#101 - “My Deepest, Darkest Limiting Belief: I Can’t Help Others if My Business Isn’t Thriving”

In this super honest solo episode, I unpack a limiting belief that’s followed me for years: “I can’t help others with their business if mine isn’t thriving.” As I deepen my coaching journey and reflect on what true success means, I’m realizing how deeply ingrained this belief is—and how untrue it actually is. I share the honest behind-the-scenes of my work, money mindset, slow growth, and how I’m redefining success to align with values over volume. If you’ve ever felt like you’re not “far enough” to help others, this episode is for you.

FULL SHOW-NOTES WITH TAKEAWAYS + LINKS

patternshift.fm 

BEST QUOTE FROM THE EPISODE

“Thriving doesn’t always look like a massive income. It looks like helping people, making an impact, and doing work that aligns with your soul.”

🔗 

Flodesk (50% Off for the First Year)

🔗

Ja, Wol Community – Join the Conversation

This episode was sponsored by Ja, Wol. I promote my own services and products in my podcast rather than working with sponsors. I will share the odd-discount for things I fully support and use.

Chapters

• 0:00 My Limiting Business Belief
• 2:30 What Success Really Means To Me
• 5:45 Supporting The Creative World
• 9:35 Slow Growth and New Directions
• 12:35 The Value of Reflection
• 14:28 Episode Closing and Homework

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This episode is going to be super honest. I'm just gonna share some thoughts I've been working through in my own business and life. It's about a limiting belief that keeps popping up I can't help other people with their business if mine isn't thriving. Hey and welcome to Pattern Shift, the podcast for fiber-loving business owners shaping a slower, more sustainable world. I'm Saskia, a creative business coach and support guide for makers, teachers, designers and indie shop owners in the needle and fiber arts.

Speaker 2: 0:33

I help you way, find your next step organize your business to fit your life and launch ideas with joy and action. Let's untangle the yucky bits like branding, marketing and sales and build something sustainable soulful and truly you. So grab your favorite brew tea coffee or you know, and let's ship the pattern, one stitch at a time.

Speaker 1: 1:00

Just a quick check in from the last episode, which was my 100th episode, and I plead, I plead for reactions, feedback, something from you, and then I managed to not have the right links in my show notes and in my newsletters how? So if you wanted to share something with me, you can obviously still do it. I corrected everything. You can go back to the 100 episode. I would love to hear your thoughts about this podcast and the future of it, because I'm making it for you and you are supposed to have an opinion and I love to hear it, so just let me know. It's going to be just me and some thoughts I've been thinking and working through in my own business and life, and it's about a limiting belief that keeps popping up In my coaching studies.

Speaker 1: 2:02

I'm working with limiting beliefs, and what is great about studying something to help others is that you learn so much about yourself as well. It can be quite confronting, but it can also solve these ongoing things that feel really where you feel really stuck. So that is I really just love that. This is my limiting belief. I can't help other people with their business if mine isn't thriving. This came up during my coaching education.

Speaker 1: 2:38

We're learning how to use the work by Byron Katie, which is a powerful tool for understanding your thoughts. It helps you question what you believe and you really see the difference between your thoughts and your reality. It's really wild how different your experience can become just by changing the way you think or how you think or what you think. This particular belief has come up a few times for me. My business, or this specific branch of it, is now in its fourth year and, from a purely business perspective, it should be making more money by now. I sometimes feel uncomfortable with that, because I'm helping other people with their business and I care deeply about values like honesty, transparency and truth.

Speaker 2: 3:28

But here's the thing.

Speaker 1: 3:29

I've never claimed to help people make loads of money. I've never sold a get rich promise. What I do is help people find balance and build something that fits their life and organize their business in a way that works for them, specifically leaning a little bit into some neurodivergence as well, and actually that's what I've been doing for myself. I've built a business that works for me. I'm proud of it. It aligns with my values. It gives me joy and space to live my life, with the one exception that, yes, I'd love to make a little bit more money, but here's where it gets complicated. I don't need that money to survive and if I did, I would have found a job in a completely different field a long time ago, not per se, a different industry. I was actually making a good profit with my yarn shop and my needlecraft school, but I it would be different, probably one where I'd feel out of place or unable to be myself if it actually was about huge amounts of money. So actually, by that measure, I have built a successful business and it checks all the boxes for me. Still, I seem to get stuck a lot because we've been taught that success equals financial growth, especially online. There are so many marketing voices shouting about six-figure businesses, and I mean six figures in one currency is completely different than six figures in another currency. That's one thing, but that's not what success means to me. Success is supporting people. It's making a difference, it's helping others feel seen and understood. It's making actual connections. It's inspiring others to do things their own way. And, honestly, I'm doing all of that, but I'm doing it in a space where there's very little infrastructure for what I do. Most business owners in the needlecraft world, in the slow fashion industry, don't see themselves as commercial entrepreneurs as much. They do it for the love of the craft, for the material, for the joy, and they hope to make enough to live on. But it's rare for them to invest in their business beyond stock or supplies, paying for support, coaching or strategy. That's still very uncommon, which means there aren't many people doing what I do, because it's not a super profitable niche.

