently.

I hit so many walls within my business because I saw what topics were popular and what was giving me traction, but in the end, weren’t making me happy.

So I finally decided to bite the bullet, change my niche and start making myself a lot happier.

And things have been going great!

I just passed 10,000 views on my YouTube channel in one month, (You can watch the breakdown here) and every single month my YouTube ad revenue is increasing.

Overall, I’m feeling a lot more confident about the direction my business is going.

So, if you’re stuck where I was- unhappy in your niche, not growing, not making enough money… whatever it may be.

Here are some unconventional business changes I made and how can you use that to make yourself more successful!

1. Started healing my limiting beliefs

The main things you may need to do, likely don’t have a lot to do with your business exactly, but will help you in the end.

For example, one of the first unconventional business changes I made was starting to heal my limiting beliefs.

It turns out I had a whole lot of limiting beliefs that were keeping me from making the moves that needed to be made in my business in order to make it successful.

I was constantly worried about money. Not making enough of it and always concerned about spending it.

I was afraid to do anything outside of my comfort zone for fear of making a mistake or doing something wrong.

I had a huge fear of failure and the thought that I always had to work or be productive in order to become successful.

This led to burnout, and not taking risks that needed to be taken, which really stunted the growth of my business.

So if you find yourself having any of these fears, it’s really important to work through them if you want to have a truly successful business.

You can do this by journaling about these topics and really trying to get to the root of your limiting beliefs and issues.

If you have a fear of failure, why would that be?

Did you get yelled at as a child for every mistake you made? Were you pressured to do your best in every scenario?

Most of your limiting beliefs are likely to come from childhood. So in order to get to the root of them, it’s best to look deep into your childhood and how you were treated.

It’s going to take a lot of unpacking things that happened in order to start healing everything you’re going through.

It can be rough, and it’s going to take time, and it may even feel like it’s getting worse before it gets better.

But if you can get through a lot of that, then you’ll come out the other side a better person and a more successful business owner!

2. Got a handle on my anxiety

Another thing I did that goes hand in hand with this is I got a handle on my anxiety.

I’m definitely not fully cured, but I’m no longer waking up with panic attacks in the middle of the night or really hurting my overall health thanks to how anxious I was before.

And this is why I say it may get worse before it gets better.

There was a lot of healing I had to do, and it was hard. It took a lot out of me, and bringing up a lot of the past gave me anxiety.

But, when I did all of these things, in the end, it helped my business because I was able to stop being so anxious.

I was less anxious about decisions I made in my business, in my life, and just overall.

Which is why doing all of this inner work is one of the most important unconventional business changes I made.

You are the most important part of your business.

How you feel on a daily bases, the thoughts you tell yourself, the amount of energy you have, down to the amount of sleep you get.

When you’re trying to start a blog or YouTube channel and make money online, you may not even realize how big of a part you play in the whole process.

We’re literally the only things keeping our businesses running.

So if you don’t believe in yourself, if you don’t feed yourself positive thoughts and simply do things like get enough sleep –if we’re not at 100% our best– neither will our business be.

So when I let go of anxiety, negative beliefs, and all these other things, that is when my business started to grow because the heart of it –myself– felt better.

And as a result, everything improved.

3. Stopped doing what everyone else was doing

I don’t only want to talk about what I did emotionally and mentally to change my business because there was more to it than that.

Even though those things were at the center of my work, I also did other things like I stopped doing what everyone else was doing and I started doing business my own way. 

But, I never would have been able to do this and realize what the issue was without all the inner work I did.

I realized that there is no one single way to run a business and you don’t have to take all of the advice that’s out there.

If you try something and it doesn’t work for you- that’s okay. Don’t try to force it to work.

You don’t have to run your business the way everyone else decides to run theirs.

For example, I tried to make having an email list work for me. It didn’t.

I tried so many business strategies that just didn’t fit what I wanted to do, but instead of realizing that and moving on, I kept going because that’s what I thought I was “supposed” to do.

But I learned that just because it works for someone else, doesn’t mean you need to do it as well.

