53. Faulty Assumptions
Are you aware of the assumptions you’re currently holding onto about your business, clients, and goals? Do you know which ones are serving you, and which ones might be creating problems in your interior design business?
Our assumptions are not the same as universal truths, even though they might feel like it. This is great news because if the assumptions you’re making aren’t serving you, meaning they’re creating unnecessary issues and challenges, you get to change them. What if the only thing holding you back from running your business in the way you want is just a faulty assumption?
Join me on this episode to discover what faulty assumptions are and how to spot them in your life and business. You’ll hear how your assumptions are a reflection of your belief, why you have the power to challenge your automatic assumptions, and how to begin dismantling the assumptions that aren’t serving you, your clients, or your goals.
Enrollment for Out of Overwhelm opens November 13th 2023. Click here to join the waitlist.
And, for a limited time, if you leave me a rating and review, you can be entered to win a one-on-one coaching session with me! All you have to do is leave your rating and review, and then click here.
What You’ll Discover from this Episode:
What faulty assumptions are and how to spot them.
Why our assumptions feel true.
How making faulty assumptions creates challenges in our businesses.
Why it’s worth considering that your assumptions might be wrong.
How to begin poking holes in the assumptions that aren’t serving you.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Full Episode Transcript:
Hey designer, you’re listening to episode 53. This is the one where I’m sharing all about faulty assumptions you might be making, the ones that create problems in your interior design business and what to do about it.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you’re ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you’re in the right place. I’m Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let’s go.
Hello, designer. Welcome back to the podcast, so glad to have you here. Thank you to all of you who have been with me for so long. And welcome to all of the new listeners who have been popping up and joining in the fun. So this has been a pretty big week here for me, I’m recording this on a Friday. The week started off with my daughter being sick, so she was home for two days. And that definitely had me doing a little bit of shuffling and dialing in my priorities even more and deciding what I was going to let go of for the week.
But at the same time, we are headed out tomorrow for a whole week of vacation for our fall break that the kids have off. And we’re going to be exploring national parks that we haven’t been to. And I also had several projects I needed to get in motion so that my team could be working on them while I’m away, as I’m getting ready for the next enrollment period for Out Of Overwhelm.
There’s so much that I do behind the scenes to bring that program to my clients and to open up that enrollment period. And I’ve been coming up with some really valuable ideas that I want to execute on for this particular launch, and that includes some amazing bonuses. Bonuses for those of you who are on the Out Of Overwhelm waitlist, bonuses for my alumni members and for those of you who decide to join me early and say, “Yes, I am doing this for myself.”
Enrollment is opening up November 13th, earlier for the waitlist and for my alums, and we’re going to kick off January of 2024. And there have been updates to the program I’ve been making, additional resources and bonuses and there’s also going to be the ability to add on one-on-one coaching to the signature group program, which I know some of you’ve been asking for.
So get on the waitlist, the link is in the show notes. That is how you’re going to be the first to hear about when enrollment is opening and how you can claim one of the very limited spots in the program because I keep it small to keep it intimate. And there is a bonus that is going to be such a time saver for you that you’re only going to have access to if you’re on the waitlist. So the main point is get on the waitlist so you don’t miss it.
Today, what I want to talk to you about is this idea of assumptions. And it’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about as I’ve been doing that behind the scenes work for the open enrollment period of Out Of Overwhelm, what assumptions am I making? I’ve been running this program for over three years now and so I know it inside and out. And I have to make sure that I am not making assumptions about what you know about the program, when you’re hearing about it and the details of how to secure your spot.
Because those assumptions that I make might be the difference between you getting the support you need because I’ve covered all the ground, or staying stuck in current patterns and challenges because I’ve made assumptions about certain things that you need to know, learn, and understand about how that process works, about how enrollment works, about how the program works that keeps you from getting the help that you want.
And I thought this would be the perfect time to talk about how when we make assumptions, it can create a lot of issues for us, a lot of issues for our clients and create a lot of challenges in our business. So I want to talk about what assumptions are, how to spot them, and really how they’re a reflection of your beliefs, some of which you might want to question. So we’re going to dive into all of that today.
Let’s first just begin by what exactly is an assumption to make sure we’re on the same page here. The way that I define it is that an assumption is a thought or a belief that you accept as true or as certain to happen. What I mean by certain to happen is you’re expecting it to happen. It’s like an A plus B equals C. So that would be part of an assumption.
Sometimes we make these assumptions based on evidence of things that we’ve encountered, things that have been said to us or that we’ve read. But often we don’t even have proof of these assumptions, we just think that they’re true because they feel true. You know that feeling of feeling true where it’s just like it kind of resonates?
