Podcast Ep 368 - What Have You Convinced Yourself Of? Uncovering the Real Blocks to Growth

In this episode of the Flourish Academy Podcast, Heather dives into the real reason so many photographers stay stuck—it's not a lack of strategy, but the stories we tell ourselves. Are you unknowingly making agreements with beliefs that are holding you back? From "I'm not ready" to "no one will pay my prices," these unconscious thoughts can silently sabotage your progress.

She also shares mindset-shifting questions, practical journaling prompts, and empowering insights from a recent Elevate strategy call to help you break through your mental blocks and grow your photography business with clarity and confidence.

Show Notes:

• Why mindset—not strategy—is the key to sustainable growth.
• What it means to make unconscious agreements with your limiting beliefs.
• Common beliefs that sabotage photographers in four key categories.
• How to reframe limiting thoughts with empowering new beliefs.
• How Elevate combines mindset coaching with proven business strategies.

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Connect:

Heather Lahtinen: Website, Facebook, Instagram

TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to the Flourish Academy podcast and today I want to help you figure

out what is really preventing you from growing your photography business. My name is

Heather Lahtinen and I'm a photographer, educator and entrepreneur and I founded the

Flourish Academy as a resource for photographers of all levels. We want to help you

pursue your passion on your own terms because we believe there's room for everyone.

In this podcast, we focus on creating breakthroughs with your mindset to discover the

things that are really holding you back in business and life. We covered the concept

that I am about to share in our recent mid -year reset strategy call inside of our

elevate program. This was only one portion of that call. We took a deep dive into

our numbers and our plans for the remainder of the year. Speaking of Elevate,

we have extensive training inside of Elevate to help you grow your photography

business, but it goes far deeper than just pricing and marketing strategies. It's

about creating lasting transformative results through mindset coaching combined with

proven business tools. While many programs stop at strategies, Elevate stands out

because it answers the critical question. What do you do when the strategies don't

work? So we help you uncover, as we do in the podcast as well, the hidden mindset

blocks that keep you stuck even when you have all of the tactics in hand. And the

truth is most photographers think they need strategies alone, but what they truly

need is a shift in their thinking to confidently implement those strategies,

troubleshoot obstacles, and keep moving forward. So by addressing mindset alongside of

business tools, elevate creates sustainable momentum that accelerates your results,

making your pricing marketing and ability to book clients those efforts more

effective. And I believe that this dual focus on mindset and strategy is what sets

us apart. We are not just teaching photographers what to do. We are teaching them

how to think so that they can execute consistently and thrive no matter what

challenges arise. Okay, so in this mid -year reset call, I told everyone that I've

just been really thinking a lot about the stories we tell ourselves in business.

Maybe you've convinced yourself that you're not ready yet, that you need a better

website or a perfect pricing guide, or just one more course before you put yourself

out there, or maybe you've convinced yourself that clients are hard to come by, or

that you're not good enough to charge real, quote, real money for your work, or

maybe you've convinced yourself that it's too late to start a photography business,

or that other photographers have made it and there's no room for you. But what if

none of this was true? What if those beliefs are the things standing in your way?

Because every time you entertain those thoughts, every time you repeat them in your

mind, you make an unconscious agreement with them. In other words,

you give them permission to shape your decisions and ultimately your results. So I

think you should just ask yourself, is this really the agreement that I want to

keep? Because what if you decided to believe something different? What if you

convinced yourself that you are ready, that it's absolutely possible to find dream

clients, that your work is valuable and that people are ready, willing and able to

pay for it? I think today is the perfect day to start rewiring your brain to think

about this differently. So based on something that my coach had given me, I started

the call with this journaling prompt. I've convinced myself that dot dot dot.

So whatever, whatever it is you've convinced yourself of that you bring awareness to

the story you're telling yourself about your business, your self concept, what you

can accomplish and just being very clear. Oh, well, no wonder I'm not getting

clients. I've convinced myself that there are none out there. So that makes sense.

So what I want to do is share with you several examples, because sometimes it's

hard to just think of, well, I don't know what I think. I don't know what I've

convinced myself of. So sometimes I just sit here and I try to think and I can't

think. So if you're anything like me, I just wanted to come up with some examples

for you to listen for what you might be thinking. And I've separated these into,

let's see, four categories. We have belief -based examples,

money and business fears, time and readiness, and then mindset and self -concept.

