How to Overcome Shiny Object Syndrome

In business it can be easy to get distracted by new ‘shiny’ ideas. This episode we discuss how to know the difference between shiny object syndrome and smarter business decisions (6:43) as well as the methods to stay on the best path to success (10:22).

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Introduction

Hi everyone. Welcome back to The Wanderlover Podcast. I’m your host Danielle!

I’m just buzzing with excitement right now. If you have been following me on Instagram, you’ll know that two of my clients, the same week, booked their one way flights to Europe, starting their digital nomad online business owner, full time travel adventure. And Europe is both of their first stops of what I am confident. Their first stops of many, many more destinations to come, but this is why I love my job. Every time this happens. Every time a client comes to me, not knowing what business to start feeling really lost in their direction.

And after just a few months of working together, they’re able to fully live out their life that they’ve only dreamed of. Every single time this happens, it brings me back to the day when I quit my job. That day when I booked my one-way ticket and I just love seeing this happen over and over. I feel like I get an adrenaline rush every single time. And then when I’m on zoom calls, I see their backdrop. I see the Mediterranean, I see the sunny weather and it’s just so incredibly fulfilling. And guys know that if you are feeling the same way, if you’re feeling stuck, if you feel like you don’t know which direction to go, you have the power to change your reality. 

Birthday Special: Q3 goal mapping 

June is my birthday month. So on the 20th, we are going to London. We booked a luxury hotel. We booked a nice steak house that we’ve been wanting to go to for forever. And it’s very humbling. I’ll be turning 29. I have a multiple six-figure business. I have passive sales coming in every day, working with literally my dream clients and all while traveling to more than 60 countries around the world and living in tropical destinations that I didn’t even know existed just a few years ago. I’ve learned so much about life design, about coaching, about mentoring, about helping others see their full potential through doing the inner work myself and taking the steps and actions necessary.

I’ve been able to create this life for myself and I’ve been able to help others do the same. And what I love teaching is that you don’t need to make it hard for yourself. You don’t need to struggle to create the dream business and dream life for yourself. It gets to be easy. So if you need help planning the next few months, if you need more clarity, if you need to really hone down on your sales plan, to make sure you are making money in your business. Instead of just going through the motions I am offering for the month of June, Quarter Three GOAL MAPPING sessions for $129 only, this is a 29th birthday special. So it’s $129.

You get half an hour of one-on-one time with me, where we will map out exactly what you are going to do in quarter three so that you can hit your highest income a quarter yet. One-on-one calls are just so powerful and so transformative because I will help you see your blind spots. I will help you plan the roadmap of how to reach your goals, because I know how to get there. And you get a chance to ask me all the questions I’m going to tell you whether or not you have limiting beliefs, whether you have anything holding you back, whether there’s anything you need to learn. And so it’s just 30 minutes of pure transformation and clarity. I usually charge at least a thousand dollars for an hour of my time, but because it’s my birthday and because I love to meet members of my community, you can book in a time using the link in the episode description, you’ll have an option to check out and then get a link to book and your call right away. 

This is only for the month of June. So it won’t be available anytime after my birthday month. So take advantage of this offer. Now, before the price goes up to a thousand dollars and going off of what I said before, like, you don’t need to make business hard on yourself to be completely honest. I had the layout for today’s podcast episode already written out. And then I was like, you know what, it’s my birthday. Let me offer a special, and then looked at my Wanderlover community membership questions, asking people what they were struggling with.

And a lot of them just said they needed more guidance and clarity on their sales goals, on their income goals, on their business ideas. And within five minutes, I was able to create this offer on Calendly, link it in the episode description and be like, you know what? People need this. I’m going to offer a huge discount because that’s what my intention was thinking of a birthday offer. And bam, it was up within 10 minutes and now I am sharing it with all of you. 

I am so excited about this offer and I didn’t have to create a landing page, right? I didn’t make a sales page. I didn’t have this whole like offer creation process behind it. That took weeks and weeks. I simply took the path of least resistance, created the system that would work the best. So a checkout page on Calendly and linked it to my calendar. This is what I teach you. It doesn’t have to be hard. It can take 10 minutes and you can make money. So I really look forward to connecting with you if this is an offer that really speaks to you. 

