Introduction
Course creation is a marathon not a sprint. Course creation is a long game.
We can apply any number of inspirational quotes or mantras to our digital course creation business, but that isn’t going to keep you warm at night.
The reality is that knowing course creation and the subsequent success will take time doesn’t protect us from the challenges that will pop up, the exhaustion and frustration that inevitably send us for the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream section at the store, or the bank account that doesn’t seem to have enough to cover our business expenses.
So what do we do to get through these times when we are busily working without seeing tangible proof of our progress? We have to develop a mindset that is realistic, rooted in the truth, and ultimately helps us to stay focused and taking the process step by step.
Today I’m going to walk you through those concepts that will actually help you to stay mentally tough, but don’t worry, you can still indulge in a case of wallowing when needed.
Digital Courses Toughness
Today’s episode is coming as several things in life have converged. We were sitting at the kitchen table talking about how to handle thought things. Our kiddo is 3D printing an F1 car and several of the pieces keep breaking and cracking when going over the smallest bumps. The amount of troubleshooting and re-printing for this project has been sky high.
I was talking with a digital course creator the other day who is frustrated that despite having a great course idea progress was slow. The number of pivots necessary, the adjustments to sales copy, and landing page design were getting to feel heavy.
As a professor, I’ve been knee deep in a digital course that just isn’t working quite how I’d like and the way to fix it isn’t always clear. It takes testing and adjustment and feedback from students to find out what is best working for them.
Each of these examples is slightly different, but brings us to the same point. We have to develop a way to stay mentally tough, but without losing the compassion and empathy that we have for our students, our colleagues, other human beings, and ourselves.
At the kitchen table, my husband and I were searching for articles and ideas to help us share the concept of being resilient and one of the articles that my husband found was actually an article on LinkedIn by Founder and CEO of Founder OS, Matt Gray.
He titled the list of 10 items, 10 Secrets to Become Mentally Unbreakable and there are 3 in particular that I want to talk about today with you, but I’ll link the entire list and Matt’s full thoughts in the Show Notes.
1: Don’t Worry about the Things You Can’t Control
This first secret that I thought I’d share is that we can’t worry about the things we can’t control. When Nate read this aloud, I couldn’t help but shake my head yes. This is something that I find is tricky as an entrepreneur.
When I’m talking with entrepreneurs I often hear the “yes, but” conjunction entering the conversation. For example, Yes, my course could be a success, but what if a competitor comes out with a better course.
Or what if the internet goes out completely during my live webinar and everyone gets frustrated?
What if…
This is the crux of the issue. We are borrowing worry over things that we can’t even control. We can’t control what someone else does. We can’t control if an Act of God causes a power outage, an internet outage, or some other failure of technology like the CrowdStrike issue that recently grounded flights around the world.
We can’t control if someone puts out a new course that rivals ours and maybe even is better than ours.
If we could solve our potential business problems by worrying about what may or may not happen in the future, we would all be thriving in business, because there wouldn’t be any hiccups.
Instead we simply need to focus on the things that we can control. We can control how often we launch our course and build up authority in your niche, we can control the quality of the material that we put into our courses, and we can control having backup plans in place if our internet decides to cut out three seconds after we start an important webinar or live masterclass.
When we focus on the things that we can control, we are much more likely to take meaningful action because we are focused on creating change.
If this is something that you struggle with, and I know I go through periods where I worry about things outside my control, stick around to the end. In today’s Sixty-Second Solution I’m going to tell you how to take a quick inventory of your worries and get moving forward again instead of getting stuck in procrastination or unimportant actions.
2: Don’t Worry About What Other People Think
A second secret that Matt discussed was to set aside worrying about what other people think about you. It is easy as an entrepreneur to get tangled up in our mindset and get stuck during the course creation process.
When we start to wonder what someone else will think about our course, our webinar, that social media post that we really want to post but are worried about ruffling feathers, it just creates a traffic jam in our course creation business.
Suddenly instead of wanting to create the best course for our students possible, our actions become about creating the right image.
This often happens without us even realizing it. Subconsciously we want to be accepted and most of us have been told that means we have to alter how to show up in a situation. Sometimes that is a good thing. However, it doesn’t mean that we have to change who we are.
Not worrying about what others think is sometimes easier said than done. Would you agree? Can you think of a time when you wanted to just brush off what others might think, but you just couldn’t?
As a course creator, it is critical that we step outside the worry of what others think because it can keep us from hitting publish on our course.
Now, one of the notes that Matt makes in his article is that we shouldn’t worry about what other people say and we should be courageous in being ourselves. I agree with that 100%, but I would add the caveat I think he would agree with, and that is to still be open to feedback and ideas.
We all need outside eyes and thoughts on the courses that we create. We have blind spots in our work. We are the experts in what we do and the process we use for inside our niche. Our students do not have that same level of expertise yet.
We don’t need to worry about what other people think, but we do need to be open and listen to the ideas they share. We can always say thanks and move on or we can take the pieces that make sense and implement then into our approach.
