Intro: Do you feel like you were meant to have a kick-ass career as a hair stylist? Like you got into this industry to make big things happen?
Maybe you’re struggling to build a solid base and want some stability. Maybe you know social media is important, but it feels like a waste of time because you aren’t seeing any results. Maybe you’ve already had some amazing success but are craving more. Maybe you’re ready to truly enjoy the freedom and flexibility this industry has to offer.
Cutting and coloring skills will only get you so far, but to build a lifelong career as a wealthy stylist, it takes business skills and a serious marketing strategy. When you’re ready to quit just working in your business and start working on it, join us here where we share real success stories from real stylists.
I’m Britt Seva, social media and marketing strategist just for hair stylists, and this is the Thriving Stylist Podcast.
Britt Seva: What is up and welcome back to the Thriving Stylist Podcast. I’m your host Britt Seva, and today we’re talking about the six things that might be getting in the way of your achievements.
Anybody else listening to this into achieving? Me! I can just see collectively the heads nodding. When you talk about achieving, it’s like moving forward, making progress, getting closer, right?
We are wired as human beings to like to achieve. That’s just a part of our DNA. We are in a constant quest to make life better, easier, happier. So achievement doesn’t necessarily mean more. It just means better.
When we think of achievement that way, I want you to consider it within that realm.
So knowing that everybody on this planet actually likes achievement (nobody doesn’t like it), how come we’re not seeing achievement more often?
Does anybody feel like they’re working hard, but not seeing the fruits of the labor or they would like to work hard, but they don’t know what they should even be working on to achieve or no matter how hard they try, it feels like the world is fighting against them? For whatever reason, you’re not getting the better, the improved, the closer, whatever it is you’re seeking?
I’ve certainly been in that place recently in the past, all the things. And I want to talk about the six things that get in the way of our achievements, because if you are achieving right now, at some point, you’ll feel like you’re not, and this will be a good podcast to go back to. If you are in the thick of it and you feel like, “Why am I not getting the results I’m looking for?”, hopefully this will give some insight.
The very first thing that will prevent you from achieving is overwhelm. The challenge with that is with the pace of life, with our access to technology, with the demands on all of us right now, it’s very easy to feel overwhelmed.
It’s incredibly easy to get to a place where you feel like the demands on your time, your emotions, your health, all of it become too much, and when you start to feel bogged down, how can you move forward? It feels like every time you try to take a step forward, someone is pushing you backwards or you’re buried under a pile of bricks, so achieving is impossible because your existing commitments are too heavy.
When we’re feeling overwhelmed, we can’t achieve. It’s actually impossible. Few things to help with overwhelm. One organization always helps with the overwhelm. Two, one, of the things that I talked about on the podcast recently is the process of being all in. When you’re all in, a natural byproduct of that is the overwhelm fades away. It’s really hard to be all in and overwhelmed because you’ve essentially compartmentalized your entire life. The two things are basically polar opposites. There could still be moments of overwhelm, but the overwhelm shouldn’t be so massive that it prevents you from achieving.
For example, I have days, weeks, sometimes even a month where I’ll feel overwhelmed, but I never feel like I’m not achieving because the overwhelm will be in what I call a sprint, like a really short period of time where like, okay, I can do this. I can buckle down for this short period of time, knowing that the efforts I put in here will lead to the achievement.
That’s a piece too and we’re going to get into that. I don’t do the things that aren’t leading towards an achievement. If it’s not getting me closer to what I want, why am I doing it, right?
But for so many of us, FOMO hits, we’re afraid to say, no, we like shiny objects, we like shiny opportunities, so we say yes to all the things, even if it doesn’t get us closer to what we actually want to achieve, which leads us into number two, lack of a North Star.
One of the things we talk about in my Wealthiest Year Yet course and planner is the North Star concept. I’ve talked about this for probably five years now, quite a long time. When I finally established a North Star for myself, it really changed everything.
I have a North Star in my business, but I also have an annual North Star of what needs to be achieved so that I feel like I’m making progress, right? A.k.a, the thing that we’re all craving.
When you either don’t have a North Star or lose sight of it, you become lost and you cannot achieve when you’re lost.
So think about what the North Star is. The North Star is called Polaris, the actual North Star that lives in the sky. And we think about North Star, I don’t know about you all, but I learned about it as a kid.
Knowing that way back in the day before compasses, before anything, sailors could use the North Star to find their way back home based on their position, where they were, where the North Star was in the sky, they were able to use that data to find their way back home.
