Confidence and Chronic Illness: How to Take Action Without Compromising Your Health | Janina Hamilton

In this episode of Business with Chronic Illness, we’re diving into one of the biggest struggles for entrepreneurs living with chronic illness: building confidence while navigating the unique challenges of health flare-ups, brain fog, and energy limits. Join me and special guest, Janina Hamilton, as we uncover actionable steps to strengthen your confidence through imperfect, manageable actions—without pushing yourself to the point of burnout.

We'll discuss why taking action is the key to building lasting confidence, how perfectionism might hold you back, and the critical role self-care plays in supporting your entrepreneurial journey. Whether you're battling imposter syndrome or struggling to keep momentum in your business, this episode offers practical insights on how to move forward while honoring your health.

What You’ll Learn:

• How to build confidence by embracing imperfection and action, even on low-energy days
• Why perfectionism is sabotaging your progress (and how to break free from it)
• Simple strategies for taking action in your business without compromising your well-being
• The surprising role self-care plays in growing your confidence and business
• Real-life examples of how to find a balance between rest and action when living with chronic illness

If you're ready to break through the mental barriers and build confidence in both life and business—without sacrificing your health—this episode is for you!

Chapters

• 0:04 Building Confidence With Chronic Illness
• 14:41 Overcoming Challenges in Building Confidence
• 18:17 Taking Action Through Self-Care
• 33:52 Empowering Confidence Through Self-Awareness
• 41:30 Confidence Building Steps for Success
• 53:02 Finding Clarity in Five Minutes

Transcript

Nikita Williams: 0:04

Welcome to Business with Chronic Illness, the globally ranked podcast for women living with chronic illness who want to start and grow a business online. I'm your host. Nikita Williams and I went from living a normal life to all of a sudden being in constant pain, with no answers to being diagnosed with multiple chronic illnesses and trying to make a livable income. I faced the challenge of adapting traditional business advice to fit my unique circumstances with chronic illness, feeling frustrated and more burned out than I already was. While managing my chronic illness to becoming an award-winning coach with a flexible, sustainable online coaching business, I found the surprisingly simple steps to starting and growing a profitable business without compromising my health or my peace. Since then, I've helped dozens of women just like you learn how to do the same. If you're ready to create a thriving business that aligns with your lifestyle and well-being, you're in the right place. Together, we're shifting the narrative of what's possible for women with chronic illness and how we make a living.

Nikita Williams: 1:18

This is Business with Chronic Illness. I am so excited that today we are going to be talking about confidence and how we can do that through action. How does that look like and how we can do that through action. How does that look like and how that can be a challenge for us living with chronic illness? And I get to have this wonderful conversation with a really good friend of mine, janina, and I'm excited to invite her to the show and I'll tell you a little bit more about her and she'll tell you a little bit more about herself, but first I want to ask her what does confidence mean to?

Janina Hamilton: 1:46

you yeah. So it means doing in order to understand that you can do, and then that leads to more doing. I like that.

Nikita Williams: 2:03

Yeah, I like that. You know, one of the things I think with confidence to your point that you're saying is I know that for me and for a lot of the people we talk to, like the confidence to act in itself is the hurdle right. Like, like the confidence to feel like you can do it, Like you can pull the lever, that you don't have to be perfect, which we'll talk about a little bit too, about perfectionism and being confident and overcoming perfectionism. How have you found that, just before you even get to the acting part, where do you build the confidence in your brain to even be thinking you can act? Because a lot of people think like I just can't right.

Nikita Williams: 2:53

A lot of conversations I have is like, well, I just can't I just can't, and I think it has a lot to do with belief, a lot of mindset, but what does that look like from where you see working with folks?

Janina Hamilton: 3:06

what does that look like from where you see working with folks? Yeah, so for sure, confidence comes from doing right. But what to your point? How do you even start that? How do you even believe?

Janina Hamilton: 3:13

So what I do with my clients is I take it a step back and I look backwards and I get them to pull out pen and paper. Because if you keep it in your head, you know, yeah, like I listened to a podcast one time and he's like we can do one plus one equals two, right, and two plus two equals four. But if you got something like if you got 247 times 43, how many people can do that in their head? So why do we try to keep doing things like build confidence and unscramble emotions in our head? In our head, yeah Right, pull out paper, pull out paper and we write down all of the things that you have accomplished already.

Janina Hamilton: 4:00

And then you pick out the favorite things that you've accomplished already, and this doesn't even have to be related to business. What are the things that you've done just in your life? And then we write down the list of things that you did to accomplish those things. Mm-hmm, and that already shows you that you do have the confidence. You do have the will, you do have the motivation already there to move and take action.

Nikita Williams: 4:28

Yeah, totally so true, it is starting. It is I like to call it. It's like disrupting the lie. It's disrupting the lie because there's we wouldn't be standing here or sitting here or lying down in bed, wherever you are listening to this podcast, if you took no action ever like. That's just this lie that our brain likes to tell us to make us feel safe in the context of just let's not do anything Right. So such a good point, such a good thought of like why, where to go, start back, start backwards. I like to. It's interesting. I call it the confidence card. I like have my clients do something similar and it is such a powerful tool because, especially if you look, just looking back at that's like a bomb to your belief system there for a minute to be like yeah right.

