You Know What You Want, So Why Aren’t You Doing It?

We dig into the real reasons women entrepreneurs don’t take action even when we know exactly what to do next. We name what’s often hiding under “I’m too busy” and we offer simple ways to choose progress without reliving burnout. 

• seeing the next level clearly but staying frozen 
• replacing action with productive distractions like courses, events, and planning 
• fearing being seen as a beginner again after building credibility 
• worrying what current clients, family, and friends will think about wanting more 
• remembering the cost of hustle and resisting repeating it 
• separating being productive from actually moving the needle 

Ask yourself: “What haven’t I understood yet about why I’m not doing it?” 

You know what you want next in your business. So why aren’t you doing it?

I help women entrepreneurs uncover what’s stopping them from taking action on the business growth they really want. 

Are you ready to stop feeling frustrated about why you're not doing THE THING? Book a free 20-minute Connection Call with me.

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Helping women entrepreneurs uncover what’s stopping them from taking action on the business growth they really want. 

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Transcript

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Welcome And The Core Truth

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey there, I'm Alicia, and I'm your host of the Alicia Ortman Podcast. Welcome. I'm a business and life coach, a wife, a mom, and a curious being willing to learn and explore ideas and solutions that help me grow. I'm creating a space for real conversations for doing the inner work, the messy middle of getting unstuck, by setting aligned goals and creating a life within your capacity by starting exactly where you are. Because here's the truth: it's never really about the goal that you set, it's always about who you need to become on the way to the goal. Each week on this podcast, I will give you mindset shifts and tactical takeaways for you to insert into your life in a way that fits for you. These are conversations about real growth for real life. Hello, hello, welcome to the podcast, everyone. If you are new here, welcome. If you are a returning listener, thank you so much for spending your time with me. I'm so glad you're back.

The Next Level You Can See

SPEAKER_00 1:02

This week I am digging into why women entrepreneurs know exactly what they want for their next level of their business, and they're not moving forward. They're not moving forward, like they are frustrated, they don't understand what is happening beneath not taking action. And I have said this before: you know what you want, and you know exactly what you need to do. I believe that in my bones. You want to host the retreat, you want to write the next book, you want to launch the course that will impact other women's lives, you want to start speaking on stages, you want to create a leadership program for kids, you want to take Fridays off. You really want more time and financial freedom in your business so that you can enjoy your life. Whatever that next level of business growth looks like, you can see it. And maybe you have been sitting on that vision for six months, maybe two years, maybe four years. So why aren't you doing it? If you know what to do, why aren't we doing it? That's the conversation today. And I I've been really digging into this idea lately. So I just get so curious because I feel like we put band-aids on what we think the problem is. Is you know, I'm just busy and um I'm so stressed out, but I don't think that's what the problem is. Like I I always believe there's something lying deeper beneath the surface. So that's what we're gonna dig into today. I find most women who listen to these types of podcasts, they know exactly what they could go do next. And so instead of doing that next thing, what do we do instead?

Productive Distractions And Overthinking

SPEAKER_00 3:10

We overthink it. We spin plates in the air, we sign up for another course, we join another networking group, which is hilarious because I was literally looking at one this morning and I, you know, went through the page and looked to see how much it would be. And then I was like, nope, this is a distraction. So I'm right here with you, friends. We go and buy another planner, we rewrite the business plan, we go to another event, which can be a really good thing if we're hyper-focused on what, you know, if we have a goal for that event. Um, we go to another coffee meetup. We do all these things that make us feel like we're working on our business without necessarily doing the thing that moves the needle forward. Um, or maybe we create something with no intention of doing anything with it. Um, I've been in conversations with many women and they they have like a book sitting on Google Drive. They have a course they can release. It's completely finished, it's done, it's sitting on Canva. Um, they have their speech written out, they want to do a TED talk and they know the topic, but they're paralyzed in this fear of taking that next step and getting on stages. So what if we don't actually have an action problem? Okay. When I listen to women talk about the things that they say they want to do and they haven't done, you know, I hear all the same things. I'm busy, I need to get through the season, you know, maybe when the kids are older, maybe when school is out, maybe when school is in. Um, I need to write another plan. I need to know when the timing is right. Um, I'm not motivated, etc., etc., right? We we all know what what these conversations are. And maybe I think that's like the first kind of in our mind, it's the first reason that our brain provides us. And so we stop there because you know, maybe maybe our capacity is shot. Maybe we we will get going again when school is back in session. Maybe we really are coming out of a hard season. Um, I always talk about the season of life you're in because it affects everything. Like maybe you're coming out of a grief season of losing someone who you love dearly or someone you thought you would, you know, be in community with, and that person