Well, what I want you to know, though, is that even if something feels true, that doesn’t mean it’s actually true. It doesn’t mean it’s factual, the truth of the world. It just means that the assumption that you’re having is a thought that you’ve thought so many times that your brain has developed neural pathways that make the thought, or that assumption, automatic, instant and familiar. The familiarity makes it feel true. And that is not the same thing as something being a universal truth of the world.
I really want you to hear that because it is such good news. Because if the assumptions you’re making are not serving you, meaning that they lead you to act in certain ways that hold you back, meaning they create a lot of mental drama or that they create results and circumstances that you don’t want, you get to change your assumptions. You get to change your perspective. You have the power to change your beliefs and the automatic assumptions that your brain makes when it encounters certain goals, challenges, whatever it is that you’re making the assumption about.
And this is something that I help my clients do. I teach them a mindset tool they can use on their own to uncover what these beliefs are and adopt new ones that are going to serve them in helping them feel better and get better results. Or look at what are the beliefs that are really serving them? What are the assumptions we’re making about our business in the world that really do benefit us? Let’s be aware of those so we can make sure that we keep them and use them to support us.
As I was thinking about this concept of assumptions, a few categories came to mind, so that’s what I want to explore next. And I want you to have awareness of these assumptions so that you can recognize them for what they are, assumptions and not truth.
The first category is assumptions you make about yourself. This is really how you perceive yourself or how you think others perceive you. I’ll sometimes talk about this as identity or self-concept. You could think of it as you’re assuming that’s just the way you are or how you do things.
This could come up in a variety of ways. For example, are you assuming you’re bad at marketing and sales? Are you assuming that you’re bad at managing your time? Or are you assuming that you come across as shy or maybe bossy, or somewhere in between? Do you have the assumption that you’ve gotten this far in business by chance or that you were lucky or that your success was a fluke? These are all assumptions, not truth.
I often see designers making assumptions, too, about the industry and their businesses. For example, are you assuming you can only make a certain amount of money? Maybe you’re wrong about that. Or are you assuming that because you’re in the interior design industry, you have to be stressed or constantly available without taking time for you and your personal priorities? Or are you assuming that certain economic conditions means you can’t still market too and sign your dream clients?
And speaking of clients, what are the assumptions you make about your clients? That they don’t trust you? That they don’t value design? That they won’t buy if you sell at your trade pricing? Are you assuming that they won’t wait for you to start their project? And are you assuming that they should know things about your process or the way you set your fees or how you communicate or when you could start the project?
Are you making assumptions about what they should already know about your process or how the fees work or how you sell trade products? Are you assuming that they should know that you can’t immediately start their project? What are you assuming about your clients? And how would that inform how you educate, onboard and communicate with your clients to make for an easier process for all?
Everything I’ve shared are assumptions and they’re optional. And you could be making these assumptions or maybe there are other assumptions that are coming to mind. But let’s look at what are the assumptions that are creating unnecessary issues and challenges for you, both in how you experience your day, how you manage your schedule and projects and even and how much money you’re making.
We have to understand what your assumptions are, so you can consider if those are assumptions you want to hold on to. And if they’re not, we want to work to dismantle them because remember, just because these assumptions feel true does not mean they are true. If you have assumptions that are causing challenges or preventing you from creating the types of results you want in your interior design business, you have to be willing to consider that your assumptions might be wrong.
Your brain is going to want to fight for these assumptions because your brain always would rather be right than happy. But I want to encourage you to take an assumption that you’ve identified after listening to this podcast, and try and poke some holes in it, because you’ll be able to. One of the ways you can do this is ask yourself, how could it be that this isn’t true? If I was wrong about this, how could that be? What evidence could I find to support this other perspective?
And you could also ask, when you’re making assumptions about your clients specifically, whether you’re assuming they think you’re too expensive or taking too long, or whatever it is, how is that just a reflection of what I’m believing about myself? How are you projecting your assumptions and beliefs around speed, money, value, whatever it is onto your clients? And then would you be willing to be wrong about that?
What if the only thing holding you back from running your business in a way that serves your life and your goals, working with the clients you adore and making the income you want is an assumption? What if that’s all it is?
So my challenge for you this week is to pay attention as you’re moving throughout your day to what assumptions you’re making and consider how they might not be true at all. And with that greater awareness, what could open up for you or shift for you in your interior design business if you were willing to drop those assumptions? It could be big.
All right, that’s what I have for you today. Even though I’ll be on fall break next week, you’ll still have me in your ear next week with a brand new episode. And then remember, get your name on the Out Of Overwhelm waitlist so you don’t miss out on the bonuses. I’m going to be talking about what those are specifically, very soon. But just trust me, you’re going to want to be on the list. And as always, I’m wishing you a beautiful week. I’ll talk to you in the next episode.
Have you ever wished I could be your coach? If so, keep listening. For a limited time when you leave a rating and review for the podcast you’ll be entered to win a one-on-one coaching session with me. I can answer your questions and coach you on your unique challenges.