Nikita Williams: 5:19

Like you also realize, you did that through a lot of really hard stuff too, right? So such a good point. So before we go on, I want to just let you guys know a little bit about Janina. Janina is like one of the sweetest women I've gotten to meet and it's thanks to her husband I've got to meet her first of all. In that way I've gotten to know you guys. She is an amazing coach. She has been in the world of entrepreneurship for a very long time.

Nikita Williams: 5:53

Me and her kind of started talking about business and things when she was doing bookkeeping and accounting and all of that jazz.

Nikita Williams: 6:00

And she's been around entrepreneurs doing entrepreneur things while also living with many chronic illnesses and her husband lives with chronic illness as well and so she understands, like when we start talking about confidence and I feel like in the context of the entrepreneur world, we do hear a lot about taking action and da, da, da, da. And I'm always like, yeah, what about this? What about when you are in brain fog and pain? What about pulling the lever in those times? Because advice that we sometimes hear around like just rest until you feel better yes, that's important, we do need to rest and do those things. But if we were to perpetually rest, we would never get anything done outside of resting. And so when you talk about this, you talk about this very much from a scientific standpoint of how actions is important and tell us a little bit more about, like, how you came to now doing this more full-time as a coach around confidence and helping those with you know with in their entrepreneur journey.

Janina Hamilton: 7:04

Yeah. So the reason I'm even here doing this is because the bookkeeping business no longer served my chronic illness. We'll just put that one out there. I do still have, I know why but yeah, I'll tell you Okay.

Janina Hamilton: 7:18

I'll tell you I'm good. So when you have the type of business that bookkeeping is, that requires your clients to give you something in order for you to do your job, and if they don't give you those things in order for you to do your job, then that puts you behind and it puts more stress on your body, your mind, all of that trying to make sure that you live up to what you put in your contract saying that you would do. And then it messes up the whole schedule of everything that I had and was ready to do, and I thought it was the best thing in the world, especially when I first started. But as time went on, you get more clients, which was fine, the workload was fine. Clients, which was fine with the workload was fine. But the more people you have, the more people don't do what you ask them to do. Yeah, and so you know, if I'm not getting receipts by the fifth, I can't give you reports by the 10th, and so I just stopped marketing it. That's what happened. I just stopped marketing it because I didn't want to do it anymore anyways. So I have like two or three clients left and while Chris was in the hospital a couple of years ago when he came home, which you know, incidentally. Today I looked on my Facebook memories and today was the day he came home two years ago. Oh, wow, yeah, after having surgery and all of that, I still did the bookkeeping work while he was in in the hospital and everything because I could. It was it's literally something I could do from my laptop all the time.

Janina Hamilton: 8:49

But then we were like, okay, well, what can we do together? Like is there something that we can do together? Because he does the video, videography and photography? Like what can we do online that would help us to be more free together? And so, like we started a podcast that only has like a handful of episodes. We were going to be like a couple's chronically ill couple relationship, how to have a full, active life thing, which I think we're probably might pick back up at some point, because I started playing with reels and stuff on it again, I've cracked a code on that and I'm so super excited about that. But so we looked at like different, like communication type certifications that we could get online. And so I got an emotional intelligence certification and Chris, he still hasn't finished it after almost two years his REBT training and that was going to help us help couples to get over the roadblocks and all of that almost two years, his REBT training and that was going to help us help couples to, you know, get over the roadblocks and all of that and feel better while working together. Well, since he didn't finish his and I finished mine, I said this stuff is great and I'm going to figure out how to use it. And so that's where this business came from. It's gone through a few iterations, but it's back to where it started.

Janina Hamilton: 10:05

I think at first it was okay. Well, you take the emotional intelligence assessment. This is where my action comes in, right. Like all right, I've got, I'm done with this. So I need to figure out how this can help people. So I just put it out there online. I said I've cause. The podcast was already up and running. So I said I take the assessment, we'll work together for six weeks. That's how I'm going to learn who needs what and how. And I got four clients just going hey, this is the stuff I've been learning. And they were like, yeah, let's do this. So, and I wasn't able to do it on my own schedule.

Janina Hamilton: 10:43

even though I still had the bookkeeping business, I was able to have those meetings and everything. And by letting people know up front that I have this illness, then they're like okay, if I have to reschedule, then they already know. I just am such an advocate for that Like if you have a chronic illness and you have clients, please tell them Yep.

Nikita Williams: 11:05

I have a whole episode I think it's like episode like 10, which is crazy or something like that where I'm like, should you tell people you have a chronic illness, and basically, and then I'm like, yes, Just tell them.

Janina Hamilton: 11:15

Most people will understand. They will understand more if you go ahead and tell them up front than if you have to cancel, and they're just like well, why them up front? Than if you have to cancel, and they're just like well, why? Because they don't understand. Maybe they don't fully understand anyways, because they don't have chronic illness themselves. But if you do tell them I'm still going to do your work, I'm still here with you and for you. You let them know, then they're much more likely to be understanding for you.