When you have a North Star in business, in life, in whatever, when you become lost, because you will, being lost, being overwhelmed, getting tempted by a shiny object, that will happen. That’s life’s universal test and life sends you curveballs, opportunities, shiny objects to test and see how serious you are about your North Star. I fully believe that. And if you’re not serious about your North Star, you’ll chase all of these other ideas or you’ll start doing wild and wacky things because instead of your dedication to the achievement of what you’re actually here to do, you’re still not disciplined enough to make that happen.
When you can become disciplined to the idea that when I get tempted, when I lose my way, I need to look up to the sky, find the North Star, recenter myself, and continue sailing the direction that I committed to sail this year, you can’t get lost. You’re re-centering all the time, so getting to your destination becomes inevitable.
The only reason you don’t reach your destination is because of distraction and overwhelm, right? You can’t achieve it if you’re not following the North Star or if you don’t have one.
Let me tell you examples of what a North Star is not. I want to make $50,000 more this year. That’s not a North Star. That’s a byproduct of achieving the North Star. Money is always a byproduct. I’m here to tell you money is never the North Star, so if you’re chasing money, it’s not a surprise to me that you’re not getting to where you want to be, right?
What is your North Star? Are you actually working to get there? And are you recentering around it? Or are you getting distracted by curveballs over and over and over?
Then we have number three, lack of inspiration. Whenever we’re uninspired, it is actually impossible to achieve. Fully impossible. Inspiration is like the fuel in your gas tank. You’re going to need inspiration to get to the destination. You can have the most beautiful car in the world, souped up, packed down, ready to go, but if there’s no gas, it’s not going to get you there.
Once your inspiration tank runs low, the motivation to get up and achieve is pretty minimal. So when we’re looking for that inspiration—I’m going to lead right into number four—you have to make sure that you find guidance and it’s the right guidance.
Because the fourth thing that gets in the way of achieving whatever you’re setting out to do is that you don’t have guidance or you’re following the wrong guide. I have certainly been in that position and it is not fun to realize, “Wow, I was being guided by somebody who I thought was actually headed the same direction as me, but it turns out they were just a shiny object.”
When I go back to somebody who has actually accomplished what I want and actually seems to have strategic advice, it is the complete opposite of what I was learning from this person over here. When you start to say, “Who is the guide, who is the messenger, who has the tools and the resources to help me get to where I want to go with this achievement,” and you start going all in on that inspiration versus seeking inspiration seven ways to Sunday, you will find achievement so much faster, friends.
This world is a noisy place, very noisy place, and in the Wealthiest Year Yet planner, one of the things I do in the North Star section of that planner is I make you choose what influencers you’ll follow, what podcasts you’ll listen to, what books you’ll read, and what classes and workshops you’ll take before the year even starts.
Why? Because if I don’t, you will soak up a ton of information, spend a bunch of money in places where you might learn stuff, but if the stuff isn’t pushing you towards your North Star, it’s not going to be the kind of achievement you’re going for. All you’re doing is adding stuff.
Does anybody do this? It’s the curse of Target. You go into Target, you grab the red cart, and you’re like, “Listen, all I’m here for is a box of Lucky Charms and a thing of paper towels, nothing else. I need to get in. I need to get out.” Well, $400 later, you have cute pajamas for the family, you’ve got some canned goods, there’s a new kind of ice cream that came out. You went upstairs and you were browsing around the sporting goods section. You bought a new DVD player. You don’t even have DVDs anymore. Like you’ve made all these strange decisions.
So many of us have Target syndrome in our life where you know that all you needed was the Lucky Charms and the paper towel, but somehow you ended up with a cart full of nonsense and you go home $400 poorer. You have stuff all over your counter and you still forgot the Lucky Charms. It’s like, “My gosh, what’s wrong with me?” So many of us literally live our life that way.
At the end of the year, your cart is full. Your bank account is empty, but you don’t even have the Lucky Charms. We don’t want that. I want you to actually be achieving what you’re setting out to achieve.
In refining who we’re learning from what we’re learning, the mentors that we’re going to, and the messages we’re receiving, we are much more likely to achieve.
When you’re just filling your head with information, it becomes next to impossible.
Next, and this is the biggie: resistance to change. So I can share lots of quotes with you about change. “If you change nothing, nothing changes.” “What got you here won’t get you there.” “Fear happens on the edge of greatness.”