Fear Of Being A Beginner Again

SPEAKER_00 6:01

decided they were out. Like there's a hundred things, and I always think there is something beneath what our brain provides to us, okay. Um, I think I'm too busy, or you know, I just need to wait until this next season starts. I think it could mean something completely different. And that's what I want to invite you to think about today. Because maybe you're not actually too busy. Maybe you know exactly what you want to do, and you know that doing that thing means you have to be a beginner again. And that might scare you. Like if you think about it, you have already built an a business, it's established, it's making money, it's providing for your family in some capacity. You're known as a leader, you're respected, you know your industry, you know what you're really good at, you know how to make the sale. And here you are with your next vision of how you want to grow your business, and you decide you want something different, you want something new. And so you're you have to start all over and you're a beginner again. You have to go and tell the audience who believes and trusts you as an expert in this field that you want to be seen in a whole new market. And you probably have a lot of feelings and thoughts about how those people think about you in this other market. You have to tell people what you're doing before you have any evidence. And we need our evidence, especially if we are already seen as a leader in some capacity in our business, to go and try and be seen doing something, not having a clue, like trying to figure it out as you go. Like that's fine the first time around, but doing it the second time around, that's that's not fine. Like you, you know, you you have skin in the game. And so you can't you don't want to be seen as a beginner, because you know, who would trust a beginner, right? Like, who's gonna believe in a beginner? And that I really feel like is a big piece of something that keeps us stuck for far too long because we there's a cost there. The cost is being seen as not having not being the expert. And I I've never had someone actually come out and say those words to me, but I can look back in conversations with women and I can see that being an underlying theme, is being seen as a beginner again feels terrifying. It feels scary because yes, maybe the thing you want to do is, you know, in a new field in a completely different market. But if your current business clients or customers see you being a beginner over here in a new market, then what are they gonna think about you in the business that's already going? Like that's a real question, right? And there might be like, what are like, what are you doing, lady? You know, like you're supposed to be over here solving this problem for me, and you're over here trying to, you know, encourage women. Like the two in our minds, of course, they make sense, but when we think about what our customers and how they view us as, then that might not make sense. And maybe the hesitation is not evidence that you don't want it. I think the hesitation can be just being seen that wanting more is uncomfortable. Right? Like women, I mean, if we've already built a business and we are already successful, that should be good enough, right? Like that's you we wanting more for ambitious women can make other people uncomfortable. It doesn't make us uncomfortable, but it makes the people in our lives uncomfortable. And then we we we spend time internalizing that. And I think that's a part of the conversation that we also don't talk about is what not what other people on the internet think about us, but what are people in our life, our family, our friends, our children's principle. Like we very much care what they think of us. And so that is also a piece of this being seen as a beginner again. It's a piece of the puzzle that comes

Wanting More Without Losing Respect

SPEAKER_00 10:58

into play. Another thing that I uh gosh, I was just having this conversation. It was so just it was so honest and refreshing is you know what it took the first time around. Like you know the late nights, you know when you were in your car, like your husband's driving somewhere and you're on your computer and you are grinding it out, you are working, you are hustling, and just so that you can, you know, get the client their product or get the customer whatever it is that they needed that you know that you're creating, you know how much time that took. You know how much sleep you did not get. You know how unpresent you were in your life, you know how hard it was when your kids were babies and you were working in their nap time when you really wanted to go take a nap. Um, I did that when my daughter was very, very young. I was trying to build a food blog at four o'clock in the morning when I was also then trying to get up and go ready, get ready for work. Like it, I was exhausted. And this time around, when you are thinking about a new way to make money in your business and a new way you want to grow and expand, you just don't you want to make money in the way that you want to make money, and you don't want to sacrifice your family. You don't want to sacrifice all the time. You want to be present for when your kid goes up to bat and hits a home run or if he steals a base. Like you want to be present, you want to take the pictures, you want to cheer with your friends and their friends. Like your life looks different now. There's, you know, you're you're in a different season of life and you've built the business that's running and it's great. And you don't want to miss out. And I feel like that's a conversation that we just do not have. Like we have a little bit of the freedom, the time freedom now. That was the whole point we started our business, right? Was to have time freedom. And now we have time freedom. And here comes our ambition, waving its swag, and it's like, oh, hey, I have this other idea. This feels really, really good. Everything's kind of going, you know, it's everything's going to plan. And I think I want to stretch and grow myself in a whole new way and impact people in a whole new