Janina Hamilton: 11:41

So I did that and then I took a course on how to like build my signature, a signature course, and it didn't do as well as I like. The principles were great, but I wasn't ready for it. I think I don't think that I had done enough in that that one area to have enough information, as much information as I have now. But I did end up starting like a membership for self-care. It turned into self-care which is even deeper into the mindset, and now it's self-care for chronically ill women with businesses. That's what it is, that's what the membership is, and I'm right now in the middle of creating a course.

Janina Hamilton: 12:23

Actually, the course is done from the women that have been in the middle of creating a course. Actually, the course is done from the women that work that have been in the membership with businesses and they've taken the course and they've given me their feedback and all of that. And I'm about to put that out into the world with a webinar and all of that. And I'm just like excited because I feel like now I'm where I'm supposed to be. Excited because I feel like now I'm where I'm supposed to be Like, but it took me doing several different things to come back to. Okay, now this is it. Yeah.

Nikita Williams: 12:55

Yeah, yeah, I mean we can have a whole just conversation about that, right, like yeah, like we can.

Nikita Williams: 13:01

I know I went like so far off, but no, I love it because you all know if you're new to the show then you don't know this but the podcast hasn't always been called business with chronic illness. It's been something I have been resistant to forever. We'll get to that later, but that's the whole, like the evolution, or the yeah, the evolution of so many that I have just come to talk to within the coaching industry. So I have done pretty much a similar roadmap as you. I mean, when we first met business-wise doing business things, I was teaching you guys how to like make your service provider stuff work and all that kind of stuff, and I was doing my own digital marketing and, like I was doing that as well, and I came across the same roadblock or the same challenge of I'm still in the boat of relying on other people and I don't have control over that and, as someone living with chronic illness, that's not as helpful for me from a mental, physical standpoint. So how do I make this work? And so this is why you know, of course I'm biased, because now I've been coaching for a while, but this is why I think coaching is like the best thing for anyone living with chronic illness as a business to start with, it allows you this flexibility and it's literally all on your terms, like, literally, like. It is one of the most flexible ways of being able to show up and do what you need to do, but most like 99% on your terms, and that's why I love it.

Nikita Williams: 14:41

And so I love that you shared that part of the story, because I think a lot of people have resistance to that thinking. They think, well, you know, the service provider is easy People and I'm like it is. It's not that the work isn't hard, it's the people, y'all, it's the people. It's the people and how they work, and we can't control how people work. So we have to control how we work, and the best way I found to your point it has been just offering services like this, where we create the containers and invite people to come into our lane and they can decide whether or not this is what they want to do or not and if they don't have to stay Exactly yeah, yeah, right. So, yes, I love that you shared that and I also love that you shared you went through taking a course and then took action to decide how this is going to look, and it took many iterations and I think a lot of us beat ourselves up for something, taking quote unquote many iterations Like there's something wrong with that.

Janina Hamilton: 15:39

No.

Nikita Williams: 15:40

Right. So let's go back to that. Let's talk about that from the contents of confidence iterations, things having to be done over and over again or redone or looking at a little different. How does that actually build your confidence? How can we reframe this idea of starting and stopping tweaking and going from being like I'm a failure to actually this means I'm moving forward and I'm building this muscle.

Janina Hamilton: 16:06

Yeah, that's a great question because we do tend to get stuck when you're not seeing the results that you would like to. But first I would like to caution and say if you're not seeing the results immediately, you might have to still just keep going for a little bit. Yeah, like I don't advocate stopping without trying your strategy for at least a couple of months, you know because you have to. If you're changing something up, your audience has to realize that you're changing something.

Nikita Williams: 16:38

Yeah, so you have to give it time.

Janina Hamilton: 16:41

Yeah, you absolutely have to give it time, and there's a part of me that's really impatient. I'm just like, oh my goodness, it's not working. I'm just going to stop this, you know and it's normal to feel that way, because we do like to have immediate results. But stick with it for a little bit. If it doesn't work and also if it doesn't feel right to you anymore, then you know, make that change, because you don't. You also don't want to continue to do something that doesn't feel good to you anymore as well because your body will tell you.

Nikita Williams: 17:15

And that part is so so, like huge here, because I don't I don't know about you, janina, but I feel like, especially in the context of like coaches and generalized coaching and I say generalized coaching even though there's niche but people who aren't thinking about the body and what we do, that there's a lot of advice that's out there. That's saying the counter, the opposite of that, right. Like, you don't have to love your business, you don't have to like what you do, you don't have like it, all of these things, right. But how does that affect someone living with chronic illness differently?

Janina Hamilton: 17:53

Yeah, cause you feel it differently. You know, if you don't have a chronic illness, you'll still feel it, but you can work through it. You can work past it, you can ignore it. But if you have a chronic illness that's causing you to be in bed you know more than all you know it's causing you to flare, you're not enjoying yourself. Then what good is that You're not going to make money, which is, you know, part of? Yes, you started your business because you love it, you know, because it's something that you want to do. You want to. That's why I named the course make an impact. You want to make an impact, right, you want to do that, but you also do want to make money. And you can't do that if you're not having fun, because we feel everything.