All you have to do is scroll down to the bottom of your podcast app, tap the five stars and leave a review. Tell me your favorite episode, why you look forward to listening every week, or why another designer needs to check out the show. It won’t take long, and as a thank you for leaving a rating and review you’ll have the opportunity to win a private coaching session with me.
Just click the link in the show notes to submit your review so I know how to get in touch. I can’t wait to select a winner and it might be you. I’ll talk to you next week.
Thanks for joining me for this week’s episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies visit www.desicreswell.com. And if you’re ready to take what you’ve learned on the podcast to the next level, I would love for you to check out my signature group coaching program, Out of Overwhelm.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you’re ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you’re in the right place. I’m Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let’s go.
Hello, designer. Welcome back to the podcast, so glad to have you here. Thank you to all of you who have been with me for so long. And welcome to all of the new listeners who have been popping up and joining in the fun. So this has been a pretty big week here for me, I’m recording this on a Friday. The week started off with my daughter being sick, so she was home for two days. And that definitely had me doing a little bit of shuffling and dialing in my priorities even more and deciding what I was going to let go of for the week.
But at the same time, we are headed out tomorrow for a whole week of vacation for our fall break that the kids have off. And we’re going to be exploring national parks that we haven’t been to. And I also had several projects I needed to get in motion so that my team could be working on them while I’m away, as I’m getting ready for the next enrollment period for Out Of Overwhelm.
There’s so much that I do behind the scenes to bring that program to my clients and to open up that enrollment period. And I’ve been coming up with some really valuable ideas that I want to execute on for this particular launch, and that includes some amazing bonuses. Bonuses for those of you who are on the Out Of Overwhelm waitlist, bonuses for my alumni members and for those of you who decide to join me early and say, “Yes, I am doing this for myself.”
Enrollment is opening up November 13th, earlier for the waitlist and for my alums, and we’re going to kick off January of 2024. And there have been updates to the program I’ve been making, additional resources and bonuses and there’s also going to be the ability to add on one-on-one coaching to the signature group program, which I know some of you’ve been asking for.
So get on the waitlist, the link is in the show notes. That is how you’re going to be the first to hear about when enrollment is opening and how you can claim one of the very limited spots in the program because I keep it small to keep it intimate. And there is a bonus that is going to be such a time saver for you that you’re only going to have access to if you’re on the waitlist. So the main point is get on the waitlist so you don’t miss it.
Today, what I want to talk to you about is this idea of assumptions. And it’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about as I’ve been doing that behind the scenes work for the open enrollment period of Out Of Overwhelm, what assumptions am I making? I’ve been running this program for over three years now and so I know it inside and out. And I have to make sure that I am not making assumptions about what you know about the program, when you’re hearing about it and the details of how to secure your spot.
Because those assumptions that I make might be the difference between you getting the support you need because I’ve covered all the ground, or staying stuck in current patterns and challenges because I’ve made assumptions about certain things that you need to know, learn, and understand about how that process works, about how enrollment works, about how the program works that keeps you from getting the help that you want.
And I thought this would be the perfect time to talk about how when we make assumptions, it can create a lot of issues for us, a lot of issues for our clients and create a lot of challenges in our business. So I want to talk about what assumptions are, how to spot them, and really how they’re a reflection of your beliefs, some of which you might want to question. So we’re going to dive into all of that today.
Let’s first just begin by what exactly is an assumption to make sure we’re on the same page here. The way that I define it is that an assumption is a thought or a belief that you accept as true or as certain to happen. What I mean by certain to happen is you’re expecting it to happen. It’s like an A plus B equals C. So that would be part of an assumption.
Sometimes we make these assumptions based on evidence of things that we’ve encountered, things that have been said to us or that we’ve read. But often we don’t even have proof of these assumptions, we just think that they’re true because they feel true. You know that feeling of feeling true where it’s just like it kind of resonates?
Well, what I want you to know, though, is that even if something feels true, that doesn’t mean it’s actually true. It doesn’t mean it’s factual, the truth of the world. It just means that the assumption that you’re having is a thought that you’ve thought so many times that your brain has developed neural pathways that make the thought, or that assumption, automatic, instant and familiar. The familiarity makes it feel true. And that is not the same thing as something being a universal truth of the world.
I really want you to hear that because it is such good news. Because if the assumptions you’re making are not serving you, meaning that they lead you to act in certain ways that hold you back, meaning they create a lot of mental drama or that they create results and circumstances that you don’t want, you get to change your assumptions. You get to change your perspective. You have the power to change your beliefs and the automatic assumptions that your brain makes when it encounters certain goals, challenges, whatever it is that you’re making the assumption about.
