My Experience Of Building An Online Business

 

 

 

I can’t quite believe this, but The Female Money Doctor is now officially 3 YEARS OLD!!! 

For 3 years I have been writing about money, mindset and abundance thinking and that feels like quite a milestone to me. It’s longer than some marriages!!!

3 years is the same length of time it takes to study a university degree, and I definitely feel like I have had university-level schooling in what it takes to be an online entrepreneur building a business. 

It’s not as simple as slapping up a website and expecting people to find you. I think if it was, then entrepreneurship wouldn’t be that exciting!

Here’s a run-down of what I’ve learned in the hopes it will help you if you’re deciding to start a business like mine.

Passion

I have posted on average, 1 blog post a week for 3 years – that’s 156 posts on money and mindset topics (in fact it’s 162 at the last count). 

That takes some passion!! 

I’ve now added a podcast into the mix too, and that has been so much fun to put together!

I did start another blog for doctors to talk about why I switched from obstetrics and gynaecology to general practice. This was on the hope that I could help others who were unhappy to do the same, but it fizzled out after a few months. 

I ran out of things to say because I wasn’t passionate enough about it

So my advice is DEFINITELY do something you’re passionate about. I have had countless requests to join into people’s franchise-type businesses and network marketing  groups, but I just can’t get excited about lipstick, organising other people’s holidays, or health-food supplements. 

Talking about money for me though is like a drug! I live and breathe content on money, mindset, business, personal development etc etc etc… I love it all. That is what has kept me going for 3 years, and what will continue to keep me going for the next 3. 

It’s what will keep you doing the work even when you don’t feel like it.

Did You Know I offer 1:1 coaching?

Having a money coach to help guide you really can make all the difference in creating a plan that is unique for you to create the abundance you desire. I can help you to literally "see the wood for the trees" and look at why your money is not doing what you need it to.

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Hidden Content

Hustle

While I don’t particularly like the word “hustle” for what it can represent (maculine energy, bros club and 5am starts – er, no thanks!), it is exactly the word I would use to describe how it feels when I started this business (and still feels at times!!). There are times when I feel like I’m putting in SO many hours for such little return on that investment. 

There are some days when it feels like I’m screaming into an abyss and no one is hearing it.

The Female Money Doctor has consumed my free-time. It’s what I think about last thing at night, and what I think about when I wake up. I enjoy the “hustle”, but I’m learning to not be swept up in overdoing it and using masculine-type energy all the time. When I do this, I burn out, so I am leaning more and more into my feminine side – learning to receive and accept help more. You may have noticed changes in my branding, and I feel this is a reflection of how much more “feminine” I am becoming in my working energy.

My advice to you is this. You can still run an online business:

  • and NOT get up at 5am to do it;
  • WHILE working full-time;
  • AND have kids (so I’m told – I still struggle with believing this one!!).

The only difference is that it might take longer to get to when you feel you’ve “made it”, and I’m not where I want to be yet (or maybe that’s just my ruler personality?!). However, it is worth the effort because it does start to get easier the more you get used to it.

I’m finding my flow a little more each day.

Comparisonitis

This has been a HUGE one for me over the past 3 years, and I think it stems from the times I have had to “compete” with others at school and throughout medical training. 

I have been comparing the inside of my business (bloody messy to say the least!) to the slick external exterior of someone else’s. Comparing my “wins” to theirs and feeling worse off because it didn’t seem “good enough” by comparison. 

But that all comes from within me based on an inner (false) belief that I am “not good enough”. I was also over-doing it on the masculine energy which is about competition, not collaboration.

I have been working hard on this particular trigger point, and I feel I’ve finally reached a stage where I can recognise it and stop it’s ugly head rearing up to topple me over.

Starting a business is hard – I totally get why so many fail in their first years. My advice is just KEEP GOING no matter how hard it feels. If you have a passion and a why, it’ll see you through.

Always Growing and Learning

I have learnt so much about myself over the past 3 years while building this online business. I’ve worked my way through personality quizzes to find out what I’m good at so I can outsource and find help with what I’m not. 

I’ve worked on my money blocks (and continue to work on my money blocks), my unconscious biases and my false limiting beliefs. I uncover more all the time, because that’s what the business is forcing me to do. 

I have HUGE admiration for business owners and what they are going through in order to reach their goals.

If it wasn’t for the help, guidance, support and encouragement of EVERYONE I have interacted with along the way, I definitely wouldn’t still be here.

Patience

When I started my business, I thought I’d be WAAAAAY further along than I am by now. Because I’m not where I “thought” I’d be, this feeds into my “not good enough” inner belief and my tendency towards “comparisonitis”. 

Due to my impatience, I have bought into mentoring programs and coaching based on this very premise in order to help me build and scale quickly with varying results and impact. Some of the practices I have learnt have not felt aligned to how I want to do business, and that’s ok. Everyone is different and there is no one size fits all.

3 years on, I’ve come to realise that fast growth is not how a sustainable business works, and certainly not one built around a full time job as a doctor.

I grow as I have the capacity to deal with that growth. Slow, steady and organically is, in my opinion, the right way to do it, because it means I get to build strong foundations before building my tower. If I had scaled too quickly without learning how to do the basics, I would certainly have got myself into a mess and likely would have given up by now.

Fear

Starting my online business was scary! I had no clue what to do or how to do it. Spending money to learn how on expensive courses,mentors etc was scary. I was scared of telling people that I was building it. And finally, I was scared that I didn’t have what it took to be successful.

Let me tell you that no matter what – the fear never goes away, it just gets easier to deal with. I was fearful of doing my first facebook live, but now I regularly do them and LOVE IT!

There are still plenty of things I’m fearful of, and putting myself “out there” is one of them. I have a fear of criticism, but it is something I will just have to accept in the online world. I did go through a point where I seemed to be criticised every day for something or other, so I think this was the universe showing me that it’s not so bad, and I can get over it. I’ve been told to look at it as a milestone that every business reaches. It means that i’m having an impact on the world.

When I feel fear, I think about one of the first books I ever listened to – *Susan Jeffers, “Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway”. That book changed my whole outlook on life.

I’m also better at following my intuition and trusting my instincts. It comes in handy when I’m directing my life and my business. I’m embracing my inner-woo and it really does help!

Final Thoughts

I’m so proud and excited that I’ve reached my 3rd birthday as The Female Money Doctor. I know I still have a lot to learn in building my online business, and there will be more challenges ahead, but I’m ready, and I know I will deal with whatever comes my way.

I really hope that this has helped put things into perspective for you. You can see that building a business is not as simple as it sometimes gets made out to be online. That doesn’t mean you’re failing, it means you’re exactly where you need to be. Good things are coming to you too. Just. Keep. Going.

And if you’d like to celebrate with me, I’m doing a whole month on my favourite topic in my free facebook group – INVESTING. I’m doing loads of facebook live content to help you to get started too.

Lots of Love, and here’s to the next chapter of The Female Money Doctor.

 

 

 

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