How to Overcome Shiny Object Syndrome 

This episode was inspired by a member of our community who voiced that she was unsure whether she should be self-diagnosing herself with shiny object syndrome or making a better business decision.

So when something’s not working, you’re like, ‘Ooh, should I try to pivot and do something different? Or should I try to troubleshoot what is not working?’ And I feel like we can all relate. We’ve all been there where we’re like, am I doing the right thing? It doesn’t seem to be working. What do I do now? And a little background –  in her words she voiced “I keep getting distracted at the thought of doing a course, because it’s an easier way to reach more people with the same amount of work before I even have a client. So I’ve also had some people express that they would prefer learning from me through a course, but I haven’t been able to ask enough of my target audience to actually know whether it would sell.

But then I think, oh, maybe this is shiny object syndrome. And then I get imposter syndrome of who am I to be creating a course”.

And so this is the predicament that she is in, and this episode is to help her and all of you learn How to Overcome Shiny Object Syndrome. 

What is shiny object syndrome? 

It is the tendency for an entrepreneur to chase something new, like a new idea, a new business model, a new course idea, a new product or service idea rather than stay focused on what they’re doing. This can look like switching platforms, so committing to tick tock, but then a few months later you’re like, wait, let me try YouTube, but wait, let me try podcasting.

It could look like what our community member is struggling with. Like, Ooh, should I focus on getting one-on-one clients? Or should I focus on pivoting and creating a course? It can also look like signing up for so many freebies, so many webinars, learning so many marketing strategies that you actually don’t take action. Or maybe take very little action in implementing them. And so it’s comparable to a child chasing after shiny new things and shiny new toys. So the first thing I want to mention is shiny object syndrome is a characteristic and a mindset that you can change.

And it’s really funny because it kind of reminds me of when I was in the New York city, online dating world, where you had so many dating apps, you had so many options and you were always kind of like one foot in one foot out. If you guys come from big cities, like, let me know if you can relate, but this is literally what shiny object syndrome in business reminds me of. Never committing a hundred percent and getting so distracted by alternatives that you never really focus and keep going when things get hard. And I’m the type of person that likes to know all of my options, that likes to look at every single thing on the menu before making my decision. Never just committing to what’s in front of me, always having to try out everything.

I tend to attract a community of people who do the same. And so if you can relate to that in your personal life, in your business, like let’s own up to that, let’s see it for what it is and recognize, oh, it’s just a part of my personality. But in order for me to be successful in order for me to, you know, one day get married and really commit, I need to be taking different actions. I cannot be one foot in one foot out. I can’t be so distracted by every new thing that comes my way. Like there needs to be a better system for me. So if you think about it that way, it becomes easier because what we can start asking ourselves is what is our goal?

What’s your goal? 

What was your original goal when embarking on this? And in this case of online entrepreneurship, it is clearly more freedom to work from wherever you want and also to be making more money. And from that usually comes your marketing plan, your business plan. What was your original plan? And in this community members plan, it was to work with one-on-one clients. Why did she choose that? Why do we choose one-on-one clients first? Well it’s because you can charge higher. You can make a bigger impact, hand holding their transformation, get a testimonial. You can make a lot of money doing one-on-ones that was aligned to our goal. Now we ask ourselves, why are we changing our direction?

Is it because it’s not going to work? Or is it because we’re feeling really defeated? We’re feeling not confident in our ability to sell. We’re not seeing the results. We’re not getting the clients and that’s making us doubt our abilities. Like, are we not good enough? Am I not worthy of this business success? And then it becomes this habit, this habit of chasing the ideas, chasing the optimism, chasing like, Ooh, the grass is greener. On the other side, it must be easier to, you know, make a course or sell a product like this is getting too hard and notice that this is the same train of thought, the same feelings that happen in the online dating world, if you’ve ever experienced it, like when things get hard, what’s you do you go back on the dating apps and you find another match, right? Because it’s just so easy to diaper our attention instead of working through it and putting our own ego aside when things get rough. So if you are experiencing, Ooh, should I, you know, switch gears. 

