The Power of Positivity in Growing Your Business with Chronic Illness

You're listening to the She's Crafted to Thrive podcast, and this is your host Nikita Williams. On this show, we're talking about what it's like to start, grow, and scale a business while living with chronic illness. You will hear from other creatives and CEOs as they share their stories and the lessons that led them to learn to lean more into what works for them. You'll discover that success does not mean perfection, and fear, negative thoughts, and challenges are all a part of the journey, but there's always an abundance of wins. So stay tuned and you'll find the inspiration and tools you need to craft a life and business that thrives. Welcome back to the She's Crafted to Thrive podcast. I am Nikita Williams, your host, and this is a solo cast. It's been a minute since I have released one of these, but I am super excited to talk about the concept or the reality of positivity. I know we hear so many negative things about positivity lately, but I am a huge believer that we are meant to really persevere and cultivate positivity. And to me, as a woman living with chronic illness, I have seen the difference of living not in more of a positive mindset versus being in a negative one all of the time. And if you're new here, welcome. And if you've been here for a while, you know the story, and I'll probably put it in the show notes, of the time where I was at my darkest and my lowest, where I really thought, this is it, there's nothing else. If I don't wake up in the morning, that's okay. I am I'm good with what the hope that I have ahead of me is there, and I am thankful for that. But I'm done. I am done with all of this mess. I am done with the pain. I'm done with the people, the doctors, all of the things. I was done. And I went to sleep that particular day, that night, with a prayer and woke up. And then a few days later, I had an answer to that prayer, and it was someone who brought more positivity and tools into my life. Now, All of you know that I'm a very spiritual person. And so there's this idea that if you're spiritual, then you don't have negative stuff. And I want to set the record straight that you can have a really strong spiritual foundation and have faith and hope and still struggle with negative thoughts. Like, unless you're perfect, This is going to be a thing. And so I feel like we need to allow space and grace for the reality that scientifically it has been proven. And this is something that I have really delved more into in my coaching style as a coach, um, into the, the understanding and the science behind why we think what we think, why we are more prone to think in this such a way beyond the reasons I believe spiritually why we're here, but also because of the scientific ramifications of that imperfect reality. And I have learned that our brains, they're wonderful in so many ways, but they are absolutely confused all of the time. And unless we work on our thoughts, unless we become more intentional with what we put in it, and unless we become more intentional with how we speak to it or from it. It has a direct effect on our ability to see things positively. Now I want to like acknowledge this thing of toxic positivity, and there are so many different things out there that are talking about toxic positivity. And in my opinion, toxic positivity doesn't allow the fact that negative things exist. And because negative things exist, we can't just positive it away. Like, we can't just positive thoughts and affirmations it away. However, we can, we can learn how to start to shift those things. But in order for us to shift those things, we have to be able to say them out loud. We have to be able to say the bad things and the negative things out loud. We have to be able to process and release that. And so it becomes toxic positivity when people put something in the way of you being able to do that process. Of being able to, you know, acknowledge it, become aware of it, work through it, release it, and reframe it, if you will. So when people are telling you like, oh, just, you know, it'll get better, it could be worse, in some ways it is definitely toxic because it's not allowing you to actually face the reality and then work your way to seeing how you can overcome those challenges. And If you want to know what the definition of doing that work is, it's a science called positive psychology. So as much as we hear so much about positive thoughts and positive things, we have to realize that science, for the most part, when it comes to psychology, really in the beginning and from the forefront, had been really focused on mental illness and the treatment and prevention of mental illness, right? Not how to really live well, how to replace that. It's almost like they were really focused focused on removing the weeds from the garden, but thinking flowers were still going to blossom after they figure that out, right? And you have to replace the weeds with something good. And positive psychology is the science of literally learning how to flourish, how to be resilient, how to grow through and flourish through the challenges that we have while acknowledging the real crap that happens, while acknowledging the things that are not so good, while learning how to take of the good things that we experience, of the good things that we possess to counteract those negative things. And for me as a coach, without me even realizing it, that's how I have kind of lived my life. I'm also thankful for the people who have come into my life that have helped me to see that this way is that even though we are living with constant pain, like right now I'm sitting here and this morning I was like in so much pain. Twisted something and I felt like my ovary was being snatched out of my body. Like, I just screamed at the top of my lungs. It hurt so bad, y'all, like I can't even tell you, to like just wanting to cry and stay in bed and cancel everything today. But after lots of thinking and like focusing on one breath, getting back to being like, don't be mad at your body right now, it was just trying to protect you and tell you that Something's not right. Take your time. You know, breathe through it. Deal with the process. Also lots of prayer because I do have things that I really am looking forward to today that I