Nikita Williams: 18:39

It's like I don't think we. I was talking to a client the other day and I was like we dismiss one. We most of us dismiss. And this also goes back to, like your point of like putting everything down, seeing what you're doing, like making even even beyond, like what you've done in the past.

Nikita Williams: 18:56

Something I have my clients do now is just like, especially ones who have a bit of trouble with confidence of writing things down, like what did you do? Like even if it's the smallest thing, of like getting out of the bed and brushing your teeth, because you know there've been times where you didn't do that Okay, like you didn't have the energy to do that. But like even the small things, I think we kind of dismiss. But we also dismiss the energetic effects of what we are doing, like we don't and how it shows up for us. And so to your point yeah, you can't just ignore if you don't like something and you can't just push through it. I mean you can. It's just going to do more harm than good and you will actually end up losing money because you did that, exactly, exactly.

Janina Hamilton: 19:41

And that's why, too, exactly, exactly. And that's why, too, I encourage self-care within my container, because it gives you more clarity on how you're actually feeling. Because if you're just working and pushing through on something, even if you do enjoy it, if you are pushing through past and through your pain too much, to the point where you're flaring even on something you do enjoy, you're not going to enjoy it. So in order to know whether you're actually enjoying it, whether you actually feel aligned with what's going on, you have to step back from it every once in a while.

Nikita Williams: 20:20

You just have to.

Janina Hamilton: 20:22

You have to rest in a way that it's called active. I call it active rest. You have to do something that's not connected to making money. You have to do it, Otherwise you're just stuck. You will be stuck. You'll never know what you really want to do and where you're actually at you're actually at.

Nikita Williams: 20:47

Yeah, so I can hear in the background and in my own mental brain of all of the women that I work with which, the perfectionist head screaming right now Of course.

Nikita Williams: 20:54

But what do you mean? Active rest, like? What do you mean about taking action? Because perfectionists actually are interesting to me. They're very fascinating to me because, as much as they're perfectionists, they actually act the least right, they actually take the action the least and to become perfect. If we think about this in the context of just learning and how we do in order to reach perfection, as imperfect people, we almost have to keep failing in order to get to the best version of something, and so, if we are in our perfectionist mindset, we literally are not taking the actions that we need to take in order to reach so-called quote unquote, not real, but let's imagine it perfection. So how do we address that in this conversation of confidence?

Janina Hamilton: 21:50

Yeah, I love that. So that procrastination because that's what that is right, that is procrastination. It shows up in different forms. It doesn't usually show up in the form of doing something that you actually enjoy. It shows up in doing other things that you don't, that you've been putting off and that you don't want to do, that are, as you said before, energetically making you tired. They're making you feel worse.

Janina Hamilton: 22:20

So if you pull back from that and then do like I was saying, with active rest and self-care and that's one of the things that I give in my membership is 25 activities that you can do that take five minutes or less. That are just ideas, just ideas, Because for a perfectionist, the hardest thing to do is to figure out what it is that you want to do, Because you've been so long, for so long, figuring out or thinking about how you're going to take care of other people that you don't know what you want to do for yourself anymore, Absolutely. So you either are helping other people or you're running yourself in the ground, thinking about the things that you want to do for yourself but not doing them. So that's what I heard, that pull back, here's your activities. And like I don't know, let me just look at this month.

Janina Hamilton: 23:17

Okay, I can just tell you just off what we've got going on this month. You know some of the things are energetic, like stand barefoot in the grass, you know, feel the sun on your skin. You know there are things that aren't as like in depth, Like most people think of self-care as like get in the bathtub right, Do a face mask, get your nails done, go to a spa. While those things are good and are part of self-care if you're sick yeah doing.

Nikita Williams: 23:47

You know, like, yes, I am one of those that needs to get in the bath all the time, like that's what my illness means right, like how I feel about massages, everybody's like massage is so luxury, I mean I, I can be, but I do it because I got to.

Janina Hamilton: 24:01

Exactly. But then there are things that you can't do. That every day, right. So what do you do every day? So you can declutter? Right, you can eat dinner outside. List recent personal improvements so not business personal improvements color window, shop birdwatch Take yourself away from what's going on and that will bring you back to okay. Now I'm ready to actually do something, because that noise, that perfectionism, is noise. It becomes white noise in your head and it's negative self-talk and you've got to get out of your head in order to take action. So that's what we do. I love it. I love it, yeah, and we talk every day about like, like in the membership. We talk every day about what you've done, you have to do, you need to do something every day, even if it's just for five minutes for yourself.

Janina Hamilton: 25:01

That does not include making money. You have to take a break every day.

Nikita Williams: 25:07

Yeah, and you know it's a part of, I like to say, with my clients and with, just in general, just the way I live my life. You have to believe that taking time for yourself will benefit you not just like energetically and physically, but also financially. Like I think we are, we're conditioned in this world that we live in right now where it's very much like work, eat, sleep, work, Like that's what we do, and so obviously we like, we are craving for the like extravagant, like travel and vacations, because those are all things that, like you get to separate from like working, and then you could explore different things, but it's just for a brief amount of time. But there's 365 days of the year, Right, and so we have 24 hours in a day. Most of that time is literally dedicated to eat, work and sleep. So you have to make time for your brain to do something other than those things.