Remembering The Cost Of Hustle

SPEAKER_00 13:31

way. And then the cost of what that requires from us. I feel like that keeps women so stuck. I I really, really do. Because you don't want to go through all that again. And that is so different than not wanting the dream of hosting the retreat and writing the next book. And I find that fascinating because we always will just tell ourselves, well, I just need to get more motivated. I'll figure it out, you know, or maybe I'm, you know, not good at this. But but what if you are? And what if just what knowing what it takes to build the next thing is the thing that's keeping you from moving forward. And I just I just told this to another woman. I'm like, it's your business. You get to decide. Like, you do not have to relive burnout to have the next level of business growth. You get to decide how it looks different. You get to decide where your energy goes. And then what if the thing that you really want threatens the thing you already have? Like I've kind of alluded to that a little bit. And maybe, you know, we want financial freedom, we want time freedom, we want location freedom, we want the freedom to do whatever it is we want to do. If we want to go, you know, RVing around the country, we can do that. If you want to homeschool your kids, you can do that. If you want to take a 10-day vacation twice a year, you can go and do that. And maybe you just want to be present after you, you know, you go and pick your kids up from school and you just want to be present and you want to just enjoy the family time. Maybe you just want to take a Friday off and actually enjoy it and be present for it and not be working and hustling. And it's so interesting that when we kind of get to a place where our boxes are checked, we want to grow again. Right. Um, and that's we always talk about what business growth gives us, but we don't talk about what business business growth takes from us. Okay. And I feel like that is just such a good conversation. I would, oh, I just love this conversation. I saw um a woman in a Facebook group recently. She said she had the time and capacity freedom to work on her next project, right? And she just was so um frustrated with herself because she just couldn't do it. She said it felt heavy. And I was like, oh, that is so interesting to me. And I sent her a DM because I just genuinely was so curious and I wanted to chat with her. But, you know, she's sitting there thinking that she's got, you know, like some problem that she can't, you know, take action on her next thing. But I wonder if there's just something deeper that's really going on. Is, you know, the first time around that she did her project is maybe it really cost a lot of her time and it took so much from her. And we're just we're in a different season of life, we're in a different space, we've learned, we've grown, we saw. And we don't want to, we don't want our business growth to take that same, you know, just heaviness from us. So she didn't um end up having a conversation with me. So I don't really know what lies underneath that. I would love to know, so curious. But maybe we don't need, maybe we don't need to know what's under night unlying underneath the inaction, right? Like I've had to ask myself these own questions for myself. Like as a coach, is there are the coaching industry

Growth Takes Something From You

SPEAKER_00 17:39

is so saturated. Like you already know that. You probably see coaches on Instagram saying, like, I've made a million dollars in 14 seconds. You can do it too. And I mean, A, that's just not real. They're lying. And B, it creates a whole like it's it creates a whole thing. But there are thousands of coaches who are not saying those types of things, but the coaching industry is saturated. There are business coaches out there talking about marketing and strategy and sales and leadership. And for a very long time, I did not resonate with those things. And so I, you know, would look around and see what everyone else was doing and try and figure out where I fit in. But those aren't the things that make me alive. Like, come alive. This conversation, this type of stuff, like all the things that lie underneath the problem, whatever the X problem is, that's that's what I get excited about. That's what I get curious about. That's where I like to dig in with women who are willing to go, you know, who are willing to dig in is what's lying underneath? Like, what is really lying underneath I'm too busy? What's lying underneath, you know, I'll do it next quarter? What's lying underneath the canvas sitting, just sitting there, completely finished and not being released? What's lying underneath, you know, the retreat that you have been talking about for two years, or the book you want to write? It's fascinating to me. Um, it is, it's just such, it's where I come alive. And that's where I've had to give myself permission that like I am a business coach who focuses on the woman behind the business. Like whatever the thing is that you're stuck on is where I want to go deep and I want to dig in. And I remember being on a coaching call with a client once, and we were just, you know, we were talking, we were talking about a marketing strategy, honestly. And I asked her a question. I don't remember the question I asked her, and she froze. And I remember get be feeling uncomfortable on the call because I knew I was like, oh snap, I struck a nerve here and I've gone, like I've just dug too deep. And, you know, like it was an uncomfortable question that maybe, you know, just wasn't expected when we're we were talking specifically about marketing. And if I'm trying to help you uncover what is really lying underneath the inaction, you know, there can be a disconnect there. And then, but that's, you know, there's always something that is underneath the first answer. That's and that is the work that just genuinely lights me up. And I had to give myself permission that that's my lane. Like, if you want to really uncover the things that are keeping you frozen in place, I am your girl. Like, if you know exactly what you need to do next and you cannot figure out why you're not taking action, I'm the girl you call because I we'll go, I will go as, you know, as deep and as vulnerable as you give me permission to do. Because I believe when we do that, we actually get to the root of the problem. And then you get to decide