didn't want to cancel and looking for, you know, power outside of me to help me to, to step out of the bed, to even roll out of the bed. And thirdly, looking at the strengths that I possess as gifts that could help me to step into the actions that I want to have. And so that is something I want to talk about with you all today. So often we hear about the challenges that we experience, and I was doing a course and I was learning something, and it just made me think about something I feel like a lot of us, and especially me, have experienced with challenging times. And it is a natural process for our brain to naturally think negatively. Like, science has proven that negative things in general outweigh positive 3 times, right? So if you have one positive thing and one negative thing, you need like 4 positive things to outweigh that negative thing. That's how powerful our brain is naturally geared to thinking about negative things. So What I have discovered in my own journey of living with chronic illness is that something that I have found is my superpower as a coach and as a person really is to see the bad, see the not so great things, and find the nugget of strength, the nugget of possibility, the nugget of the reframe of how I could use that nugget to help me get out of this situation, right? And so you're like, Nikita, what is the nugget? To me, it's identifying your strengths. How often have you gone through something negative and beat yourself up about it? I have, I totally have. I've done something that I wish I'd never done. I have gone to a doctor's office and blamed myself for walking out feeling like I didn't explain myself, even though the doctor is the person who gaslit me. Like I have taken, you know, different experiences or different challenges and literally have blamed and like talked to myself so bad, like the worst friend to myself ever in my head. How many of us have done that? How many of us would never say some of the things we've said to ourselves to our best friend? We would never say those things to them. And I have found that working on that process, working on how I speak to myself, how I even view my, my imperfections and how I view the way mistakes that I make or challenges that I have, how I look at them as an opportunity for growth, but also an opportunity to see where I failed in using my strength, like my gifts versus all of my weaknesses. It's a, it's a fine balance. And this is something that I really work with my clients to do is because sometimes we are so focused because that's how our brain works to be focused on the negative that we're just thinking about what we didn't do, how come we didn't do it, then all of the other things that are circumstances that add to why we are not good enough, why it's not meant for me, why I don't deserve it, all of these negative things. But what if our weaknesses and failures were really a result of us not using our strengths or questioning why we didn't use them? In this, this situation. Um, think about that for a second. Like, what if in every situation you were to look at and be like, I know that I'm imperfect and I know that I could have done this differently, but there are some good things about me that I completely ignored, or I, I didn't intentionally use in this situation that could have made it better. Like, how different of a thought is that versus beating yourself up versus like, you know, the shame, right? Because Shame is I am wrong and guilt is I did something wrong. There's a difference. And so when you learn to acknowledge that you deeply love and completely accept yourself, this is something that I learned from my coach Renee, who is an amazing, um, you know, business and life coach in a way. Um, I'll put a link to her program called the Mood Makeover Method. Um, she has a method that really helps you learn how to process the negative and all of the things and reframe them in a way. And I I have taken a lot of what she's taught me and made it into my own thing, and I apply it in a different kind of context with my clients. But the concept is still the same, which is learning how to acknowledge your weaknesses but not beat yourself up because of them. And when we live with chronic illness, this is something I find with all of my clients in general, whether they have chronic illness or they're dealing with like anxiety, they're very anxious, they're very worried, um, they are, you know, really dealing with a lot of life hurdles and circumstances that are causing challenges that, you know, flare up different stress responses for them. Oftentimes the conversations we're having to help them take action in their life and in their business is acknowledging that you're not going to know all of the things. We're not perfect. You're not gonna get it right every single time. You're not going to know the answers every single time, but we can change the questions we're asking ourselves when we're going through those things. We can change what we're looking for to find more balance in how we respond to it the next time. And you know, if you've been here for a while, one of my biggest sayings is is do what you can when you can. And recently I've added, do what you can when you can with what you already have. Because how often are we thinking, well, we can't or we haven't because we don't have something. And I believe that each and every single one of us on this planet have some type of innate gift that was a blessing. We have strengths that are easier than some others, hence why we can definitely live by the principle that Um, look at someone to be greater than you because they probably are greater in multiple areas where we're not so great in. Okay. Cause really keeps us humble, right? When we start to look at ourselves through a lens of equal proportions, and I say equal proportions, I should say more harmonious proportions that yes, we have things to work on, but yes, we have some amazing things about us. That can just be expounded on? How much would you thrive? How much more would you enjoy what you do? How much more would you flourish? How much more action would you take? How much more resilience would you have? How much more grit would you have? How much more just passion and purpose would you have if you looked at all of the things that you experienced from a lens of like, yeah, I