Nikita Williams: 26:08

And when you do, how does that help someone from what you've seen like have more capacity for receiving actually like the income, the creativity that brings about the income, the thing that brings about even I like to say even in a flare up when I've done work for myself, like when I say, like my own self-care if I'm in a flare up and I still give myself permission to do whatever version of self-care. Lately it's been crossword puzzles. I love those things. I forgot about them and then, for some reason, I had some in my drawer and I was like what is this? And I've been doing it every night.

Nikita Williams: 26:49

I love that so much so, and it's simple. It's so simple. I, it's a simple thing. It's a simple thing. It's crazy, but it totally helps, like get my head out of my head Right, and it gets me to be in a more neutral space for flow. And I'm not. I don't have to, I don't have to figure anything out other than finding a word, and that later on in the day, if I do that at night, when I wake up in the morning my brain is not on this like high of like trying to figure out what I need to do, all of these things. It's more relaxed, and so I go into the day with a lot better hold on, like my anxiety or like my task list of things I get to do, because actually I look forward to at night now my crossword puzzle, yep, so it's something I look forward to. And so how does building the self-care add to the muscle building confidence?

Janina Hamilton: 27:47

Yeah, because for so long the not doing for yourself has felt good.

Janina Hamilton: 27:54

So there's something called the pain and pleasure principle. I don't know if you probably know what that is, right, yeah, so everything that you do has pain and pleasure resulted with it, and right now the pleasure of working on your business is greater than the pain of actually doing, you know. So you have to get out of that and figure out what that is and work towards the pleasure of actually making money, and that means moving away from the pleasure of the bad, you know, of not feeling or feeling so overwhelmed. So you have to just stop and think. And you know, I think from the perspective of like when I first started this, because I didn't think, you know, I knew that I have perfectionist tendencies, right, but I didn't really understand how deep they were until I started like, especially like the bookkeeping business, and when everything started to change a little bit. And during the pandemic oh, my goodness, the pandemic, when that man, the meltdown that happened during then because you had the time to just work it was, oh my gosh, all of us have.

Nikita Williams: 29:04

We've been working on getting out of that right. Yeah, exactly so.

Janina Hamilton: 29:08

So we take that and we say, okay, what would happen if you did x, y, z or just one thing for five minutes? And I make them actually tell me okay, like what, if you did that, what would happen? Like we need to make this a reality Will your business burn down in five minutes?

Janina Hamilton: 29:30

You know if you take this, no, okay, so now we've got the reality of it's not going to. Okay, the reality of it's not going to. So after we do that, then we say okay, well, what would happen if you did this one thing for your business after you did this thing not for your business? Something like following up with somebody who commented on your social media post or clicked on a link from your newsletter, or something like that. What would happen if you did that and you list all of the possibilities and not most of the possibilities are either what they won't respond or you'll get a new client?

Janina Hamilton: 30:15

right, exactly so. But that won't happen. That get a new client doesn't happen if you don't actually follow up with somebody. Right? Especially if that's the one thing that you can do while you're in bed, right? So, taking those actions, seeing, okay, I'm okay to take some time for myself, get off social media for a little while, yes, please, and do something that's going to help you for your business. And one of the couple most of the months when I do the self-care activities, one of the things is either unsubscribe from newsletters and unfollow at least two accounts, because there are things that are showing up in your email inbox and showing up on your newsfeed that are causing you to second guess what you wanna do. That's causing you to go okay, well, maybe I should try this, or maybe I should try that, and then that noise keeps you from doing anything at all. Yeah, totally.

Nikita Williams: 31:24

Love that advice, love it. What is it? Cosign it. That's what people say now. Cosign it, oh my goodness, cosign it. I mean, it's something for some of my severe perfectionist clients.

Nikita Williams: 31:37

Some of the things that I've literally told them is like unfollow anyone in your niche. Like straight up I. Because what happens is it creates imposter syndrome. It creates this other thing that comes up often is like well, the industry standard and a dry like. It's like who are these industry standards? Are they in a room somewhere? Like who are they? Like they might be at a conference, but if you go to a different conference, guess where there's other people that are not on that stage. There's so many different people.

Nikita Williams: 32:05

So I'm like who is setting these industry standards? And I'm like you don't have to operate in these quote unquote industry standards. You don't have to be comparing yourself to all these different people. And is it serving you to take action? Oftentimes it's literally doing the opposite. It's spiraling you out to say how much you aren't doing. Then you feel like you're not doing enough and then you feel like you have to do more and you're putting way more pressure than you need to. So, literally, I have told clients I want you to take time over the next four weeks to unfollow everyone that is in your niche, because it doesn't spark creativity, it doesn't give you energy, it doesn't help you. Nope, you think it's helping you because you're like this is how I'm supposed to be, but literally that is going to be opposite of what you want to be, especially for my creative entrepreneurs. It's literally like hindering your creativity.

Janina Hamilton: 32:58

Yeah, because then you don't know what is your creativity, that part.

