Turn Self-criticism Into Self-love

Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in personal development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Kate Hesse, Founder of NourishNestBreathe, located in Grandview, MO, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

I’m a Mental & Emotional Hygiene Coach for women seeking to quiet their critical inner voice and develop a greater sense of freedom, serenity, resilience, and joy in their lives.

Through individual coaching, insightful blog posts, and on-demand classes, I teach clients how to transmute self-criticism into self-love – all by transforming the daunting into doable with simple & clear action steps.

I focus on guiding clients through the 4C’s to Quiet Your Inner Critic:

• We start by clearing the space to do the work – helping you understand how to reclaim time and create more mental and emotional space. Because you can’t change anything if you don’t have a free moment to start making that change!

• The second C is clarifying your unique priorities. To get this clarity, we dive into separating out what’s truly important to you vs. what you believe “should” be important to you because it’s important to someone else.

• Next comes constructing and maintaining healthy boundaries. Because knowing what’s truly important to you only takes you so far if you’re not able to say no to the things that aren’t important to you.

• Finally, I work with clients to develop consistent, sufficient, and sustainable self-care and self-work routines. This work is an ongoing process, and creating these routines helps you balance refilling your mental, emotional, and physical energy reserves while also taking action to help you reach your goals and dreams.

The key here isn’t to change your life; this work is all about changing the way you relate to your life!

Tell us about yourself

Several years ago, each afternoon would find me curled up under my desk at work, crying because I was so stressed out, burnt out, and overwhelmed. I felt like I was constantly letting everyone in my life down. And the last person I made time for was myself.

One day it finally clicked. That life wasn’t sustainable, and the problem wasn’t the job or everyone else in my life. It was my poor boundaries, lack of consistent, sufficient, and sustainable self-care, and confusion between what was actually important to me and what I thought was important because it mattered to someone else.

It’s been a real journey to find my way from absolute burnout to living a life in balance. A life I’m excited to wake up to each morning. And I don’t want anyone else to have to struggle the way I did! With never-ending to-do lists and countless commitments and obligations, so many women find themselves in the same place I was. They do so much to take care of everyone else in their lives, and yet they still feel like they’re falling short. And there’s nothing worse than working so hard all day only to lay your head down at night and mentally loop through everything you did wrong, could have done better, and should have done but didn’t get to.

I'm grateful I get to spend my days working with clients, creating content, and spreading the word on the importance of Mental & Emotional Hygiene, because I know the incredible impact this work can make on your life. I’m driven to help people just like me make room on the priority list for themselves. To find tools and techniques that work for them to quiet their inner critic, to turn life’s mountains into molehills, and discover that in taking care of themselves, they’re actually able to show up even more for the important people in their lives!

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

As a business owner, my biggest accomplishment is learning everything I try won’t be a success. I’ve learned to pick myself up, dust myself off, evaluate what did and didn’t work with the eyes of an observer, and then take all that new awareness and try something different. I’ve learned how strong I am and how dedicated I am to helping women build lives they love.

The most rewarding accomplishments I’ve seen through my business, though, haven’t actually been my accomplishments – they’re the aha moments, the increased resilience, and the joy my clients see as they discover new ways of showing up for themselves and others.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

One of the hardest things I’ve had to learn as a business owner is getting really clear on my job. Often, we define our job by our title, but our job is really the bigger picture of why that drives us to show up and do what we do. And just like most of us don’t stay in the same position from graduation until retirement, that big-picture job changes throughout our lives too.

Discovering what my job is – and being flexible to change that job as life has changed around me – was a challenge. But it’s also key to allowing me to maintain a happy and healthy work/life balance and avoid becoming burnt out as a solopreneur!

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

I suggest they connect with a coach or therapist or start reading every personal development book they can get their hands on! Becoming an entrepreneur brings up all your old stories and forces you to confront, process, and integrate them in order to allow your business to succeed. Your old stories about money, your own worth, what it takes to be successful, and so much more will come up, and you’ll need to deal with them, or they’ll continue to hold you and your business back.
I’d encourage them to connect with other entrepreneurs – especially those who are at a similar stage of business development. There are a lot of things in the entrepreneurial journey most people in your life aren’t going to understand. Having a group of people you can turn to when you want to celebrate your achievements or get feedback on why you hear crickets on your launch is so important.
I’d encourage them to aim for B+ work (unless they’re in a life-or-death field like creating medical devices or car safety equipment). When we try to reach perfect, we end up getting stuck. If you refuse to put something out before it’s perfect, you may never put anything out at all. When you aim for B+ work, you give yourself permission to do a pretty good job, get it out there, get feedback, and improve it on the next iteration.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://nourishnestbreathe.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nourishnestbreathe/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nourishnestbreathe/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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