Speaker 1: 6:14

But I want to be here. I chose to be here because I believe in the power of creativity and support. I believe making your own clothes is very valuable for mental health, for confidence, for sustainability, for joy. I want this industry to be healthy so much, and that means supporting the people who make it happen, even when there's no big money in it. I also know how most people learn business in this world by watching what others do, primarily on Instagram, by guessing a little bit, by patching things together, by bootstrapping it. That's what I did myself in the beginning, and I don't think formal business education is the answer either. I think you learn by doing, but learning through endless trial and error takes time, and that time often leads to burnout. And that's where I come in. I help before the burnout. I help people find clarity before they spiral. I'm not building a massive business empire. I'm supporting the kind of people who keep this creative world alive.

Speaker 1: 7:25

And sometimes I have to remind myself I'm doing what in other countries might be a subsidized job. I know it for a fact that in Sweden, people do this job and they get subsidized by the government. It's cultural work, it's care work. It's like a public service, except it's just me doing it from my home with my puppy sleeping. Right now and now I have time to do this, and I don't want to work for a big organization, because that doesn't fit with how I want to live and work. So, yeah, sometimes it feels like I'm doing unpaid labor for the community. My work right now is to be okay with that, to be proud of that and the lack of fat business bank account. I should really regularly remind myself that it's not a sign that I'm failing. It's a sign that I stepped into a niche that doesn't exist yet. I'm building something from scratch and I'm doing it ethically, in alignment with my values, and that makes it really a lot slower as well, because one of those values is not relying heavily on social media, partly because of what it represents, but also because I know it's not realistic.

Speaker 1: 8:43

For me, social media is a full-time job, or it tends to become one without you. It's not just a piece of marketing anymore. For a lot of people, it's a whole machine. You need a team to do it like quote unquote well, and small business owners aren't content creator. We're creators full stop. So I'd rather spend time creating work that feels good and focus on reaching the right people in ways that feel right, and that might be social media, but slightly in a slightly different way. For me, that often means slow, organic growth mouth-to-mouth referrals, kind words shared behind the scenes, you sharing this podcast episode, relationships that build over time, and I'm okay with that. Mostly, I still check in with myself a lot. I worry sometimes and then I need to coach myself on it, and right now I'm thinking about starting a YouTube channel, which I know might sound weird after everything I just said, but hear me out.

Speaker 1: 9:55

Podcasting is free content. It takes time and energy and it's not very searchable. Most people discover podcasts through social media, which I tend to avoid as much as I can, and I've been experimenting going back to Instagram in a different way Blue Sky, pinterest, trying to find something that feels like a good long-term match, and I haven't really found it yet. I haven't found something that I feel what I put into it comes back to me, but I do love YouTube. I learned so much from it. For me, it's like the free version of Skillshare, and I found a few creators. I love people who show up occasionally and make videos that feel thoughtful and real, so maybe that could work for me too. I don't know.

Speaker 1: 10:48

There's a lot of ifs and buts, though. Will it match my values? Do I want to film parts of my life? Is my family okay with that? Can I handle the inconsistency of the reality of what my life is and what if it flops. I don't want it to become all consuming, I just want to share when I feel like I have something to say, and I'm thinking maybe six videos, one every month for half a year. That feels doable and familiar, because that's exactly how I started this podcast. I set a small goal and build it from there.

Speaker 1: 11:26

And all of this, all this reflecting this, is the kind of work I wish more people would take time for, because otherwise you're just kind of running on autopilot, like putting out fires here and there, threading water or threading water. Either way, you're stuck in place and when you're stuck it's really hard to make decisions. You say yes to everything or you say yes to nothing and you burn out. And that's where reflection is essential. It helps you check your compass, it helps you figure out if you're still on track and if the track you're on is still the right one. And, honestly, that is why I started coaching in the first place to build space for reflection for myself and the people I work with. I've been coached by fellow students.

Speaker 1: 12:16

Now for a couple of months, I use my bullet journal for reflection and these tools give me the space to breathe, reframe and move forward gently and even though some beliefs keep coming back, the work helps me see them differently each time. That belief I can't help others if my business isn't thriving. It made me feel like a fraud, but I've learned that thriving doesn't always look like a massive income. It looks like helping people, making an impact in that way, doing work that aligns with your soul, and that's exactly what I'm doing. I may not reach masses, but I am helping people, and really that's all I ever wanted. I'm helping others, I'm helping myself, and that is actually more than enough. So here's your homework Think of one limiting belief that you have that keeps coming back, and share it with me.

Speaker 2: 13:21

Share it with a friend.

Speaker 1: 13:23

Have a talk about it, write it down in your journal, journal about it. Do something with that belief that you have. That is always in your way. I would love to hear it.

Speaker 1: 13:37

I would love to get back to you and perhaps give you a little tip, if I have one. So do some deep diving, it'll be helpful, I'm sure. Thanks for listening to Pattern Shift. If today's episode sparked something for you, I'd love to hear about it. Or, better yet, help you take the next step. You'll find links to my programs, community and more support for your creative business at patentshiftfm. Until next time, keep creating with care and trust your own pace, and don't forget to eat and stitch your fibers.

Speaker 2: 14:22

And don't forget to eat and stitch your fibers.