And this is something that I help my clients do. I teach them a mindset tool they can use on their own to uncover what these beliefs are and adopt new ones that are going to serve them in helping them feel better and get better results. Or look at what are the beliefs that are really serving them? What are the assumptions we’re making about our business in the world that really do benefit us? Let’s be aware of those so we can make sure that we keep them and use them to support us.
As I was thinking about this concept of assumptions, a few categories came to mind, so that’s what I want to explore next. And I want you to have awareness of these assumptions so that you can recognize them for what they are, assumptions and not truth.
The first category is assumptions you make about yourself. This is really how you perceive yourself or how you think others perceive you. I’ll sometimes talk about this as identity or self-concept. You could think of it as you’re assuming that’s just the way you are or how you do things.
This could come up in a variety of ways. For example, are you assuming you’re bad at marketing and sales? Are you assuming that you’re bad at managing your time? Or are you assuming that you come across as shy or maybe bossy, or somewhere in between? Do you have the assumption that you’ve gotten this far in business by chance or that you were lucky or that your success was a fluke? These are all assumptions, not truth.
I often see designers making assumptions, too, about the industry and their businesses. For example, are you assuming you can only make a certain amount of money? Maybe you’re wrong about that. Or are you assuming that because you’re in the interior design industry, you have to be stressed or constantly available without taking time for you and your personal priorities? Or are you assuming that certain economic conditions means you can’t still market too and sign your dream clients?
And speaking of clients, what are the assumptions you make about your clients? That they don’t trust you? That they don’t value design? That they won’t buy if you sell at your trade pricing? Are you assuming that they won’t wait for you to start their project? And are you assuming that they should know things about your process or the way you set your fees or how you communicate or when you could start the project?
Are you making assumptions about what they should already know about your process or how the fees work or how you sell trade products? Are you assuming that they should know that you can’t immediately start their project? What are you assuming about your clients? And how would that inform how you educate, onboard and communicate with your clients to make for an easier process for all?
Everything I’ve shared are assumptions and they’re optional. And you could be making these assumptions or maybe there are other assumptions that are coming to mind. But let’s look at what are the assumptions that are creating unnecessary issues and challenges for you, both in how you experience your day, how you manage your schedule and projects and even and how much money you’re making.
We have to understand what your assumptions are, so you can consider if those are assumptions you want to hold on to. And if they’re not, we want to work to dismantle them because remember, just because these assumptions feel true does not mean they are true. If you have assumptions that are causing challenges or preventing you from creating the types of results you want in your interior design business, you have to be willing to consider that your assumptions might be wrong.
Your brain is going to want to fight for these assumptions because your brain always would rather be right than happy. But I want to encourage you to take an assumption that you’ve identified after listening to this podcast, and try and poke some holes in it, because you’ll be able to. One of the ways you can do this is ask yourself, how could it be that this isn’t true? If I was wrong about this, how could that be? What evidence could I find to support this other perspective?
And you could also ask, when you’re making assumptions about your clients specifically, whether you’re assuming they think you’re too expensive or taking too long, or whatever it is, how is that just a reflection of what I’m believing about myself? How are you projecting your assumptions and beliefs around speed, money, value, whatever it is onto your clients? And then would you be willing to be wrong about that?
What if the only thing holding you back from running your business in a way that serves your life and your goals, working with the clients you adore and making the income you want is an assumption? What if that’s all it is?
So my challenge for you this week is to pay attention as you’re moving throughout your day to what assumptions you’re making and consider how they might not be true at all. And with that greater awareness, what could open up for you or shift for you in your interior design business if you were willing to drop those assumptions? It could be big.
All right, that’s what I have for you today. Even though I’ll be on fall break next week, you’ll still have me in your ear next week with a brand new episode. And then remember, get your name on the Out Of Overwhelm waitlist so you don’t miss out on the bonuses. I’m going to be talking about what those are specifically, very soon. But just trust me, you’re going to want to be on the list. And as always, I’m wishing you a beautiful week. I’ll talk to you in the next episode.
Have you ever wished I could be your coach? If so, keep listening. For a limited time when you leave a rating and review for the podcast you’ll be entered to win a one-on-one coaching session with me. I can answer your questions and coach you on your unique challenges.
All you have to do is scroll down to the bottom of your podcast app, tap the five stars and leave a review. Tell me your favorite episode, why you look forward to listening every week, or why another designer needs to check out the show. It won’t take long, and as a thank you for leaving a rating and review you’ll have the opportunity to win a private coaching session with me.
Just click the link in the show notes to submit your review so I know how to get in touch. I can’t wait to select a winner and it might be you. I’ll talk to you next week.
Thanks for joining me for this week’s episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies visit www.desicreswell.com. And if you’re ready to take what you’ve learned on the podcast to the next level, I would love for you to check out my signature group coaching program, Out of Overwhelm.
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