4. Stopped being afraid to be myself

Having the confidence to be yourself is super important when you are trying to build a brand online because that is how people are going to connect with you the most.

It’s also something really hard to do.

I had a huge fear of being seen. I feared people judging me and not seeing me and my content as perfect.

I needed every move to be so perfectly calculated and every video perfectly scripted.

And now I realized that was what was stunting my growth.

You don’t need to copy off of someone else’s work, or someone else’s style to be successful.

In fact, that will probably have the opposite effect because you aren’t being genuine if that’s the case.

You don’t need to be the next *insert successful person here* to be successful.

The world already has one of those. So what we’re lacking, is you.

You may not see how special you are or how valuable you are to this world, but you are.

Your knowledge, your expertise, whatever it is you feel you need to share with the world- that is what we are missing.

Because when you open up, become more true to yourself and show people who you actually are- you never know who will connect with you on the other side of a screen.

Not everything needs to be perfectly scripted and thought out.

We’re all just humans having a human experience and your showing that is going to have people connecting with you a lot more.

Once I realized this, that is when my business started making real connections with people as opposed to what I was doing before which is just giving out factual information to people.

I was always “myself” online. I never pretended to be someone else. But I didn’t show up as 100% myself, and that’s where the problem was.

I was able to still grow because the videos and information I put out were good, but I was lacking the connection with my audience that I really wanted to have.

If you’re a blogger and you feel like you need some help with this- getting your blog up and running, and understanding your limiting beliefs, check out the services I’m offering right here!
I’m looking to help people who are struggling with getting their blog off the ground and I’m ready to help you turn your blog into something you can be proud of!

5. Trusted more in myself and my business

The reason I think many people never grow their blogs is that they don’t trust themselves and their businesses.

This is more advice about building up confidence in yourself and the inner work that needs to be done, and I want to talk about these little details because they are important and not talked about enough when it comes to business.

If you don’t trust yourself to make the right moves at the right time- you’re not going to get anywhere.

If you’re stuck stumbling over a business decision instead of just acting on it because you don’t trust that you’ll get where you need to go, you’ll never make any moves- let alone the right ones.

You can’t be so stuck in fear of making the “wrong” move that you don’t make any at all.

That’s not how successful business owners work.

They don’t spend way too much time worrying about the outcome of a move- they just make it. Because you’ll need to take risks if you want to get anywhere.

Some will pay off, and some will not.

But you need to put trust in yourself and just make a decision already! You are going to be able to handle any situation life throws at you and you’re going to get yourself where you need to go.

It’s going to be really hard to grow if you don’t trust yourself to act.

Maybe you’ve been thinking about getting coaching from me for a bit, but you’re scared about the investment. Which I totally get.

One of the scariest investments I made was buying over $1,000 worth of a two-month coaching package. I thought it over, decided it would be worth the risk, and guess what?

This blog post is inspired by all the things I learned during that time with my coach. It completely transformed my business and life in a way I never thought possible.

It’s what pushed me to launch my own coaching program, and it’s one of the main things we worked on during our coaching calls.

So find something you want to do, assess if it’s a good idea, and then just take the leap!

6. Focused on the positives in my business

I also learned to focus on the positives in my business. And this is just a good example of how to live life in general.

Your brain is going to seek out whatever you tell it to.

So if you are hell-bent on looking for the negatives in life like I used to be, guess what you’re going to find?!

There are plenty of negatives to look at in the world.

You may have made one bad business decision that cost you money. The planet is dying and it’s 90 degrees by the end of May. We’re going backward instead of forward in many places on women’s rights and inclusivity.

There’s a lot wrong with the world. But if you only focus on that, you’re only going to see that.

But, what about the wins?

What about when you made your first affiliate sale? Or finally posted your first video?

What about when you stuck to your word and posted 10 blog posts this month? Or even started your blog finally after a year of debating?

There are so many wins you could be looking at, and that’s when you’ll start to see more of the positives.

And you’ll want to be in a good mood, looking for all the positive things and brand-new opportunities in business if you want to grow.