There’s so many things I can share with you, but I’ve shared those quotes so many times, and I still see people paralyzed in their resistance to change.
If you cannot make some big, bold, scary choices, I promise you you will not achieve everything you’re setting out to achieve. If you’re living in fear; if you have bad money mindset; if you’re convinced that if you make one wrong move, your whole world is going to fall apart; if you allow the fear of changing, messing up, doing things differently, making a pivot, get in the way of your success, you will stay in stagnation.
Absolutely.
The idea of playing it safe—there’s very rare occasions where playing it safe is a good idea. When you’re trying a new restaurant for the first time, playing it safe is a good idea. You know, going to Baskin-Robbins, I go with my usual flavor, I play it safe. I’m not going to mix it up or try something new.
But when it comes to business and when it comes to life, playing it safe is the fastest way to stagnate. You won’t achieve anything staying in that zone of safety, and so getting over the resistance of change is crucial.
Change is scary because when we change something, the predictability of the result goes away. That’s why we’re so scared of change. You want unpredictable results. When you look at achievement, you’re looking to create something you don’t already have. But it’s funny because in the quest to achieve that unpredictable new result, it creates terror and fear, and we’re so scared that in the process of making this achievement, we’ll lose everything we have when the reality is you want to lose everything you have.
When you want to achieve, it means you’re ready to say goodbye to what’s right now and hello to a brighter tomorrow. The only way to make that happen is to embrace change.
You have to be confident enough in yourself, mentored enough in your ideas, inspired enough in your North Star that you’ve already created, and strip back that overwhelm to ensure the achievement as possible.
Now, number six is lack of innovation and this is something I’m pretty gosh darn passionate about. So I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: what has made me and my business successful is the fact that we are constantly, constantly innovating.
I like to share that because one of the things that we practice is we don’t look at—whenever we work with an outside vendor, which we don’t do very often, we run 90% of our business in-house. We don’t outsource much.
When we do, they’ll always say things like “Who are your direct competitors?” and my answer is always, “No one.” And they said, “Well, I know, I know, but like who?” And I always say, “No, no one. I don’t want you to look at what anybody else in my industry is doing and play off their tactics or do any weird stuff.” I said, “I am an innovator, so you asking me who my competition is, it’s no one because I’m not playing that kind of game. I’m not worried about what anybody else is doing. I’m instead trying to chart uncharted territory, I’m trying to pioneer. I’m trying to constantly find gaps that don’t exist. So me telling you other people who are in the same arena, it’s not helpful information. I’m choosing to innovate, so you seeing what others are doing should not be helpful data to you.”
It’s hard. I found that a lot of vendors are like, “Well, uh…” I don’t know where to go because so many businesses today are playing the better than game. “Well, let me see what other people are doing. I’m going to do it better.” That is a losing game every single time.
If you innovate, it is impossible for somebody to be better than you. You have created something new. What’s exciting is for innovative brands—like, even as I said that, some of you might be saying, “Well, yeah, until somebody copies it.” No, ‘cause innovative brands, like I’m already working on what we’re going to launch in this business in 2024. So you can copy everything I’m doing right now. It doesn’t matter because in six months I already know that we’re putting something new out.
Innovative brands are moving forward at a place and at a pace where there is no better than game because they’re in constant innovation. That’s where you see businesses stand the test of time.
So in your salon, in your chair, you have to start asking yourself not what are other people doing today? It’s “What do I think is going to come up tomorrow”, right? And when you look at Scaling Stylist Method, that’s what it’s filled with. It is what I think the industry is going to be launching in five, seven years.
What’s cool is Thrivers Society members will have already established it, so there’ll be that much more ahead. So that in five to seven years, when I’m making new projections, they’re moving to the future yet again.
That’s what innovation looks like and that’s how you can guarantee achievement. Because if you’re constantly pushing forward, it’s impossible to stay left behind, right? It’s impossible to have fear of change. It’s impossible to be uninspired because you’re constantly seeking that forward momentum.
So if you feel like you’re not achieving, I ask you to think back and reflect on these six points and ask which of the six or if all of the six are plaguing you. If they are, start thinking to yourself, “What tools and resources do I need? What habits do I need to change? How can I evolve the way I show up, my behaviors, who I follow, where I find inspiration and who I learned from to ensure that my North Star stays intact?”
I actually find myself achieving year over year. I hope this has been a helpful one, friends. As always so much love, happy business building, and I’ll see you on the next one.
