The Create Your Day Podcast

102. Stop Sabotaging Your Growth: The Missing Link Between Strategy and Identity

• Jenn Cody • Season 1 • Episode 102

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The secret to breaking through revenue ceilings lies in the powerful combination of business strategy and identity work, not just one or the other. Your business will always match your self-concept, so upgrading both simultaneously is essential for sustainable growth.

• Strategy without identity work leads to self-sabotage
• Mindset work without strategy keeps you stuck despite positive thinking
• Every revenue level requires different strategies AND a different identity
• Three business stages: starter (charging for expertise), systems builder (becoming a true business owner), and scaler (becoming a leader who delegates)
• Your business and identity grow together like a DNA spiral, reinforcing each other
• Assessment requires examining both your current strategies and how you see yourself
• When implementing new strategies, always ask "who do I need to become?"
• Make identity work concrete by behaving as your future self would today

Go to jenncodysolutions.com/revenue to get a free blueprint on revenue ceiling breakthroughs and stop spinning your wheels.


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Speaker 1:

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Create your Day podcast. I'm your host, Jen Cody, and this is episode 102. So happy you're here, welcome back, and if it is your first time, welcome to the podcast. So my name is Jen and I spend my time helping people figure out what is my next move going to be, and then how do I strategize that move?

Speaker 1:

Now there's something that's driving me crazy, and this has to do with business, and I see that there are all of these people out there. Right, the internet is a big, big place, and there's all of these people teaching a lot of tactical stuff. We're teaching about funnels and Facebook ads and pricing strategies, systems, processes, all that stuff, and that 100% really really matters Absolutely. And then there's people who are focusing on mindset, telling you to believe in yourself, visualize your success, manifest your millions. All of that stuff absolutely matters too. But what no one really really talks about is that these two things need to exist at the same time. Here's something that I've learned working with literally hundreds of people the best strategy is still going to fail if you don't believe that you are the person that it's going to work for. So I'm going to give you an example. Let's say you are stuck at a certain revenue. Right, you're making, I don't know $5,000 a month, $8,000 a month, $10,000 a month, whatever that looks like, and you've tried everything. You hired Facebook ads, people. You're optimizing funnels, you're raising prices. You're doing all of the right strategy and strategy matters it really does of the right strategy and strategy matters. It really does.

Speaker 1:

But what's happening? This is my prediction. What's happening is that every time you get close to what you're trying to get to, subconsciously you're sabotaging yourself. You've met someone and you're like oh, you know what, I'm just going to give them a different price. Or you over deliver to the point where you're just totally burnt out and you have nothing left to give, and maybe you're even creating extra work that you didn't need to do, because, while you're learning all the strategies to break through and get to the other side, you still see yourself as that person who can only make it to. Whatever the level is that you're at now and I'm going to tell you something your business, it is always going to match your identity.

Speaker 1:

So this is what I'm talking about when I say that implementation without that inner work really does lead to self-sabotage. You can have the most brilliant strategy in the world, but if it does not align with who you believe you truly are, then you are going to find a way to make it not work. And, on the flip side, you can do all of that mindset work, right, you can spend all your time doing the inner work. But if you don't have the strategies and the systems, then you're just thinking positive thoughts and trying to, like, manifest your business, but your business is going to stay exactly where it is. So what happens? We stay at our current ceiling, wondering why everyone else seems to have the secret that we don't know.

Speaker 1:

But it really isn't a secret. It's simply that this breakthrough requires both things. You have to have the systems and you have to have the self-concept. Strategy plus identity is what equals breakthrough. So why is this so crucial?

Speaker 1:

And it's not just woo-woo, touchy-feely stuff, because every revenue level, every different stage in your business has different requirements. And it's not just strategy, right, we talk a lot about like, if I am someone who is a solopreneur and I'm working by myself, I do X, y and Z every day. But now if I'm managing a team, I don't just need to know what to do with that team. I have, like identity requirements. I have to believe that I am the person who can lead that team, because that person thinks differently. They think differently about their time, about their money, about what's possible. And when you have that self-concept and you allow that self-concept to guide you, you will make different decisions, you will have different boundaries, you'll see opportunities really differently.

Speaker 1:

So this isn't about being better or being worse. It's simply about being aligned with the level you are trying to get to. So this is why I love working with people, because I really do try to address both sides of this equation. It's about casting the vision, not just for your numbers, but for who you need to become. Right. How do you locate where you are right now, identify your current reality and the person that you are at this moment? And then there's a gap, right, if you think about where you're trying to get, there's a gap between who you are and who you need to be and fake it till you make it works, but it doesn't work the whole time. You eventually have to actually become that person who naturally operates at this next level, who naturally operates at this next level.

Speaker 1:

So we work on both pieces, right. We work on upgrading strategy, we work on all the things that that entails. Maybe it's different services, maybe it's different pricing, different clients, different ways of looking at your business, different systems for sure to implement into your business. And then we work on your identity. So how does someone that runs this new business think? How do they spend their time? What do they believe about themselves and about their work? So how do these two things actually work together? Because it's not about just doing them separately. We need to really do it completely at the same time.