So I'm just going to read these to you and I want you to self Identify belief

-based examples. The first one is I've convinced myself that I'm not creative enough

to stand out I've convinced myself that success is only for other photographers not

me. I Have convinced myself that I need another course before I can start Okay,

side note. I think you do need elevate and maybe that's the last course that you

will need. Okay. I've convinced myself that I'm too introverted to be good at

networking. And when I delivered this in elevate, I stopped, you know,

dramatic pause. And I said, I know for a fact that several of you have this

thought because you've told me. So we created a course inside of elevate called how

to entrepreneur as an introvert. Because if you've convinced yourself that being an

introvert is a problem or impedes you from meeting people or networking, then it's

obviously going to be a problem. Next, let's look at some money and business fears.

I've convinced myself that no one will pay these prices. I've convinced myself that

talking about money makes me salesy. I've convinced myself that people won't value my

work unless it's cheap.

I've convinced myself that marketing feels like begging for attention.

I think it's pretty obvious that if you think that marketing feels like, You know,

look at me, I'm here, then you're never going to do it. You are always going to

hold yourself back if you've convinced yourself that it feels like begging for

attention. Next, we have time and readiness. I've convinced myself I don't have

enough time to grow this business. I've convinced myself that it's too late to

really make this work. I've convinced myself that once life slows down,

then I'll be consistent. I don't know, has life ever slowed down for you?

Because it hasn't for me. I've convinced myself that if I'm not all in, it's not

worth starting. Next, we have mindset and self -concept.

I've convinced myself I'm not as talented as other photographers.

I've convinced myself that one mistake means I'm not cut out for this. I've

convinced myself that if I promote myself, people will judge me. Oh, okay. Guess

what? People are going to judge you. I'm just not sure why that matters. I've

convinced myself that being confident is arrogant. I wonder if any of these resonated

with you or how many of them, because I think there are a lot of things here that

we can connect with, but again, by understanding the story you are telling yourself

about your capabilities, you can begin to shift the narrative because next you can

say, okay, why am I holding onto this or what am I holding onto in my business

that's not serving me? And I really encourage you to get out a sheet of paper or

a notebook and just write about this so that you can see it a little bit more

clearly. That clarity will really help you shift your thinking so that you can

produce different, better results. Because then you could ask yourself, "What new

belief or action could I choose instead?" And let's take a look at a really quick,

easy example. If you've convinced yourself that no one will pay your prices,

you could simply shift that belief to people are ready,

willing and able to pay. And every time you catch your brain, trying to give you

more evidence of the thought no one will pay, you just say, that's not true.

People are ready, willing and able to pay. And I just need to find them. Because

remember, your brain always wants to prove you right. So if you've convinced yourself

of any of these things, essentially what you have done is told your brain, Hey, I

want you to go out into the world and find evidence to support this thought so

that we can be right together. And your brain says, Okay, no problem. And then it

just starts to serve up all of this proof as to why what you are thinking is true

and you should continue to think it, but that's not because it's true. It's just

because you've told your brain that's what you want it to look for. If you

consistently told your brain, people are already willing and able to pay, I promise

you, you would get more clients. Okay, some people would say, Heather, it can't be

that simple or that straightforward. Okay, well, I have evidence to the contrary.

And what does it hurt to try? And As we went through this in our elevate strategy

call, I think the most valuable part was the coaching that we did around these

thoughts because you might be able to pick out the thought that's not serving you,

but it can be difficult to shift it if you truly believe it and that's where

coaching comes in because we can talk it through. I can ask you questions. We can

being clarity of maybe where it's coming from. And I just help you see it from a

different perspective. Periodically, I offer free open coaching workshops.

I call it fast track coaching. You can go to www .getcoachedbyheather .com to sign up

for the next one. I encourage you to do so. Even if you're not ready to ask a

question or you're not sure where you need help, you can listen to others get

coached and gain the benefit from not just their challenges or their obstacles,

but how they work their way through them. And how about this? What if you could

say, I've convinced myself that I'm awesome, or I've convinced myself that I can

learn anything and I can figure this out and there is a solution and I can

absolutely have and grow a photography business that meets my needs or income goals

or whatever your dream is. I've convinced myself that I can be successful at this.

Maybe those don't feel quite true for you just yet, but what if you worked on

convincing yourself? I mean, you were able to very easily convince yourself of the

negative, so why not try to make them positive? I always say if you're going to

make up a story, if you're going to tell yourself a lie, why not make it a good

one? I hope that you found this useful. I'll see you in the next episode.