Lessons I have learned this past year - there's no room for a doormat in business.

In a little over a month I will celebrate my first anniversary in my business and what a year it has been. A year filled with hard work, tough lessons and many rewards. Nothing has been more rewarding than the people who have come alongside to help make my first year pretty frickin' awesome.

Over the next month, I will share some of those lessons starting with a lesson about our own core beliefs.

Long before I opened my business I had accepted that "The things that are showing up in my life are things that are in alignment with what I believe." That can be a hard pill to swallow. When the nice things are showing up we happily take responsibility and it feels good. But when the not so nice things are showing up - we may not want to admit that we are responsible. Our core beliefs are producing the life that we are experiencing.

Keep in mind that I'm a recovering doormat and the journey to healthy relationships has been messy. Relationships are key to success in any business. Changing core beliefs is not a one time thing - it takes a tremendous amount of effort to uncover those beliefs and challenge your own assumptions.

Each time I take on a new venture, I have to deal with the residual effects of  those old doormat tendencies. These old tendencies show up like scattered dust bunnies. This past year in business has been an example of this. I really am a work in progress - it pays to be self aware.

I know that some people are into reading self help books to break cycles but I believe in fast tracking so I have enlisted the help of professionals to help me process and deal effectively with my challenges. I come from a cycle ---  generations of women doormats ----  breaking that cycle won't happen overnight. I am doing the work one day at a time.

Here's how it manifested in my life this past year. People were coming alongside of me in business which I took as a good sign. They were often looking for information of a business nature but it became evident pretty quickly that they were not willing to pay for that information.

Coaches everywhere will get this - the.lessons that we teach are a culmination of our experience, our education in a particular area as well as our coaching certification and adult education certificates that allow us to work in that field. (Some of you may not have those credentials and still be coaching but I believe in certifications. I became a much more effective coach and trainer after I was taught the proper way to educate and coach adults -- that's a topic for another day). This specialised knowledge has value and it usually unlocks potential in people. The return on investment for coaching can be in the hundreds of thousands. My own investment in coaching has impacted my business revenues in amazing ways.

When I sat down with my sage and told him about what was happening - he asked what I thought was really going on here? I love him because he knows me and the beauty of being a coach who is receiving coaching is that we cut to the chase pretty quickly.

My immediate response was "I am attracting this into my life because of something I believe." From that statement we were able to do the work that led me to unearth a core belief that was causing me to attract people who did not value my service. The reality was, I had some residual beliefs about the value that I was bringing. Isn't it funny how that works?  Thank goodness that I do not profess to have all the answers and I am big on execution - I take my business seriously and I don't mind doing the work.

Fast forward  a year and I have different people showing up - people who treat me like a professional and who are quite willing to pay. I wonder what is going on there. Could it have something to do with what I believe about me?

What is showing up in your life that could be indicative of a core belief at work? Have you given it any thought? I would love to hear your success stories on this topic.