Speaker 1:

So I'm going to break this down into three different levels, because they do really play out differently depending on where you are in your business journey. So let's say you're just starting out. You are just trying to figure out basic revenue strategies, how to package your services, how to price and then how to find those first clients and deliver value to them. But you also need to start seeing yourself as someone who actually charges for their expertise. Because chances are, you are at this level because you are someone who's been doing things and now you're realizing oh wait, a minute, this might be a business, this is something I can charge for, and a lot of people get stuck here because they can learn the strategy but they really struggle with. I'm not just a helpful person, I'm an actual service provider that's charging money. That's a hard shift to make and then from there, the next level would be someone that I call like a systems builder.

Speaker 1:

This is where you need more sophisticated strategy. You need things like recurring revenue. You need lead generation. Maybe you're building a team, maybe you're starting to optimize the processes that you're working with, but your identity this is where you need to stop seeing yourself as that freelancer, as that solopreneur, and start seeing yourself as an actual business owner. Solopreneur and start seeing yourself as an actual business owner. So you're not just starting the business, you're growing a business, and this is where you stop trading time for money. Right, you're going to start building something that can grow beyond what you can do personally and that always leads.

Speaker 1:

Naturally, if you continue on that path, you go to that next level, which is where you start to scale, and your strategies are about building systems that can run without you. They're about creating multiple revenue streams. Maybe you're even licensing things out or thinking of franchising, but the identity work here is about becoming someone who leads, becoming someone who delegates rather than doing everything yourself, because there's nothing worse than figuring out that you are not just a great multitasker, you're actually the most expensive employee in your business if you're doing everything. This is the hardest shift people have to make, because it really requires letting go of the control that you've had up until this point and, as we all know, entrepreneurs just really like that control. So what I want you to understand is that you can't skip this identity piece and expect the strategy to work.

Speaker 1:

If you have been really working hard trying to get things to move in a different direction and shift and it's not happening for you, chances are you need to do some identity work. When you start implementing those higher level strategies, it really forces you to step into a higher level identity. So when you get there, you're going to naturally gravitate towards the strategies that match that level. Like I said, like your business is always going to be at the level that your identity is, and it becomes this spiral effect where each piece is just supporting and reinforcing the other, building on each other like building blocks, like picture that DNA spiral. One side is your identity, one side is your strategy and they need to work in tandem so that they can grow at the same rate.

Speaker 1:

So this is why I really focus on not doing strategy first and then identity. I want you to do both together. When you try to do one or the other, it kind of breaks down right and you're not seeing how it all works together. But when you learn the strategic framework for whatever you're working on to get to that next level and simultaneously you are becoming the person who implements it oh my God, it's total magic that happens there, because you're not trying to force yourself to do things that feel foreign. You're actually becoming someone that these strategies feel supernatural. So that's when your business growth stops feeling like such a struggle and it doesn't feel like you're forcing yourself to implement things that don't fit who you are.

Speaker 1:

So I want you to become the person where those right strategies they're just obvious. That's just the next natural step that you would take. How do you actually integrate this into your life? So I want you to start with an honest assessment in both areas. So look at where you are now. Ask yourself what strategies am I using that worked to get me here, but maybe they're not right for where I'm trying to go? And then ask yourself how do you currently see yourself? Does that identity match where I want my business to be. That's what you have to ask yourself, because chances are there's a little bit of a disconnect there. And then, when you're learning new strategies, always be asking yourself who do I need to become in order for this to feel natural? Don't just learn the strategy. Really embody the identity of the person who would use that strategy effectively.

Speaker 1:

And third, when you're working on your identity, make it concrete. Don't just visualize it. I want you to visualize the success, but I also want you to actually behave like the person who has that success. How would that person manage their time? What boundaries would they have in place? How would they make their next decisions? And then I want you to be really patient with both processes Strategy shifts, identity shifts.

Speaker 1:

They both take time and they don't always move at the same pace. Sometimes you have the strategy figured out before the identity catches up, and sometimes it's the opposite. So this is where that like DNA visual comes in. If you need to pause and wait for one of them to catch up, it's so much better to do that than to try to run with one or the other in a silo. It's always to keep working on both of them consistently. So I'm keeping this episode short this week.

Speaker 1:

I want you to take from this episode this, if nothing else Breaking through from one level to the next. It's not mysterious, it's systematic, and it requires strategy, systems and identity to execute them consistently. So you don't need to choose between being strategic or working on who you are and your self-concept. You have to do both, and when you do both, that's where the breakthroughs happen. So if this resonated with you and you want to go deeper, reach out to me. I'd love to chat and, as always, I hope you take this information, go out there and create your day in the best way possible. I will see you next time and until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other and have a great week.

Speaker 1:

Hey, so before you go, I have a question for you. Do you feel like you're working harder than ever, but yet you're still kind of stuck in the same place? I promise you're not alone. Most people, they hit a point where their growth just plateaus and, no matter what effort you put in, you just can't seem to break through. So here's the thing the strategies that got you where you are, they're not going to get you where you want to go, and this is exactly why I created my free blueprint on revenue ceiling breakthroughs Totally free. Go to jencodiesolutionscom, slash revenue and get yours for free today. This is not about working harder. I promise. If you are ready to stop spinning your wheels and start seeing real growth for yourself, this is for you. Enjoy.