Ep #27: 3 Stages of Belief – Part 1: Impossibility

Welcome to the Make Money as a Life Coach® podcast where sales expert and master coach Stacey Boehman teaches you how to make your first 2K, 20K, and 200K using her proven formula.

Hey lovies. Welcome to episode 27. I am so excited to introduce a concept that I use to coach myself and my clients over the next three episodes. I’m going to talk about the three stages of belief.

However, before we dive in, you know what time it is. Giving my clients shout-outs because I am so proud of them all of the time, so I’m going to give you a double shout-out today. My client Rebecca because she literally signed two clients back to back and celebrated in our group, so I’m going to kind of mash them together and celebrate you as a two for one.

So Rebecca says, “I just realized I made more now than I made all of last year in my coaching business,” so this was as of May is when she posted this. She said, “I had several accounting clients that were helping support my business last year and my life coaching clients were somewhere over $8000 for the entire year.”

She said, “I was always dreaming about the day that I would go over $10,000 for my coaching clients and today is that day.” Yay. And then the next day she posted, “I just sold another 12-week coaching package for $2500. My total sales now since joining 2K is $10,300. This is the second client I signed this week and I don’t even remember signing more than one client in a week before.”

That’s so fun. Like, that makes me so excited. That is blowing your mind and changing what you believe is possible and I just know like, you get to 2K, then you do 10K, then it’s 20K, then it’s 30, then it’s 40, then it’s 50. That is really how you make 100K 2K at a time.

Now, let me just say, we always say 2K at a time, but some of my clients like Rebecca sells a package that’s $2500. Who cares? It doesn’t matter if your package is $3000 or $5000. It’s still the idea of doing it one client at a time. You’ve got this Rebecca. I’m so pumped for you and congratulations.

Okay, so today we’re diving into this three-part series focused on the three stages of belief. It’s super important and why I wanted to take three episodes to teach you this, it’s super important to know what stage of belief you’re in so that you can develop awareness and create a process for working through the different stages. I’m going to teach you that over the next three episodes, the process I use.

And so that you always know why you’re not making money. It will always be because of what stage of belief you’re in, always. And the answer to making money will always be to move through the stages as fast as possible. So let’s talk about why knowing the three stages are so important first, then I’m going to tell you what the stages are, and then we’re going to dive into the first stage on this episode today, and then the next two episodes will cover the second and the third stage.

So one of the things that I really mentor my 200K students in is being able to be super honest with where you really are with belief about your goals and the money you want to make, and to use your actual results as a measurement for whether that belief is working or not. And really whether you’re working for your belief or not.

Are you working your belief? And really being able to look at everything very neutrally, like a math equation without going into beating yourself up or pitying yourself or catastrophizing everything because when you’re aware and not catastrophizing everything, you can do something about it. You have the power to make a change.

So what I see a lot of coaches do is they go into fairytale and confusion land, and or confusion land about why they aren’t making money. So that’s where you’re either – fairytale land is where you’re believing everything’s great even though you haven’t hit any of your goals or made any money in months, and then confusion land is where you spin in overwhelm and have all the questions, and when you’re in both places, you’re just putting yourself further behind on your goals.

And one of my intentions is to help coaches bust out of fairytale land, out of confusion land, and really be courageous and resilient enough to get honest with themselves. That’s really the muscle you have to develop here is courage and resilience to look at the truth because that’s the only place that change happens.

So for example, I recently had a client of mine tell me that every time she increases her goal, she makes no money. So not even like – she doesn’t make the money that she increased the goal to. She makes zero dollars. It’s like she goes backwards. Her result is zero. And I asked her why she thought that was, and she told me she knew it was her thoughts.

So I asked her what she truly thinks when she sets the goal and her honest – I said get really honest. Really sink into it. What is your truest most honest, authentic answer, and she said her thought is what the fuck? Well, that’s not going to happen. I laugh because I feel like that is the epitome of all of our thoughts when we set really big impossible goals is like, what the fuck? That’s not going to happen.

And so I think it’s like a very honest answer, so we loved it anyway in the mastermind. But at the end of the day, her belief just wasn’t there. So she would not make any money. Not only not her goals, but any money. The reason that she would go and make zero is because she was throwing herself into not believing, which is the first stage of belief is not believing.

And she wasn’t even aware that that’s where she was, so she wasn’t doing anything about it. So she had said that it kept happening month after month, but what was really happening is she wasn’t aware that what the problem was and so she just kept repeating the same thing each time, increasing her goal to an unbelievable point, and then telling herself, what the fuck? That’s never going to happen, and then making it not happen because of her thoughts.

