When the Inner Child Is the Secret CEO Behind Business Decisions
On paper, it looks as though you have everything you need to succeed. Vision. Ambition. Education. Qualifications. Ideas. The belief that you have something valuable to offer. Yet, despite all of this, you still procrastinate and avoid making important decisions. Sometimes, you feel as though you are getting in your own way. Your business venture no longer feels inspiring, and you even start doubting yourself.
We are often sold the idea that success in business is a matter of knowledge, planning, and execution. While those things matter, they are only part of the picture. Every decision you make is also influenced by your beliefs, experiences, and the emotional patterns you developed earlier in life.
Decisions that Seem Logical
We like to think that we base our business decisions solely on facts, numbers, and sensible choices. We weigh up the risks, consider the different options, decide how far we are willing to go, and how much money we can afford to lose. We tell ourselves that our decisions are rational and carefully thought through.
But business decisions are seldom based on logic alone. Behind every choice is a lifetime of personal experiences, beliefs, and emotional patterns that influence how we approach opportunities and how we deal with uncertainty or the possibility of failure. Sometimes, what feels like a sensible business decision is also affected by experiences that happened decades before we decided to become entrepreneurs.
A Child in the CEO Seat
Your inner child is a collection of subconscious parts of you that were moulded by your earliest experiences. It holds the beliefs and emotional patterns you learned while growing up. If your early life experiences were negative, your inner child may carry feelings of vulnerability, pain and anger.
Your inner child remembers what felt safe or risky, and what you learned you needed to do to feel accepted, valued, or protected. This is why it tends to want to protect you whenever you face uncertainty and challenges.
Those lessons do not disappear when you become an adult. They can still influence how you show up as an entrepreneur who faces decisions, uncertainty and a rollercoaster of emotions on your way to success.
New Challenges Faced by Old Patterns
You may feel like you need to find new answers because you are taking an unfamiliar path. But it is difficult for our minds to create new ways of thinking and they prefer old ones that have been reinforced by years of programming.
Sometimes these patterns are easy to recognise.
You may have heard the story of the female community manager who kept looking for new content, new platforms, new designs, new followers and never really got anywhere. Well, that was me. Nothing was ever good enough and I lost a lot of people because of my meanderings, including long-time followers.
You may avoid being visible because being judged feels risky. I have worked with many women who know social media is the right tool to promote their type of business but are reluctant to be seen.
Others may struggle to charge what they are worth because asking for more feels very uncomfortable and they start to question whether they “deserve it” or if they are “worth it”.
Some people work non-stop because slowing down feels like falling behind.
Such behaviours often look like they are only related to business problems. In reality, they have much deeper roots.
Beyond the Patterns
It would be tempting to see those patterns as weaknesses. But many of them were formed because they were helpful when you were much younger. They kept you safe. They allowed you to feel loved and valued. Thanks to them, you found your own place, understood which part you could play and created meaning when things didn’t make sense to you.
Being highly responsible may have helped you feel secure and reliable. Being independent may have helped you feel stronger. Striving for achievement may have helped you feel in control.
The challenge comes when the same patterns that helped you survive begin to limit how you grow.
Who's the Boss?
Building self-awareness requires the ability to identify the real decision maker in each moment. Is it the present version of you, the one who wants to run a successful business, or is it a part of you that learnt to keep themselves small to avoid getting in trouble? Is your decision based on the probability of success or is an old part of you influencing you from a place of fear or pain?
You should not try to silence those parts of yourself that feel like they are not helping you move forward. Acknowledge them, thank them for keeping you safe and tell them you know better now. Tell them that your job as an adult is now to keep them safe. EFT (or tapping) can help you start a dialogue with those parts of you that seem to be slowing you down, and understand where they are coming from.
Your past experiences led you to where you are now, and stepping into the role of CEO means acknowledging them and choosing which lessons will support your next steps.
Daphne
EFT is a great tool that can help you address a variety of issues, including the money beliefs we’ve talked about here.
If you would like to have a chat about a belief that’s holding you back and aren’t sure if EFT can help, do not hesitate to contact me.
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