Again, if you struggle with this concept of setting aside what others are thinking or worrying about things that you can’t control, stick around to the end of the episode because I’m going to share a 5 minute activity that can completely shift your approach and get you back on track when you are feeling stuck.
3: Don’t Resent Other People’s Successes
Today we have been talking about being mentally tough and the secrets that CEO and Founder of Founder OS, Matt Gray shared in a recent LinkedIn article on becoming mentally unbreakable. I’ve linked the full list of 10 secrets in the show notes so that you can check on the remaining 7, but for today’s episode I’ve chosen three that really stuck out at me after working with coaches and course creators.
We talked about the importance of worrying only about the things that we can control, refusing to worry about what others think of us, and here we are at the third secret that I want to unpack with you.
Don’t resent other people’s successes.
This is such a good one. As an entrepreneur we tend to compare ourselves to everyone else that we see. Most often, these comparisons happen via social media, which we all know to be just a snippet of life. BUT, our brain isn’t always on board with that reality.
There are plenty of times when our brain sees that single post from a course creator who is posting 6 figure launch breakdowns and we compare that to our own launch breakdowns that aren’t meeting those same levels yet. It is easy to say that we aren’t as good, or our course isn’t as good as someone else.
We can also get into this groove of making comparisons where comparisons aren’t appropriate. You’ve heard the saying that you can’t compare apples to oranges. Sure, they are both fruits, but they are drastically different types of fruit. Yes, you and another entrepreneur you see online might both have a digital course, but they aren’t the same. Even if the topic is the same, you might not be serving the same population, expect the same outcome, or have the same approach to the topic.
When we compare we start to doubt that we are good enough, that our business is good enough, and that our course is good enough. Just like worrying about things that we can’t control and worrying about what others think of us, when we begin to resent other people’s successes it will bring our progress to a screeching halt.
Action Item
What can we do instead of bringing our business to a screeching halt? We have to develop skills and strategies to be mentally tough as digital course creators. We have to recognize when we are slipping into one of these behaviors and thought patterns that are not going to help us achieve our goals. The first step to that is to recognize what our normal approach is. Are we typically someone who worries? If so, can we make a shift to worry about just the things we can control? I’ll share more about that in today’s Sixty-Second Solution.
If we are prone to worrying about what other people think, how can we limit our access to those situations where comparison is most likely to occur? For example, if cruising through your favorite course creation group leaves you feeling lost or unsure, can you instead go into that group to search for a specific answer or topic and then leave when you find the answer you are looking for? Or can you focus on skimming for 5 minutes with a timer on your phone and then having a specific task that you are going to work on afterward. Having a task already on deck after looking in the group gives you a solid action item to focus on. A way to make progress.
And if you resent someone else’s 6-figure launch, and admit it, we’ve all been jealous of people at one point or another, what if you instead remind yourself that there isn’t a finite amount of success available for course creators such that once it is all used up there isn’t any more to go around?
The key is to really take action in your business as a course creator. When we have tasks, goals, and action items at the ready, it is easier to ignore the worried thoughts and get things done. It is easier to recognize that you are making progress and gaining momentum.
My question for you today is, what are you going to do to ensure your mental toughness as a digital course creator? Your students need what you have to teach, your wisdom, and your process that you’ve honed over years of practice and experimentation. They need that more than they need a perfect post or a perfectly edited video.
Sixty-Second Solution
They need us to take action and if you struggle with letting go of things that you have no control over or struggle with worrying about what people think if you, I have a solution for you today that will take you 5 minutes to implement. In fact, you can do it as soon as this episode ends and notice a difference right away.
First up, grab a sheet of paper and write down all of the things that you are worrying about that applies to your digital course creation business.
Then highlight the ones that you have control over.
For those items that you have control over, what concrete actions can you take to give yourself the best possible chance of success?
For the items that you don’t have control over, physically cross them off the list. This tells your brain that you are done with that worry. It is over. Take a Sharpie to it, white it out, cross it off.
And if you are struggling with what people think of you, I want you to use a similar process. Make a list of all of the things that you are worrying people will think about you.
Then highlight the ones that deserve your time and attention. For example, you might be worrying that someone will criticize your stance on the problems inside your industry. Does that deserve your time and attention? Probably not. You might simply be making them uncomfortable because you are challenging their own belief system and making them think. You might want to give time and attention to the worry that someone won’t be able to use your course materials because they aren’t accessible. That sounds like a reasonable thing to worry about and is within your control.
The key is to get those words down onto paper and then do something about them. Don’t just let them dance a jig inside your head where they can trample all of the hard work you’ve been doing on your course and business.
Where to Go Next?
If you are looking for more mindset ideas to help bolster your digital course creation process, check out Episode 192 all about perfectionism and Episode 159 to focus in on your vision and values. When you have these clear, it is easier to ignore what others think, stop comparing yourself to other people, and stop worrying about all of the things that you can’t control.
Until next time, happy creating!