So when you aren’t aware of which stage of belief you’re in, and that is the reason you’re getting your results, you don’t know what to do to change your results. And then another thing that happens when you don’t know what stage of belief you are in, and when you aren’t aware that your belief is creating your result, you start to blame other things like your email list, or your messaging, or your niche isn’t clear enough, or worse, you go into ambiguity land of I don’t know why I’m not making money, and you tell yourself that you’re trying everything and it isn’t working and you’re doing all the things and you aren’t making any money.

But the truth of it is in your brain, if you’re being really honest, you’re secretly saying like, what the fuck? That’s never going to happen. Believing it’s impossible. So of course it isn’t. Now, I’ll just go down a rabbit hole for just a second with you because we just did making money with the model and how the model – we talked about last week how the model creates every single result that you get and it’s really important that you really know very meticulously what thoughts are creating your results and how that plays out and how you can really gain awareness and see exactly how a thought creates your result.

So I walked my client through this model and I’m just going to walk you through it really quick and then we’ll move on. But I put in the model her thought what the fuck, that’s never going to happen. Now, I say of course it doesn’t but I do just want to show you exactly why it doesn’t work. Like why does your belief actually create your result.

And I know last week we talked about the model and making money with the model and how you’re always making money or not making money based on what you’re thinking or not thinking, but this is really how it plays out. So we ran the model on her thought, what the fuck, that’s never going to happen, and when it comes to making money and signing clients and hitting her goal and she’s thinking that thought, I asked her what she feels and she described it as laughable. Like almost mocking towards her goal and herself a little bit.

So then I asked her how she shows up and what she does when that happens and she shows up in her business as she describes it as very tentative. So she described it as writing her Facebook posts and her copy as kind of wishy-washy. And what I showed her was that her result to wishy-washy messaging coming from laughing and disbelief at her goal and thinking what the fuck, that’s never going to happen is her potential clients saying consciously or subconsciously in their brain, what the fuck, that’s never going to happen to her coaching.

So good. Your thought always ends in your results. So it’s super important to just be checking your result and asking what thought created that instead of saying I’m doing everything and it just isn’t working. You need to know not only what thought created that result, but I think it’s super helpful to really understand where that thought falls in the three stages of belief so that you can not only see where you currently are but to see how the stages of belief develop so that you can grow yours and you can know at all stages that nothing has gone wrong.

It’s like no matter what’s happening, it fits in one of the three stages and you’re like oh, this is happening because it’s in stage one, or because I’m in stage two, or because I’m in stage three. So that awareness is vital. You have to know the problem to come up with the solution. And by the way, I teach my clients not to coach on consults, and they will always say, “But then how do we also give them transformation?”

And here it is, my friends; knowing the actual problem is transformational. Most of us in our business, I think I’ve said this a couple of times on the podcast, I heard this on Shark Tank. The shark Barbara said it to one of the people. She said one of the biggest issues with entrepreneurs is they never think that their problem is their problem. They always think it’s something else and so they’re always – it’s like they’re too close to the problem to see it.

And I think that’s with all humans and I think that is the point of coaching is that all humans are too close to the problem to see it and a coach helps them back away from the problem and gain perspective so that you can see what the actual problem is and work towards the solution. So that awareness is everything. It is the transformation.

Okay, so now I’m going to introduce you to the three stages and I already gave you one. So the first stage of belief is impossibility. It’s not believing. The second stage is possibility. Like it could happen. And then the third stage of probability. So that’s what we’re going to cover over these three episodes. Today we’re going to dive just a little bit deeper into impossibility.

So with impossibility, this stage where you either don’t even consider the possibility of something because it seems so impossible. So for example, you might not have even considered the possibility that you can make $2000 today. Like, that actually could happen. It is possible. People do it all the time in the 2K group.

I just launched my 200K mastermind like, a month ago and some of the applications that came in were from coaches and I asked them what their goal was for the year. So let’s just say someone says that their goal is 30K for the year. The idea of them making 100K clearly is not – and I’m not saying this is right or wrong. It’s completely neutral. Some people I say, don’t make a 100K year goal this year. It depends on the person.

But it tells me whatever your goal is, anything about that is your brain saying it’s not possible, otherwise it would be in your awareness and it would be your goal. So this stage is where you either don’t consider the possibility of something because it seems so impossible, or you bring into your awareness something. So maybe you think about a 100K business and then your brain immediately says no. That’s the what the fuck, that’s never going to happen belief.

