Why I’m Fucking Hard to Live With

Aka: The “Missing Ingredient” to Online Success for DRIVEN Women

For the longest time ever – maybe even my whole life up until this very moment – I thought that I had to do everything myself, or else I’m a failure.

If you were to look through and in and out of all the different areas of my life you’d see a pretty desperate (and desperately infuriating I dare say!) control freak who likes everything her way, just so, and on her terms. I guess on the one hand it’s the power and the joy of knowing that you can create your own life your way, but on the other hand: it’s pretty fucking exhausting trying to hold the entire world aloft all the time!

But honestly … I don’t mind. Or I guess it’s not that I don’t mind it’s just that I never really thought there was any other way! After all – if I don’t do it then it won’t be done properly or even at all, right?!

And this isn’t some recent thing either, to do with how I run my business. I remember being a kid and cracking it at how one of my family members had loaded the dishwasher, and with heavy sighs of annoyance unpacking the whole thing so I could do it right.

THERE’S ONLY ONE WAY AND IT’S KAT’S WAY, OKAY?!

Needless to say I am not ALWAYS a barrel of fun to live with or hang around! Especially if you want to try and tell me how something should be done! I may have had just one or two little (ahem) tiffs over the years with every guy who has been unfortunate enough to fall for me, thinking that he likes how strong-minded and driven I am.

Oh yes buddy … I’ll show you how strong-minded I am! Let’s see how long you find that an attractive quality for! Hehe.

Anyway. Where was I?! (I’m not hard to live with at ALL, okay! I just KNOW HOW YOU SHOULD DO EVERYTHING, even breathe!)

So. On business though. Here’s the thing.

If you take this whole “I must do everything and do it just so” approach to life, which first of all honestly is quite demanding just on a day to day keep yourself upright and moving sort of basis, and you apply it to online business, well, at first it’s quite probably a very good quality.

Let’s be honest:

Most people who set out to make money online fail BRUTALLY, and I think it comes down to two very simple reasons in the end:

1. They’re not willing to suck it up and do what it takes
2. They DON’T suck it up and do what it takes

So having the personality of someone who will not say die, ever, once she’s set her mind to something, and will tear down the walls of the world before she admits something isn’t work – aka IT WILL WORK BECAUSE I SAID SO and I will rip my very heart out if necessary in order to ensure that happens – well, it’s helpful.

After a fashion.

If I look back over my history online ANYTIME I have decided I would make something work I fucking made it work.

Was this always in my favour? HELL NO. From an energy and sanity point of view, never mind doggedly at times barking up the wrong tree or endlessly flogging a dead horse in hopes of reviving it. Being stubborn-minded and wanting things the way you said you’d have ’em is definitely NOT always a great quality when it comes to acting from intuition, and alignment.

But since we’re being honest and all, most of the time? I’d say my refusal to back down or adapt has been not only a positive but an ESSENTIAL element of my online success.

A few examples of things I truly don’t know would have happened if I hadn’t had this bulldog determination to rule the world on my terms:

• Publishing my first ebook taking only 26 months to complete it ’cause I had no idea what the hell I was doing or how to get it to sell and wanted EVERYTHING just s

• Releasing my first online course which was so DIY and basic it’d make you laugh, but hey – I was going to get it out there and so I did. (And made 8k from it, back in 2008!)

• Getting websites up and out there that were very ‘homemade’ shall we say, because I really couldn’t stand to wait around for anyone else to do it and besides, they never listen properly, right?!

• Walking out of numerous online courses or programs because they were trying to tell me ‘how things should be done’ and you do NOT tell ME how things should be done!!

• Learning, in the end, that there was literally nobody out there who could give me a SYSTEM for success that I was going to be happy to follow because honey I WRITE the systems around here I don’t follow ’em … this approach to stubbornly refusing to follow any sort of norm or rules online seemingly made life difficult for a while but in the end it’s meant I’ve been able to create a mllion dollar and growing business that truly IS completely on my terms!

And so that’s the thing, isn’t it? You stick with yourself long enough and refuse to be swayed on another way and you make shit HAPPEN.

Truly I would never want to lose this part of myself.

But lately, I’ve been learning something rather astounding, about success and about life, and that is this –

It’s actually okay, to ask for help.

It’s not a bad thing, to admit you don’t know how to do something or that someone else can do it better than you.

In fact admitting such things can make you STRONGER at what it is that YOU really do best, and also – accepting help is very very nice! If slightly disconcerting.

Some of the examples of areas I’ve recently accepted help or ‘not done things myself’ are so basic they’d make you roll your eyes –

• I accepted some of my inner circle Society girls referring their friends to join our group. The old me would feel like that is so WRONG – I didn’t do the work to get those clients! Let ME prove myself! Yes … I see the ridiculous non-logic of what I’m saying.

• I brought in a friend who is a Facebook Ads and funnel expert to do a private live webinar for The Society rather than teach them FB Ads myself. Because, you know, I’M NOT A FUCKING FB ADS EXPERT. And he IS. In fact the BEST one in the world, but that aside – the old me would have coiled up in horror at the idea of admitting I don’t know EVERYTHING!