Nikita Williams: 33:03

That part, yeah, that part. So it's so good that you said that, because I do think we definitely social media makes it easy for us to just start following people that are doing what we do, and I actually find it a lot of fun to follow people who are doing the opposite of what I'm doing, or doing something in a different industry than I'm doing, and that sparks creativity and it doesn't create this feeling of like I'm not enough. It's like oh, I never thought about that. It actually helps your brain versus it being the other way around. And, of course, you're going to follow maybe a handful of the people that I feel like you follow, the people you decided that you're going to invest in financially and energetically. And maybe you're going to follow maybe a couple of your friends. But even a couple of your friends, you may not want to follow them either because that might be bringing some imposter syndrome and perfectionists. So, like, no hard feelings, let's just like protect our energy here.

Janina Hamilton: 33:57

Yeah. Yeah so that we can take action. Yeah, yeah, so that we can take action, right.

Nikita Williams: 34:01

Yeah.

Janina Hamilton: 34:02

Yeah, because that negative self-talk, I mean I think it goes back, I think I don't know if I said this, but perfectionism really is the root of it is negative self-talk. Yes, like that Ching ching, ching, ching, ching. Yes, like that, yes, like that voice in your head that's saying that you're not enough. That's keeping you in the same place.

Janina Hamilton: 34:29

Like you got to get rid of that and you know, like I, I use I use NLP to help with that. We get through that and then we create affirmations, personalized affirmations that help you to start seeing the opportunities that are there in front of you.

Janina Hamilton: 34:47

Because if you don't, if you don't quiet that negative self-talk, it's going to be so much harder for you and it's I'm not saying that the negative self-talk goes away completely, because it doesn't, we're not perfect we aren't perfect, it will be there but to at least have a tool there that you can go back to and read and know that this is what you want to do and this is how you want to operate, because it feels good to you, because we have. We've just been so for so long. I know I keep repeating this, but for so long women think and act the way that they believe, that other people have told them that they should think and act, and so that's just become what we do. But that, especially if you have a chronic illness, is not going to serve you. You have to turn it off or at least turn it down in a way that can help you to move forward.

Nikita Williams: 35:50

Yeah, it's such a good point there because we don't realize it. We really don't. We really don't realize how much, how loud, those other voices have like literally crowded out our own. We don't even know what our own voice is at times, and it's when you're living with chronic illness. I think this is a little bit more challenging, because a lot of us have learned to disassociate from our bodies and our thoughts, because that's a place of to your point about the pain and pleasure point, that's a place where we can almost kind of escape from what's happening within us. Right, it's just to be like let's just our businesses are like relationship things. Those are things we can quote unquote, escape into, just like being focused into.

Nikita Williams: 36:38

However, I want to offer to anyone who's listening, like, as much as that may seem pleasurable in the context that it gives you release, could it also be harming you? Because when you need to know what's going on, this is one of the things that changed my life, like from living with chronic illness, realizing, like me, disassociating from that meant I literally was disassociating from the feelings and the triggers and the things I should have known ahead of time that were creating some of these places of where the intensity of the pain, these other symptoms that were coming up because I was so not trying to be in this body and that left me without tools that my body was really just trying to help me with. And so I just offer that for anyone who's like. But I don't want like I don't know what my voice is. It could be that you've just learned over time to not listen to it. It doesn't mean it's gone, it's still, it's totally there but it does mean the self-care point to your point, janina. That's a really great place to start to take it back or to be more in tune with it, to be more connected with it, so that you can start making actions or taking actions, or even setting boundaries with different things in order to take actions that work for you.

Nikita Williams: 38:01

So that's the other thing about confidence is that it really does take to me a point of honesty with yourself, of like, really acknowledging well, why aren't I acting? Is it just because I don't know how to? Nine times out of 10, that's not the reason. Let's be real, and it's not that we can't, but most times it's because we're getting some like quote unquote benefit from not doing it in the context of if we're not doing it. It keeps us in our mental, our body, feeling safe. We don't have to deal with pain of the unknown. We don't have to deal with pain of like being seen and heard.

Nikita Williams: 38:38

Lots of these things are actually underneath the reasons why we aren't taking action with things To your point. Limiting beliefs are often underneath this. So you have to be honest with yourself and it might take some time and some work to do that. But again, I love your point of going back to like you really stepping into taking care of those self-care pieces allows you to start to inner act with your body or mind in a way that actually feels good and doesn't automatically throw you into like fear flight. Standing outside on the porch for some sun should feel like, oh, I can do that Right, so I love that.

Janina Hamilton: 39:17

Yeah, yeah, and I like what you just said too, because there's a difference between acknowledging and acceptance right, so much difference.

Nikita Williams: 39:25

That's a whole like series, yeah, so you know.

Janina Hamilton: 39:29

You know. You know what you're doing. Yeah, but until you accept it, nothing's going to change. Yeah, you know, except the chaos that you're in. It's like it's okay that you're in chaos, it's fine, it's where you are. But until you say, all right, here is where I'm at, but these are the few things that I need to do, adjustments that I need to make, you're going to be in the same place. You're going to be in that this feels good, if this feels safe, like you just said, and we don't want to be there. You know you don't want to be there. You want to have that accomplishment, you want to put what you know out there into the world. You want to help people and you want to make money.