So let’s think about making money as a life coach. When you’re in impossibility, your brain says I’m never going to make money as a life coach, or some version of that. I would think about that right now for you, what is your version of that? When you tell yourself you’re never going to make money as a coach or you’ll never have a business-like Stacey or whatever, what is your specific version, the specific thought of you telling yourself you’ll never make it as a coach?

I love to find the exact way my brain presents my disbelief. Okay, so in this stage, you just want to have that thought in your mind. In this stage, because of that thought or multiple thoughts of not believing or not even being in your awareness to believe, this is where you’re going to experience all the reasons you can’t make money as a life coach.

All the reasons as to why something else is more possible or more attractive and you should spend your time or energy elsewhere. So for example, your job is more important, your family, the upcoming vacations, your daughter’s wedding. It’s when you prioritize basically everything before making money.

And this can also show up when you’re actually working your business, but you spend all your time consuming and creating content and not ever meeting people and telling them you’re a life coach and making offers to help them, the things that actually make you money. This is also where your brain, every time you do decide to try and believe, just tries to redirect you back to the things that are more probable for you.

So probably you won’t make any money, probably this client won’t send their payment, probably they won’t show up for their first call. This is also where your brain tries to get you to do what’s comfortable to avoid what is comfortable, believing you can make money and doing something about it. The moment you start trying to believe that you can make money, you’re going to be uncomfortable. The moment you try to start doing something about it, you’re going to be uncomfortable.

So to avoid making offers and thinking about making money, and to even avoid dealing with the negative thoughts and feelings that come up when thinking about making money, and how you don’t believe it. You scroll on Facebook, binge on Netflix, right? Or it tells you to focus on work or family and listen, the universe will conspire to help you with whatever you believe. That’s a great thing and sometimes a not so great thing. It’s actually neutral.

Just conspires with whatever you believe to give you lots of evidence to believe it. So if you’re in the impossibility of being a coach, please believe. A huge work project will come up or you’ll get offered a big promotion, and because having a business feels so impossible for you, you’ll sink right into the distraction of having the new job.

The stage also brings into your awareness with flair who you really believe that you are, and who you believe that you’re not. So I think for life coaches, it usually shows up in some fashion like this. You decide to tell the world you’re a life coach and then you have some huge meltdown in your life, right?

Like you go through a huge breakup or you have a huge fight with your family and it feels like you’re on Jerry Springer Show and your brain is like, yeah, and you think you’re in any position to tell people how to live their life? Yours is an effing mess. I was joking with my client like, that’s happened to me so many times that I finally think I’m nailing it as a life coach and then something dramatic happens and I’m like, I know nothing about life, what’s happening?

So this is also where you will self-sabotage meaning you know you committed to going to that networking event but because you don’t actually believe you can make money or sign a client or going to that networking event matters at all because making money seems so far away, you’re really open subconsciously to things coming up to break your word.

So like your kid is sick and you just don’t figure it out, you don’t go. You don’t tell your husband that he’s got kid duty or you don’t call your mom to ask for help. Your brain is always trying to take you back into your previous identity, so maybe your previous number one identity was being a mom, and so then the networking event can wait and you didn’t really want to go anyway, and that’s how it happens. And then you don’t go.

Now, before you curse me in your head, I used this example to portray something that would feel very real to you. Like your child being sick. Listen, there’s of course a difference between making a decision that you feel amazing about to stay home with your child who’s sick and you always work all the time and you’re always doing the things you’re supposed to be doing, and this is the one time you choose family, or this is a time that feels important to choose family, versus it being a justified excuse.

The difference will be how you feel in your body. So you want to be super aware of even what’s happening in your body. You totally get to decide always but one will feel a little bit like you let yourself down and the other will feel like you totally did the right thing.

Now I’ll give you another less triggering example. It’s like when I don’t feel like going to the trainer and then some big work thing happens, and then I just feel super justified then like, I was already thinking ugh, and now I’m like oh yeah, definitely, I can’t go. Great.

And I don’t celebrate but it’s more like firm decision made, I have some work stuff that came up and we have to handle this right now. And so this is just kind of the stuff that you want to look for is when it kind of feels justified now to not go. The feeling of justification usually means there’s something there to look at.