• For the same reason I’m looking around for people to be in-house experts who can provide training to my various client groups on a range of areas that I COULD talk about but really don’t want to. I admit it still makes me feel worried, that I should confess to my clients I either don’t know everything, or that someone else might be able to do it better than me!

• I started saying no, I can’t help with that, when people asked me tech questions.

• I accepted that it doesn’t make me an evil bad cheater to ASK people to review my books honestly if they’d read them rather than feeling I had to sweat blood and tears waiting for the 1 in 1000 readers who NATURALLY will review on Amazon anyway.

• I’m CONSIDERING – but haven’t yet followed through on – the idea of reaching out to other successful writers and entrepreneurs I know and seeing how we can support each OTHER by, for example, bringing them in as experts to my groups like discussed above and me coming in as an expert on what I do to theirs.

• I’m CONSIDERING getting over my squirminess and asking for some introductions in a few areas where I, well, want to be introduced!

• I’m getting one of my team to actively hawk me to some big podcasts and publications I want to feature on … the old Kat is screaming oh! the shame and they should just NOTICE me!

• I’m observing how the girls in my Society are teaming up to provide content for each other’s programs and to help each other and I’m realising that hey – it’s okay to do that in fact it is a GOOD thing and maybe I can take a leaf out of their books!

And most of all I’m realising it’s okay to put my hand up from time to time and say ‘you know what? No, I don’t know how to do that, no I don’t really WANT to know how to do that in some cases, and yes please I would like help’.

IT’S OKAY TO ASK FOR HELP.

And believe me I’m shouting that at me before you right now!

I think for us truly driven women we’ve been so used to feeling we’re holding the whole world together and that if we don’t do it nobody WILL and also that nobody CARES as much (about anything!) as what we do, that the idea of giving over, of surrendering, of allowing someone to do something FOR us or of admitting there’s something we either can’t do a great job of or just don’t WANT to, can be terrifying.

I know for me I feel bad about ANYTHING in my life I don’t naturally excel at … it’s almost as though I feel that I’m inherently not a good PERSON if I’m not great, brilliant, the best, at everything!

And yes. I definitely get how me feeling and acting that way does NOT make me an easy person to be around some of the time!

But more still than that – it’s not doing ME any favours to try and puppeteer the whole world even MY whole world.

And I see this being manifested in my community a lot. People come into my free group or even my paid programs, and there’s often a hesitation around asking for help.

A sense of it being wrong to admit you don’t know what you’re doing, or it being weak to say that you feel stuck, frozen, overwhelmed. That you should instead always be on! And succeeding! And getting shit done! God forbid you admit you don’t KNOW something or just that you need a helping hand or a kick up the butt!

And I found myself wondering – why don’t they ask for help? Why don’t they just SAY they are stuck?! Sometimes I private message a client, I have a feeling let’s say that they’ve been hiding a little, and sure enough out it comes –

I’m stuck.

I’m resisting.

I’m sorry.

And I think – you don’t have to say sorry! This is part of business! Just TELL me, that’s what I’m here for! The ‘read between the lines’ part that comes through in these conversations is “I’m sorry for being weak; I should be stronger, better, etc”.

Which is SO not fucking true, right? Nobody said you had to hold the whole world up honey!

But it’s made ME realise that I was doing the same thing. And who am I to tell my clients they can ask for help or fess up when stuck or overwhelmed or confused if I’m not doing the same when I need it!

Who am I to tell people they don’t have to be great at EVERYTHING if I’m walking around trying to be an expert on all things?

Who am I to tell people it’s okay to listen in, go slow, do what feels great for YOU and let go of the need to do ALL THE THINGS IN THE WORLD if I’m trying to juggle every possible item on my to-do list all day long AND yours as well?!

For me this is a work in progress.

I’ve had support people on my team for some time now, and I have coaches and mentors, and I know my important must do tasks each day and I do focus most of my time and energy on them. So on a practical level it’s not like I’m trying to do it all. But internally? Different story. I can honestly say that I’ve still been walking around thinking that when it comes to ANYTHING if it’s going to be done right it has to be by me, and what’s more I will peel off my own skin layer by layer before I show any pain or discomfort or WEAKNESS.

And, it’s kind of tiring I guess – in the way that carrying around weight you’ve ALWAYS carried is tiring – but more than that it is LIMITING me from going to where I really want to go in my business, and my life.

Now do I want to relinquish all desire to ‘repack the dishwasher’ on everything, all the time, my way, or to be so damn driven I can happily not eat, not sleep, just about not breathe in the quest to reach a goal or dream? No! Not really. I like being driven and I even like being a control freak!

But I think, for a little while, I might just try holding up only my own corner of the world. And from time to time, I might, just maybe, ask for a little help in doing so. It’s probably going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, letting go! And I can’t say it’s going to make me any damn easier to live with, or put up with in any sort of full on form. But it might just free me up more to do what I ACTUALLY do best, and for that reason … I’m willing to try it.

Frankly the whole idea is so unsettling I don’t even know how to end this blog post right now. And possibly will change my mind and decide I have to do everything by lunchtime 🙂 But I would love to hear your thoughts … are you a control freak? Are you happy to stay that way or want to let go of the need to do it ALL, at ONCE, if not sooner?

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