Nikita Williams: 40:14

Yeah, and it feels good, especially when you learn and build this muscle of confidence through different tools that even in the worst seasons of your life and this is something that you this is why I love surrounding myself and knowing people who are doing this work, because I know that, for example, you're not anybody who's listening to is like, yeah, you can say this because you're not in a flare. I'm like, no, I can say this because I've done this in a flare. Yeah, I'm like I can say this because I've literally been in the hospital or our doctor's appointments and I've still done this in those moments, right, and so because of that, I'm seeing that from all the compassion in the world and all of the thoughts. But at the end of the day, if I can look back six months from now and I said that I was able to accomplish this even in this crazy season of what I'm at that amount of confidence you cannot manufacture. Nope, I'm like like I just take this podcast, for example.

Nikita Williams: 41:15

I'm like do you guys know how many times I wanted to quit this podcast, as much as I enjoy it? Y'all know I love the podcast, but as much as I enjoy it, it's not like always easy. No, but I do enjoy it, literally. My husband was saying, nikita, you went in that call looking like you were about to die, but you love it so much. You come out and you're like, you're so energized. I'm like, cause it does that to me. I know it does it. At first it doesn't feel like that and there are seasons where it feels like I don't know if this is going to be possible and I give myself a break. Occasionally I'll take a break and I come back to it. But you can't do that until you've built the evidence behind knowing right, like you can do it, yeah, yeah.

Janina Hamilton: 41:57

And there are some people that are just like they're doers. And you know the people that you look at, that you know personally, that are like you're, like they're the most confident people in the world. When you look at the root of it, it's because they're not afraid of failing, they're not afraid of doing something and messing it up. Yeah, and yes, that's hard, especially if you haven't you've not been in that place. But try it, even if it's like.

Janina Hamilton: 42:29

You know, I'm a big fan of starting small you know, one thing one thing every week, one thing every day, whatever I mean. I keep my bullet journal. It's one of the things that I do, but I have. I write down one positive thing that's happened in my business every day. Just one, yeah, just one. Even if it's on the weekend, even if that meant that, like some random, something happened on social media, probably a post from a month ago or something. Like I got a like on something, okay, that happened, yeah. Or or I was talking to somebody while I was out at a gathering and they asked me what I did and I told them okay, I told somebody what I did, you know. So, finding and looking and training your brain to say, yes, these things work, these things have you know, doing things helps you to move forward and that you can do something every day, for it will help you to take even the tiniest bit of action towards making more money in your business.

Nikita Williams: 43:37

Yeah, and newsflash. Sometimes these small baby steps lead you to making money and you think how did that happen?

Janina Hamilton: 43:53

Oh girl. Okay, so I have a little story I have right now. I have a client that's not a business client at all, just not at all. Chris, my husband was talking to somebody and she was like, oh well, my daughter has sickle cell and this and that, and she's been struggling with this and that. And Chris was like, well, I think Janina can help her. I'm like, okay, so by telling other people, this is one lesson tell other people what you do and familiar with what you do, and they will send them to you.

Nikita Williams: 44:23

Right Clients can come from anywhere. Y'all say that all the time.

Janina Hamilton: 44:26

Man, the best clients come from a network and not other people singing your praises, because you can sing your own praises all day long and people will not believe you. But if somebody else says it get on that call, okay, okay, got on the call. Says it get on that call, okay, got on the call. And the way that I've seen this one client change like cause. I'm using several different things within in there with taking action and all of that, especially because it's not a business client. I don't have a particular exactly life coaching, exactly.

Janina Hamilton: 45:09

But we had one session where I asked like, where are you right now in your discomfort? It was like a seven or eight. We did our session, we did tapping. That's our very first experience with tapping. Got her down to a zero Okay, now we go a week and a half of. Okay, now we go a week and a half, right.

Janina Hamilton: 45:29

And when she comes back, because she's got several different things, she's got like sickle cells, she has endometriosis, she has diabetes, she's got a heart condition, she's got a lot of things going on and so. But we've also been talking about things like eating and doing things different things better to help those health conditions too, and I said, you know, the decision that you made to make these one tiny little tweaks right the picking up the diet drink, the ordering something that was low carb, the you know in one day that you saw was the result of that session, that telling yourself that you love yourself. The impact that it can have on yourself by showing and telling yourself that, look, I am worth taking these steps. I am worth taking one step can have an impact even quicker than you think, so that building up of your self-worth by taking those actions that show that you know and believe that you are worth it can have long lasting effects can have long lasting effects.

Nikita Williams: 46:51

Yeah, so, so true. I love that point. I love that illustration. It doesn't. It is pretty magnificent how we can take one thing and like just the acknowledgement, acceptance and seeing it in a different perspective can shift so much and how it's important to keep doing that because the negative always can outweigh the positive. So you got to keep doing it, you got to keep doing. Can't do it one time. So love that, love that so much. Any other things you would like to share with us before we wrap up around? Some like someone who's listening to this episode right now, who's living with chronic illness, who's like you know, I have a business, maybe they're currently in a business and they're feeling stuck. They're feeling like, you know, especially since the transition from the pandemic to now, like, I think, a lot of people, especially with chronic illness. We were like living in heaven on Zoom and living our life, and now everyone's like, no, let's go do the world. And you're like, wait, what? What are maybe a few things you can share with them of where they can start?