And listen, I also think it’s important to note that the things that come up in this stage when you’re in impossibility that keep you from honoring your word to yourself about who you’re going to be and what you’re going to do and what you want to achieve, all of the things that come up will feel very real and important and urgent and justified. And if anyone dare call you out on them, you’re going to be mad.

Defensiveness with your justifications is also a characteristic of this stage and you just want to be super onto yourself. And I think even the justification is the best example of being in this stage. So just know that you’re in impossibility any time you’re justifying anything. Any time you’re doing it because that’s what our brain does to make us feel better.

We justify why making money wasn’t possible today or why – you tell yourself you’re just doing the best you can and that it just takes time and experience and you’re working so hard on it, and the money will eventually come. All of that stuff to kind of fluff yourself up and make yourself feel better and take the edge off of feeling bad. Just be onto yourself when you tell yourself those things. It’s all just because you actually don’t believe it’s possible to make your goal.

Now, this is also the stage where you’re very confused. You have lots of questions about making money and what steps you should take. You’re like, what do I do first? Coach training or business training? Do I get a one-on-one coach or do I do 2K for 2K? Do I do the Facebook business page or my personal page when I do Lives and post?

How do I make an offer? How do I actually do it? What if there aren’t any networking events in my city? Where do I find Facebook groups with people who would be interested in working with me? Do I need a contract and business insurance? What if someone asks me how much money I made or how many clients I’ve had? Do you think my niche is too narrow?

And all of these questions will feel very important, and it really does seem like you’re just missing vital pieces of information. That’s how it comes up for me is like, no, you don’t understand, I’m missing information for real. And then you think if you did have that very vital information, you would definitely be able to take action and move forward in your business, but be careful.

It feels very real and then not taking action or failing will even feel justified there. And you’ll tell yourself because it wasn’t clear what you were supposed to do. Am I nailing it here or what? Let me just tell you that I’m nailing this because this is where my brain likes to go.

I just coached with my coach, Kris on this and so she noticed when we’re talking about building my team and hiring people and things like that, she noticed a pattern that she sees now that she works with me, and now that she’s in the mastermind of how my brain goes to this confusion and freak out place to hide rather than doing the hard thing I need to do or believing and not being confused about something.

And I kid you not, we had this whole conversation about it. Like it totally got it logically, and then we hung up and we had decided that I was going to do something that was very scary and very emotionally tough for me, and I emailed her three times asking if we could jump on a call because I was having doubts and very confused and second-guessing myself.

And then in that moment I really saw it. I was like oh, like literally, she just pointed out the pattern, I said I totally saw it, and then totally didn’t, and it felt so real that I didn’t even catch it until the third email. And I was like, wait a minute. It wasn’t true that I was confused or making the wrong decision. It was my brain not believing that what we had just decided was the right thing and believing I could even do it and believing that I’d be okay doing it. It was just impossibility.

Okay, so finally, this is also the stage where you will say to yourself and others that you are working very hard and nothing is happening. You will martyr yourself in how much action you’re taking and with no results to account for it. And this really goes back to confusion because when I work with clients in this stage, they’re always telling me that they don’t understand why they’re getting results and then they will just tell me how much action they’re taking and how much they’re doing.

And any time that’s happening where you’re taking lots of action and you’re not getting the result for long periods of time and you feel like you’re kind of spinning in confusion and you’re saying, “But I don’t understand, I’m doing so much,” the I don’t understand, I’m doing so much should indicate that you’re in this stage.

Because even when you’re in massive action, I’ll give you an example. Last year I was in massive action in my business all year long creating the 2K and promoting it and just figuring it out and making that whole program, bringing it to life. But there was no point where I was like, I don’t understand what’s happening, oh my god, I’m doing all the things.

I always knew. So this didn’t work because of this, this didn’t work because of this, I was always moving forward. So there was never a time where I was like, being just super confused about it all. Maybe there was, but in general, if I look at the year, I remember always solidly having something to work towards and knowing what I could do differently moving forward versus throwing my hands up in the air and saying but I just don’t understand, I’m doing all the work and it’s not working.

I was very clear of all the things that were working and what I needed to work on. Lastly, this is also the stage where you don’t feel any drama. What? Yes. This is the stage where you can be in a little bit of fantasyland with yourself. When your goal isn’t presented to yourself in a way where it’s believable, you can think that you’re believing, but your brain really isn’t entertaining it at all.

And how you know this is happening is you don’t have any drama at all about your goal. So when you first start to allow belief in, that’s where all the drama is going to come up. All the excuses and obstacles and objections and thoughts that disprove it are triggered by the possibility of it being real.

