3 Woo-Woo Phrases that may be Sabotaging your Success

Do you ever find yourself frustrated by some commonly held sayings of the woo-woo world?

I do.

And I am like, MISS WOO.

I saw this post on Instagram the other day on the account of a VERY woo person who I really admire.

They have so many quality things to say.

They make me think in new ways.

They help me challenge my own assumptions.

They allow me to be easier on myself.

There is SO MUCH WISDOM coming out of this human’s account.

And then… I see this:

If the door doesn’t open, it’s not your door.

*Sighhh*

Now I can examine this phrase and see what this person is getting at (especially when it comes to relationships).

But at a quick glance, it can be misleading for just about everything else.

If the door doesn’t open, it’s not your door.

If you glance at that phrase while mindlessly scrolling on Instagram, you can easily take it the wrong way.

You can translate that phrase to mean “If it doesn’t work out the first time, it’s probably not right.”

Face value. Case closed. Imprinted on the ol’ brain.

And honey, I have to tell you this.

Sometimes, if the door doesn’t open, you need to knock again.

Then knock louder.

Then bang on the door.

Then kick down the door.

Or if the door doesn’t budge, find a window.

Or, more likely, you need to work on your internal belief system as to why you think the door won’t open for you.

But I digress…

I find that this kind of spiritual (albeit well-meaning) talk deeply confusing for folks.

Sometimes, if you know IN YOUR GUT, IN YOUR HEART, INTUITIVELY that something isn’t right for you, and you keep knocking on that door, then that isn’t the door for you.

That’s not a door; that may be a wound that needs healing.

But if you knock on a door and it doesn’t open, that may still very well be your door, but you won’t know unless you keep knocking.

Do you see how that can unknowingly program someone to give up too easily, ESPECIALLY when it comes to business.

When you start a business, you have to knock on a LOT OF DOORS.

Do you get me?

Okay good.

Here are three other phrases I’m going to encourage you to rethink (or at least add caveats and/or asterisks to)… because you may be sabotaging your success with them.

1. Leap and the net will appear. I feel like there are significant caveats to this phrase. For example, if you want to quit your job and start a business, do you have savings? Do you have a business idea? Have you tested it to see if it will work? Without the proper planning, this phrase can end up sabotaging the very thing you’re going after. At some point, you’re going to have your ducks in a row to quit your job, and that’s when you need to make the leap.

You can sabotage yourself with this phrase by jumping too soon, not setting yourself up for success, then flailing because you don’t have strong support systems in place, and then reinforcing the limiting belief that you’re not good enough. Is there a way you can take a risk AND set things up for your nervous system to stay regulated while you take that risk?

2. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. I’m going to call in intuition here. If you’ve applied to med school three times and haven’t gotten in, but in your intuitive heart of hearts you KNOW that you’re supposed to go to med school, then dang it, KEEP APPLYING.

Obstacles are a part of dreams. They’re a part of life. Often times they don’t mean stop, they mean keep going.

If someone tells you that everything magically fell into place for them—awesome! That doesn’t mean it’s the same for you, for your dream. If you keep waiting for things to fall into place, you may be waiting a long, long time. Sometimes you have to slug out the hard bits — especially IF your intuition says THIS IS RIGHT. KEEP GOING.

You can sabotage yourself with this phrase by giving up too soon, by not doing the hard work it takes to get what you want, or by reinforcing any number of limiting beliefs. For this one, you usually need to work on your psychology around having more grit AND on your mindset that it's going to work.

3. It must not be the right time. This one is tricky because sometimes it really isn’t the right time to do something. If you’re sick, if you’re burned out, or if you’re going through a super rough patch, for example, it may not be the right time.

HOWEVER. Usually, this phrase is an excuse motivated by fear. You don’t need to wait until it’s the new year to resolve to be fit. You don’t need to wait until your children are in high school to start writing your novel. You don’t need to wait until you lose thirty pounds to start a TikTok channel. You don’t need to wait until you have a five-hour block of time to start your taxes. You don’t. You don't need to know EVerything before you start a business. The right time is now. Often you need smaller blocks of time on a daily basis than a lot of time at once.

You can sabotage yourself with this phrase by creating unnecessary rules around when and how things are supposed to happen. I remember reading about a woman who built a wildly successful chocolate business on her lunch breaks. Her freaking lunch breaks. 

Now is the right time.

So how do you stay spiritual AND action-oriented?

Well.

I’m in the Julia Cameron camp of BOTH / AND when it comes to woo phrases (and really life).

The phrase that I learned from her in her book The Artist’s Way is “Know you’re going to catch the bus, and then run like hell.”

Do you see that?

It’s BOTH/AND.

It’s a mindset of success is certain + motivated, big-time action.

It’s spiritual and physical.

It’s speaking it into existence while you also do the work.

If you’ve got the mindset without the action, you’re sunk.

If you’ve got the action without the mindset, you’re oftentimes taking haphazard or unintentional action (without getting the results you want).

Most people feel comfortable leaning into mindset OR action.

I’ve found that woo folks prefer to stay in the thought and feelings side of things and get stymied when it comes to action.

It’s not just one or the other.

Both/And is where the success lies.

It’s where dreams are made.

So let’s re-work those above phrases:

1. Instead of just "Leap and the Net will Appear"... how about: "I'm going to focus, save, plan, strategize, and then GO for it—leap and the net will appear!"

2. Instead of "I guess it wasn't meant to be..." how about: "My intuition tells me this is meant to be, so I’m going all in!"

3. Instead of "It must not be the right time"... how about: "No time like the present. Let’s do this!" 

Sending you BOTH/AND vibes!