Owning A Deeper Coaching Lane

SPEAKER_00 21:09

how you want to move forward. Like it's not up to me to tell you how to move forward. It's up to me to help you uncover why you're not moving forward. Like that is that's where I love, I live. And that is something that took me a very long time to give my person myself permission to just own. It's like such a weird kind of like one-offy type of coaching space. But that is that is what makes me me, and that is what makes me different. And I care deeply that people feel safe when they are being vulnerable with me. And those are the things that I just treasure. Okay. So I want you to understand what you want, and I also want you to understand why you're not moving toward it because sometimes the thing the Thing we think the problem is not actually the problem, and that will bring me to decisions. Okay.

Decisions, Priorities, And The Parking Lot

SPEAKER_00 22:10

Um, so decisions. I caught myself doing this recently, is every single week I write down my priorities for my business. I aim for three. Do you know how many I gave myself? I gave myself six because you know, why not give myself six more things, like three additional things to do? And they all sounded important. They all, you know, I was like, oh yes, this helps me move the needle forward. And then I looked down at my paper and I looked at my week and like all the things that I had to hold, and I was like, out of these six things, what actually matters here? And I circled two things. And what I circled is this podcast and having conversations with women. That's it. That was my decision on what I needed to move forward on is podcasts and conversations. Because being productive and moving forward are not always the same thing. Like I am really good at creating a lot of things. But if I ask myself if I'm creating things that move my business forward, then I'm probably have a different answer. And so that's kind of a filter that I have been giving, giving myself permission to just if I have ideas and I have things I want to create, I just put it in a parking lot. I just call it a parking lot. It goes on a piece of paper, it literally says parking lot on it. And I just park that there. And I would love to give you the permission to do the same thing if you are overthinking or if you think, you know, you're someone who's creating something, or maybe you're, you know, you're just taking some sort of action, but it's not has nothing to do with the thing that you know you need to be doing. Just put it in your parking lot, and then I want to leave you with this question.

The Question To Unlock Action

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Okay. Maybe it isn't why can't I make make myself do this? Maybe what you can ask yourself is what haven't I understood yet about why I'm not doing it? What do I not understand about why I am not taking action? Because I don't think it has anything to do with productivity or laziness or time management or unmotivation or needing a new plan. I don't think it has anything to do with that. I think there's something underneath it and you simply haven't named it yet. And that is what I would love to invite you to get curious about. What's actually lying underneath the inaction? And I would love to have that conversation with you and help you uncover that.

Free Call Invite And Share Request

SPEAKER_00 24:54

That's exactly what my free 20-minute connection calls are for. The link is in the show notes. I would highly encourage you to think differently about how much better it would feel if you knew why you were not taking action and you could just have another person to have a different perspective and offer you something that you cannot see when you are so far down in your own foxhole. Is just go scroll down to the show notes, book a call with me. There's it's free, there's no obligation to take a next step because that isn't up to me. That's up, you know, if you take a next step or if you do actually decide that you need more time, that is a decision for you and you alone. So I want you to remember until next time that it is never about the goal, it's about who you become in pursuit of it. And my mission is to help you along your way. Okay, my friend, have a lovely week. If somebody came to mind, please text them this episode. I would love to get into conversations and community with more women. And if someone popped into mind, send them this episode. Okay, have a wonderful week and I will talk to you soon. Bye.