I heard this analogy once and I think it’s perfect. Do you know how when you get a new car, all of a sudden you’re now noticing that car on the street everywhere?

You’re like, “Oh look! There’s my car!”

Well, guess what? Those cars have been around you the entire time.

They didn’t just pop up by coincidence right after you decided to buy a new car.

No, they were there the entire time.

However, your brain marked this particular car as important because now it has significance in your life, with it being your car.

So now, your brain starts to focus on it.

The same goes for emotions and situations. When you focus on the positives and you mark that as important in your brain- that’s when you’ll start to see more of it.

And that is important when trying to grow a business because the better you feel, the better work you’ll produce and the better creative flow you’ll be in.

When you create things from a happy place, over a negative one, the results are going to be 10 times better.

7. Stopped making goals that didn’t align with me

Going back to practical tips for a minute, I also stopped making goals that didn’t align with me anymore.

I used to create goals for the sake of creating them, because “that’s what others did.” 

Everyone says you’re supposed to create goals, so I did.

I’d have monthly and weekly goals, along with a daily to-do list. Because that’s what everyone else had, and it worked for them!

But once I made my goals, I’d look back and say “That’s it?!” because it didn’t feel like enough.

So I’d make more.

And then I would forget about them.

If a goal means so little to you that you forget it even exists, then it’s not a goal you were very aligned with in the first place.

This also goes back to running my business my own way.

I like to make plans for my business and I like to plan things out long term.

But when it comes to smaller goals that have a deadline, like in the next month, week, or even in the day that’s where it gets hard for me.

And I used to think that would be a problem. I thought I had to force myself to make these goals if I ever wanted to be successful.

But, I would make a to-do list and then actively avoid it.

I would put in work for the day, however, it would include everything that wasn’t on the list I made.

I’m not sure why my brain works this way, but it feels like the second it’s written down, now the task feels like a chore instead of being something I want to do.

Once I realized this didn’t work for me, and that it was okay. I stopped doing it altogether. And guess what? My business is still growing!

Now, I still have a plan for what’s going on in the day, but I don’t write it down. I just create a plan in my head and follow it.

The bottom line is, you don’t have to make goals just to make them, and you don’t need to have a timeline for them either.

8. Stopped worrying about timelines

One thing that stresses me out is a deadline. People say that if you create a deadline for a goal, it’ll help you stick to it.

That wasn’t the case for me.

Monthly goals felt more like a hassle than anything because I never knew what I was going to be able to accomplish in that month.

So I never knew what goals to set.

And then usually, halfway through the month I may have gotten distracted and changed up my goal anyway.

Or, when I didn’t hit a goal that I set up some arbitrary timeline for, I would feel bad about myself and feel as if I had failed.

But in reality, there was no failure. I just needed to keep trying to hit my goal. But the timeline felt like a death sentence.

So, I ditched them.

I still may set up a deadline here or there, but for the most part, any bigger goals I will just right down as “goals” and they’ll get done when they get done.

Because for this business, I’m thinking in terms of years, not months.

I’ll likely have some sort of business for the rest of my working life.

So, in the grand scheme of things, who cares if I hit 10,000 subscribers in 5 years or 10? I’ll still be working by then.

Who cares if you hit your goal by next week or next month? You’ll still hit it.

The timeline doesn’t matter.

Unconventional Business Changes I Made To Finally Start Growing!

I have a few coaching services that help with setting up and running a blog, along with a little bit of business mindset help in order to really help you run your business. And a few smaller services to help you get started!

But, let’s recap the unconventional business changes I made to finally start seeing some growth!

1. Started healing my limiting beliefs
2. Got a handle on my anxiety
3. Stopped doing what everyone else was doing
4. Stopped being afraid to be myself
5. Trusted more in myself and my business
6. Focused on the positives in my business
7. Stopped making goals that didn’t align with me
8. Stopped worrying about timelines

These are some important business mindsets to adopt, and if you want help with any of what I mentioned above check out my blogging services right here!