One year, one goal 

My advice to you in the beginning of the year, if you did a GOAL MAPPING session, if you had your goals in place, commit! Commit all 12 months to achieving those goals that you’ve set out for yourself at the beginning of the year, if it was to get your first one-on-one client to get your first 10 one-on-one clients, to be booked out with private coaching or private clients, then stick to that game plan trust in yourself that that’s what you wanted and do not disappoint yourself.

Like do not let yourself down by quitting prematurely. So one year one goal, one marketing strategy, and you know, fully book out your one-on-ones and then next year you can launch a course next year. You can pivot when it’s already successful. Also, if you permit yourself to pivot way too early, then it’s just going to be another habit you’re going to pivot when it becomes too hard to sell a course, you’re going to pivot when it becomes too hard to fill up a group program, this is a habit that we need to change. And if you do, then you’re going to be so successful at every single marketing strategy at every single business, because we all know if there are successful people out there already demonstrating that it is possible, then it is possible for you.

You just need to try harder, stop getting distracted by shiny object syndrome because it takes away so much time. So much mental energy? It’s just not worth it. 

Have a long term plan / vision

You also need to have a long-term vision for your business. Have a best case scenario, like focus on yourself, focus on your plan, your path, and the best case scenario for your path. Because in every path there is a best case scenario, right? You could be a multimillion dollar course creator. You can be a multi-million dollar coach. You can be a multi-million dollar speaker. Like there’s just so many best case scenarios.

And you can’t be comparing. What’s not working for you to the best case scenario of another path. That is the definition of grass is greener on the other side. And a lot of times you just are so new to entrepreneurship. And to this path, you kind of blame yourself and why it’s not working, but it’s really not. It’s literally learning what you don’t know and trying new things until you are successful. If you don’t have a strategy, if you don’t have a long-term plan, you can hire a coach. 

Hire mentors

You can hire mentors to help you create a plan for yourself. To see the bigger picture outside of your current frame of reference.

This is why it’s so important to constantly be working with people who are a few steps ahead of you who can see your blind spots and who help you to the next level. Like you can do it yourself and figure it out yourself, but constantly be learning from people who have done it so that you can implement it into your own business. In momentum mastermind. We are constantly calling each other out when we are struggling with imposter syndrome, when we are struggling with our self-confidence, like it gets you through those times so much quicker than if you were to let it spiral out of control on your own. So that’s why it’s so important to have a mentor and have a community.

Stop the scroll

If you are self-diagnosing with imposter syndrome and it’s coming from social media and seeing what other people are doing, my advice to you is to stop scrolling. To delete social media during the day or at night so that you’re not distracted by what other people are doing and get your action items done. And not just action items that you’ve been doing and seeing no success with like completing the action items that will actually make you more money that will actually help you get more clients and fill up your programs. If you are not seeing success with all the effort you are putting into your business right now, then ask yourself, am I spending time on the right things?

Am I focusing on the right things? If what you’re doing is super time consuming and you’re not making money from it, ask yourself, are these the right actions that I should be taking? And this is especially hard because we are so convinced that there is just one way to build a successful business. But if everyone in this world thought that it was their way to build a profitable, successful business, then we wouldn’t have any businesses that were unsuccessful. We wouldn’t have any businesses going bankrupt. Clearly there is a right way and a wrong way to do things. And you want to be learning from people who are doing things the right way, not just your own way.

If it’s not working, I don’t mean to be harsh here. I’m just speaking from experience. Because when I first started my Instagram, I was posting other people’s posts three times a day because that’s what I was seeing on Instagram. That’s what I thought would make me the most money. And now I post three times a week, max and I am close to reaching six figures in the first six months of this year. So clearly, you know, what I originally thought would work was not the right way to do things. And this is just another reason why it’s so important to have mentors who are able to teach you what actually works. 

I hope this episode was helpful. If you had a few moments, please screenshot this episode, post it in your stories and tag me @thewanderlover , @thewanderloverpodcast. So we can share this episode with those who need it, make sure to follow along. So you can come with me as I celebrate my 29th birthday in London. 

And if you want to book in your quarter three GOAL MAPPING session with me, click the link in the episode description. And I can’t wait to help you with your strategy with your life design and help you make so much money this upcoming quarter. I’ll see you in the next episode, guys have an amazing week.

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