He told me the words I wanted to hear. He told me to go after my dreams, but I didn't feel his support for such a long time. In fact, I could see right through his words. He said the right things sometimes, but they didn't feel genuine. His support didn't feel authentic until it finally did. But until then, I struggled like never before. I wondered for the first time ever in our marriage if divorce was in our future. It felt inevitable.

 

We didn't feel on the same page. I was growing at a rate so much faster because of all of the personal and self development that I was doing, and I simply didn't feel like he understood. So how did I make it through? There are 9 specific steps or shifts that I made in my journey that I can see now looking back. I wish I knew all of these early on. It sure would have made things easier, but I learned them slowly an overtime. And, eventually, things did look a little bit brighter. In fact, now they look a lot brighter, but I'll tell you more about that at the end. The first thing that I did was I stopped sharing my insecurities and my fears with him.

 

I realized they were only feeding his own. I needed to project confidence. And so I stopped sharing any of the doubts, any of the concerns, any of my feelings about how my business may not work. I wanted so badly to be able to share those things with him, but I couldn't, not if I wanted to actually create the success in the future that I had in mind. I realized it was a small sacrifice that I had to make to stop communicating fully. He couldn't be my person anymore in that season, not as it related to my fears and doubts around business. So number 2, I hired a coach. I hired someone else to speak with and go to to deal with all of the things that were coming up, the struggles and the challenges, the doubts and the fears.

 

I could work through all of those with her without him having a clue that I was even struggling. Now that didn't solve everything. There was a lot more that I had to do before I actually had his support. And the third thing was I decided that I had to stop telling him what I was going to do, and I had to start showing him. I simply had to start doing it. There's a quote that I've read that says make more moves and less announcements, and that's exactly what I had to do. I had to make it happen instead of telling him what I was going to make happen. Number 4, Eventually, I recognized that his comments were simply a reflection of his own mindset.

 

When they had gotten to me Before, it was because there was a part of me that had that same mindset. Those same fears and doubts were in me. But, eventually, once I took care of my own mindset, I was able to realize that he was just dealing with his mindset. He wasn't putting in the same work that I was to improve his mindset each and every day. And so it was understandable that he wasn't where I was. So I had to take the high road, if you will, and decide not to let it bother me. And that's number 5. I realized that it was a choice to allow his negativity to impact me and decided to stop.

 

It was simply a decision. Does that mean his negativity went away? No. It sure didn't, but I let it stop impacting me. I chose to ignore it. To the best of my ability, I chose not to focus on it. Number 6, I shifted my focus from him to my goals. I just went all in full fledged working towards my goals. No matter what he said, no matter how hurtful at times his comments were, I just kept going.

 

And every time something went right, I let him know. That's number 7. I celebrated every single win with him. I shared all of the positive so that he could start to see that things were happening. He started to see a shift in me. And so number 8 was that I shared more about my mindset changes. Once he opened up the conversation, once he noticed that I had changed. And he started to ask questions, then I started to share more about all the work that I had done, the process that I'd went through, the rationale and logic behind the shifts that I was making.

 

And in those moments, he started to understand a little bit more just how much things really were shifting and what was actually possible. A number 9. Eventually, I proved him wrong. Now I wanna be clear. I never made proving him wrong my motivation. I just focused on my goal and did what I needed to do, But eventually, it happened. Eventually, I actually did what I had set out to do. And all of his fears that it wasn't going to work and doubts that it was gonna happen disappeared because it had happened.

 

One day, we were sitting up late at night. We were on vacation at the beach, and the kids had gone to sleep. I had a glass of wine in hand, and he had had a couple of drinks, and he started talking. And he's a pretty quiet guy. We both are, to be honest. But he started talking and talking and talking, and I will never forget what he said that night. He said, you know, I didn't really believe that you could do it in the beginning, but now I know you can. And I looked him in the eyes and said, I'm not surprised.

 

I knew that all along. You were saying one thing, but I knew that you didn't believe it. But I believe you now, and I'm so glad to finally have your support. But tell me just one thing. Why did you agree to this in the beginning? Because at this point, I had made some pretty big investments, And I had left my 9 to 5 all before fully having his support. He told me I had a support, but he didn't really mean it. And I wanted to know why. And he said, well, I agreed because I really just wanted to let you get it out of your system.

 

I figured if you actually took the time to try this thing out, then you would fell faster, and we could just move on. But he said, now now I see what's possible. Now I know that you can do it, and I can't wait to see all that's going to happen for you and your business and what that's gonna mean for our family. It took some time to work through all of those steps. But now that we finally made it to the other side, first of all, things aren't perfect. I can guarantee you that, but things do look differently. Now I am able to share my goals with him, and he actually believes that I'm going to reach them because I have set that standard. That example, I've proven to him that when I set out to reach a goal, I'm going to meet or exceed it.

 

So when I told him my goal for next year, I was floored when later, several weeks later, He came to me with some of his dreams based on his belief that I would reach my goal. He started thinking and dreaming and imagining what his next steps might be. And it's been so long since I've heard him dream like that. It was incredible to hear. But, again, things aren't always perfect. This is an ongoing effort. And so as one last piece of advice, when you don't feel that support that you need And you've tried the other 9 things and you've worked through that process and you have gained the support, but it's lacking in the moment, then here's what I recommend. I did this just last week with my husband.

 

When I wasn't quite feeling his support, I asked a simple question. What would you do or say if I had made $1,000,000 in my business this year? He knew that that's the goal that I've set for next year. We talked about it. And so I asked him, what would you do or say right now if I had already accomplished that goal? And he thought about it, and he answered. And I reminded him that I needed him to give me that support now. If you go back to my last episode, episode 14. You're gonna hear how you need to act as if. And in this moment, that's exactly what I asked him to do.

 

Act as if I've already met that goal and give me the support now that you would if I had already met that goal because that's what I need now in order to meet that goal. That's the level of support that I need from you. That helped him reframe how he was feeling about things and shift his focus so he could provide the level of support that he wanted to provide and that would help me get to my goals. I know that it's tough when you have someone close to you who is unsupportive. Whether it's a spouse or a family member or a friend, this journey isn't easy. But I assure you that if you stick with it, if you follow the steps that I've outlined, you can make it through to the other end with that relationship still intact and maybe even stronger than ever before.