Janina Hamilton: 47:52

Yeah, If it's possible, get out of the house. I know that can be hard for someone with a chronic illness, but try to get out of the house for an hour once a week Because I found for myself that being at home that put me deeper into a perfectionist mindset. It put me deeper into the I can sit at my desk all day long or I can take my laptop in the bed with me. All of that, and then I was really spinning my wheels rather than actually getting work done. So if you can get outside of your home environment for a little bit to get some focused work done, do it.

Nikita Williams: 48:41

So helpful. Yes, coworking has been my saving grace, or the coffee shop or wherever, Anywhere other than home.

Janina Hamilton: 48:47

A library yes, the library has free wifi. Okay, Just get out of the house, get out of your environment because home feels comfortable. But home is your worst enemy when it comes to a business. It really productively. It is your worst enemy because all you want to do is either sleep or work Like you're working where you work, where you live, and you need to get out of that space and, yeah, spend time with other people if you can. You know, I know and I understand that not everybody can do that, but if you can try it and see the difference between the how much you can move the needle in that amount of time, that way you can focus more on resting and taking better care of your health when you are at home.

Janina Hamilton: 49:38

But find something. That's five minutes. I work using the Pomodoro method 25 minutes on, five minutes off. That also gives you time to that clarity. I step away from the desk. I don't get on social media. I have a book club in my membership. I read my, read in between. You know, calm your eyes, get it away from a screen, but do something for you every single day. That's what do something for you and write down an accomplishment every single day, even if you feel like it was insignificant. Find something because it's there.

Nikita Williams: 50:19

Yeah, love that so good. I love that. I love that. I'm so glad we had this conversation. It was so good. I hope you all can walk away with a few tips on how you can build your confidence and overcome perfectionism. A few other tidbits in here. Janina, how can everyone find you if they want to connect with you and share for this one exciting thing that's coming up on the horizon that you're excited about?

Janina Hamilton: 50:46

Okay, I am Janina H coaching on Instagram and you can also email me at Janina Hamiltoncom and I'll get back to you. You go on email and DM me. I'm on there more than I should be. We'll just say that, no, I'm doing better, because I'm like I'm started reading more again and not just like improvement books, I'm like reading fiction books again.

Janina Hamilton: 51:11

And I'm like, oh my gosh, it's so much fun. I used to read like a lot more, but you know, whatever, I don't know what happened, but I'm back now and I love it so much. But yeah, so I have a webinar coming up, a free webinar that I'm about to publish, hopefully sometime this week, maybe earlier next week or early next week, whenever this podcast is coming out. I'm not sure when that is, but either way, it's called Three Secrets to Overcome Perfectionism and, ooh, what was the other part? I can't remember. It's a long name. I don't know why I did that, but either way, I will. The link will be. It's totally free, you know you'll be able to watch it. Actually, let me just look it up.

Nikita Williams: 51:57

Yeah, and we'll definitely have like, even if it's if this comes out after that. I don't know if you'll have a replay or if it's going to be like in a funnel or email. It's going to be in a funnel, so it will be there forever.

Janina Hamilton: 52:07

It's called Three Secrets to Overcome Perfectionism and Confidently Sell your Services.

Nikita Williams: 52:12

Believe in yourself and take action.

Janina Hamilton: 52:14

So that is long? Yes, it is long. So I was like, well, how can I shorten it? But if I don't shorten it, then how will they? I don't know.

Nikita Williams: 52:26

Anyways, so it's there. We'll definitely have. You'll be able to connect with her and all that stuff. We'll have everything in the show notes and all of that. Joss, is that the thing you're looking forward?

Janina Hamilton: 52:35

to yes. That is the thing that I am looking forward to. I'm really excited about it. I got some interviews in there, yeah, so talk about keeping promises to yourself as well. You know, we make those commitments to everybody else but ourselves, so let's do it so so much, this is so good, thank you.

Nikita Williams: 52:57

Thank you so much for being on any last words before we close out.

Janina Hamilton: 53:02

Yeah, so please remember that five minutes is not as long as you think. Take time for you, at the very least Five minutes for yourself, and set a timer. Don't go over the five minutes when you start. Five minutes, but do it. It will give you more clarity than you could ever imagine. Love it, but do it. It will give you more clarity than you could ever imagine, love it.

Nikita Williams: 53:32

That's a wrap for this episode of Business with Chronic Illness. If you would like to start and grow an online coaching business with me, head to the show notes to click a link to book a sales call and learn how to make money with chronic illness. You can also check out our website at wwwcraftedtothrivecom for this episode's show notes and join our email list to get exclusive content where I coach you on how to chronically grow a profitable business while living with chronic illness. Until next time, remember, yes, you are crafted to thrive.