So I recently coached a client who told me that her goal was 80K for the year and she was doing everything. All of the work, but her result was 12K. And I coached her on the fact that she doesn’t believe she was actually going to make 80K. And here is why I knew because she was halfway through the year and she was at 12K and she wasn’t freaking out about it.

She thought things were going well. So she didn’t even really know she had a problem and I told her if she believed she was going to make 80K this year, if that was really predominantly constantly in her thought was 80K, 80K, 80K, being that we were halfway through the year, she would be freaking out that she was behind according to her goal.

She would be coming to me saying oh my god, my goal is 80K and we’re halfway through the year and I’m only at 12K, but she wasn’t saying that to me because her brain wasn’t telling her something had gone wrong with her goal. In fact, her brain wasn’t even thinking about her goal because it really did think it was impossible.

She had presented that goal to herself and then kind of forgotten all about it and let things happen that distracted her from even thinking about it, and that is what your brain does. It’s like oh, you presented me with this thing that’s very uncomfortable, so I’m going to distract you as often as possible so that you don’t ever have to look at it and think about it because it makes me uncomfortable.

Now, knowing this is great news. I know it feels super bad to find this out in the beginning, especially if you’ve been putting yourself through so much work and spinning your wheels because you don’t really believe and you aren’t aware that that was the problem. But when you are aware, when you become aware that these are the signs and symptoms of not believing, you can do something about it.

And that’s the best news ever. When I was coaching my client, I was telling her that although it feels so bad right now, after she feels like she’s worked so hard since January, the worst thing that could happen is actually not seeing it and continuing to lie to herself accidentally. Because we don’t mean to do this. It comes from lack of self-awareness, which we all have as humans.

But my job is to point it out as I see it as your coach, and your job is to find it as often as possible in yourself. And so many of my clients are so grateful that she was courageous enough to be coached on that on a call live in front of everybody because it brought so much self-awareness up for all of them.

And that really is the point of me doing this podcast for you is to bring your self-awareness game up. So this is impossibility. When your brain doesn’t even go there or your brain works very hard to discredit going there, or when you feel really great about your goals and you have zero drama whatsoever. Notice if you are here and any of the things I described in this podcast.

This will always be the cause of why you aren’t making money. This will always be why your business isn’t working. You aren’t not making money as a life coach because of your niche or whether you’ve been certified or not or how many people you can physically meet or because you don’t have a website or your copy is off. You aren’t making money because your predominant thought is, I’m never going to sign a client or I’m never going to make money as a coach.

Literally, this should be your first thought as a coach. If you’re not getting the result you want, quick, what am I believing? Or in this case, what am I not believing? Find the impossible thought that is keeping your goal impossible for you. That is always your job. I’m going to say it again. Find the impossible thought that is keeping your goal impossible for you.

Okay, so next week we will dive into turning impossibility into possibility. And hey remember, if you want to dive deeper into this thought work, into the very specifics, you want to learn the tool that I coach myself on and I coach my clients to coach themselves on into creating any amount of money that they want to make, this August in 2K for 2K, we’re doing a five-week money study called Making Money with the Model, and I’m breaking it down on how to coach yourself to your fist 2K, your next 20K, or even 200K on live coaching calls.

I’m teaching the model and I’m applying it with real students. The real students can be you. So all you have to do is sign up for 2K for 2K by August 6th to take part in the five-week bonus training inside of 2K for 2K. So remember, if you’re in 2K already you get this five-week intensive completely free.

We’re filming it live so that we can add it to the modules in the member portal so people can see what – because not all my clients are well versed in the model and I want them to be able to see not only I teach them in modules the model and all the components of it, but I want them to see it really coached because that changes everything when you see it broken down into actual people’s thoughts and you watch them gain awareness right in front of you, it’s everything.

So I wanted to make sure there were examples in the modules of me coaching on the model live, with my whiteboard out, writing it all down and showing my clients their minds. So if you want to be a part of that, just sign up for 2K for 2K by August 6th and you will get to take part of it. Alright, I’ll see you next week.

Hey, if you are ready to make money as a life coach, I want to invite you to join my 2K for 2K program where you’re going to make your first $2000, the hardest part, and then $200,000 using my proven formula. It’s risk-free. You either make your 2K or I give you your 2K back. Just head over to www.staceyboehman.com/2kfor2k. We’ll see you inside.