did something wrong, but I also have a capability of doing it right because of some of the gifts and strengths I already have, I already possess. So I'm going to ask that question again of you today. I want you to think about it, like, what if— and this applies definitely in your business— like, what if in your business the thing you've been trying to do because so-and-so guru said would work isn't working because you have failed to use your strengths in creating the outcome that you want to see? What if it was that? What if it wasn't that you're not smart enough? What if it wasn't that you are not like, you don't possess the money? What if it had nothing to do with that, but had everything to do with the fact that you aren't using your strength, whatever that gift is, whether that's creativity, whether that's, you know, intuition, wisdom, whether that's social intelligence, whether that's, you know, humility, even whether that's love, whether that's spirituality, whether whatever your gift of like really being connected to things is, you weren't using that in your business on this particular thing because you were so focused on doing it the way so-and-so said that you left your strength out of the picture. What if the reason why your business isn't where it needs to be because you haven't tapped into your gifts? Versus, versus the thought that it's not working because I am not something. What if it's not working because I am not bringing who I am to the something? See the difference? Like, if you see the difference of what that feels like energetically, it's like, I already have the thing. I already have it. I already have it. What do you mean I already have it? I can do it. Oh, and I just need to start bringing the, the me factor into this. This is the shift. This is the shift that I hope my clients and most of my clients will share in their testimonies that you see on my website and on videos and things that they learn their gifts. And instead of hiding them away, instead of, you know, comparing them to someone else's, they look at their own gifts. They learn how to cultivate them. They learn how to intentionally use them. So that they can better have the results that they want to see specifically in their mindset, living with chronic illness and growing a business. So that's my challenge for you. That's my, my, my, my quest for you, if you will, is like, we're all going to fall. We're all imperfect. We're all going to make mistakes. And it's, it's growth from those places that we make those mistakes. But what if not only did we grow from those mistakes in learning how to not do something, but we learn how to do more of something that is good that we already possess, right? So that's what I want to leave you with today. Um, I want you to think about that. I want you to think about the one thing or a couple of things in your business where you're really stuck in, and I want you to see how this shifts your mindset around thinking how you would approach that challenge if you were to focus on your strengths. So you might be like, Nikita, but how do I know what my strengths are? So if you want to know, I'm going to put a link inside of the show notes where you can go to a survey where you can just do a quick quiz. Um, it's going to take about 15 minutes and it's a survey to tell you your 5 key character traits. Your strengths, your 5 character strengths. And I will receive the results and I will send you a personalized video email that will share with you how you can incorporate that in your business. And if you happen to live with chronic illness or any other challenges, I will add a couple of tips on how you can use this to help further navigate that part of your life. Because remember, chronic illness does not make you who you are. It is a part of you, but it's not who you are. And the same thing with our businesses. You know, I think sometimes we, especially if you're passionate and you love what you do, sometimes we think that our businesses is us. It can be a reflection of us. It's part of us, but it's not us. Our strengths, they are us. Like they make up our values, our beliefs, and why we do what we do. Can they change? Can they grow? Can they elevate? Of course they can. That's the human beautiful gift that we have. But when you're more intentional about using those gifts and cultivating them, the more likely you will achieve the results that you want to see. So I'm going to put the link in the show notes for that survey. It's going to take about 15 minutes. This is like, not like your general care, like your— it's not like a general, um, personality quiz kind of thing. This is like a science evidence-based or researched, uh, survey to help you really figure out what your top 5 strengths are. And I would love to hear what, you know, you say. So when I send you that email, I want you to reply back to me after you say that and let me know, like, were you surprised with what your strengths were? And do you see areas that you wish you would use it more in? All right. Speaking of, I have shifted things around in my business a bit. I have simplified, and I am so happy about this new shift because it allows me more flexibility to really connect with each of you in a more intimate kind of way. And I have changed some things in my offerings as well. But most importantly, I want to invite you to join me on my email list, an exclusive email that I send out every Monday. It's a coaching email about how to mind your body and your business in a way that allows you to grow your business confidently. This is a series where I share all the things, a lot of the things that I share inside of my program, The Align Clarity Way, the things that I share with my one-on-one clients, some takeaways, some things that have been working for them, some things that haven't been working, um, especially from a mindset standpoint. So if you want to join that, that's also in the show notes. There is no obligation to join. I don't I don't spam people, but I definitely send very meaningful, coach, impactful things to help you move forward in your business and living with chronic illness. So as always, my dear friends, I love to end the show, and I hope this episode was really helpful to you. I hope that you really hone and own the fact that yes, yes, beautiful, you are crafted to thrive.