How to Stop Giving Your Power Away in Your Business.

Think about the last time someone asked you for something. A client, someone on your team, a friend. Did you pause before you said yes?

Most successful women don’t. We’ve been saying yes for so long it no longer feels like a choice. A yes here. A “no worries” there. A price you meant to raise and didn’t. A decision you checked with three people first. Each one is reasonable on its own. Added up over years, they cost you a lot of your power.

In episode 385 of the HerBusiness Podcast, I talk about the four ways I see women business owners giving their power away most often, and how to start taking it back.

How to tell if you’re giving your power away

It often gets mistaken for burnout. A holiday fixes burnout, but it doesn’t fix this. Look for these signs:

• You’re tired in a way sleep doesn’t fix.
• You feel resentful about things you agreed to.
• You keep asking others what you should do, even after years in business.
• The business you built feels heavier than it should.

1. Over-responsibility

This is carrying what isn’t yours: your team’s moods, every client’s results, problems other people could solve themselves. It feels like leadership, but it makes you the bottleneck. Your business can only grow as big as your capacity to hold it all.

2. People-pleasing

In business, people-pleasing looks like the price you haven’t raised in three years, the client you should have let go, and the message you’ve softened so nobody feels uncomfortable. You get liked, and you lose respect. Mostly your own.

3. Old expectations

Every business owner is running on rules she never chose. Some came from your industry, some from your family, and some from the woman who started your business and needed to prove herself. She made those rules for good reasons. Would you choose them today?

4. Waiting for permission

This means waiting until you’re sure, waiting for the right time, and waiting for someone to tell you it’s okay. Certainty isn’t coming, and approval isn’t coming. While you wait, your best ideas sit on the shelf.

Take one piece of your power back this week

Pick the one you recognised most, and do one thing about it before Friday:

• Over-responsibility: hand one problem back by asking, “What do you think we should do?”
• People-pleasing: say one clean no, or raise one price.
• Old expectations: write down one rule you run your business by, and break it once.
• Waiting for permission: make one decision you’ve been sitting on, without asking anyone first.

Then sit with this question: Where am I handing my power to someone or something that never asked for it?

Listen to episode 385 of the HerBusiness Podcast → www.herbusiness.com/385 

If you’re ready to stop giving your power away and do this work properly, over a year, with a small group of women who understand where you are, applications for MAJESTIC are open now. We start in January, and applications close at the end of November.