Your brain is sabotaging your brand. Here’s how.

We’re all familiar with the phrase: “You are your own worst enemy.” We feel it when we hit snooze instead of going to the gym or when we spend another lunch break scrolling social media instead of reading a book. But have you ever considered this phrase being true about your branding?

I’ll be honest: I never thought of the relationship between my brain and my brand until I sat down to write this post. Yet as I was thinking of common struggles entrepreneurs face with branding, I realized that there is often a shared root cause of them all: ourselves.

Our subconscious minds are deep places, aren’t they? We’re all too familiar with how we trap ourselves into unhealthy patterns, false narratives, or unhelpful beliefs about ourselves or the world, and we’re even aware when these deeply-rooted thoughts creep into our businesses. Yet when it comes to our best efforts to work on the very essence of our businesses—our branding—we easily point the finger to any number of external factors that we think are holding us back.

No finger-pointing here: I’m writing all of these from a place of experiencing every single one of these sabotaging symptoms myself. These phenomena are universal experiences, so with that in mind:

With the firm belief that awareness allows us to identify and address problems sooner than if we’d remained in the dark, let’s uncover the ways that your own brain is sabotaging your brand.

You’re too close to your own brand to see it clearly

Have you ever heard a voice recording of yourself and thought, “My gosh, is that what I really sound like to other people?!”.

This phenomenon is caused by the sound waves echoing through our own heads transmitting to our own ears differently than when others hear us. In other words: you did sound like Minnie Mouse on that podcast episode recording.

It’s hard to see your brand clearly and objectively when it’s an integral part of your daily life. And for any entrepreneur, your brand is in a sense an extension of who you are: your heart for serving, your why for starting your own business in the first place. 

It’s hard to see our own brands as clearly and objectively as an outside perspective can provide.

It’s all in our own heads, and since it makes sense to us (well, for the most part), surely it must make sense to others, right? We either make broad assumptions that our audience is on the same wavelength as us, or we experience extreme writer’s block when we sit down to revamp our website copy.

To overcome your own proximity bias to your branding, it’s critical to seek outside help. Ask some painfully honest friends how they interpret your brand messaging. Keep your ears open to the common complaints your clients share when they talk about the problems that you can help resolve for them. Or hire an outside consultant to provide that outside perspective that brings clarity to your brand strategy.

Your imposter syndrome is sabotaging your branding confidence

It’s a typical Tuesday afternoon, your second cup of coffee for the day has already worn off, and you’re scrolling Instagram in between responding to emails: and then you see it.

They just launched their new brand design, and it looks so. much. better. than. yours. 

(Or at least that’s what you’re telling yourself.)

The trendy fonts have you all starry-eyed; the color palette is swoon-worthy; and suddenly you’re envisioning all of your own clients or customers totally booking with them instead of you because their shade of teal is more on-trend than yours.

Hello, our old friend: imposter syndrome. That’s right, your brand isn’t worse than theirs (or if it actually is, maybe it's time for a rebrand?). Your brain is just playing the comparison game, reflecting your own insecurities about not being good enough or why would they hire me or buy my products.

Imposter syndrome causes us to lose confidence in ourselves, and we project those insecurities onto our branding. We compare ourselves to others and find that we’re constantly “falling short” of an impossible standard.

I frequently hear from potential clients during our discovery call that they’re uncertain about their current branding, that it’s just not on the same level as their competitors and that they’re constantly wanting to “tweak” it.

The cure? Building your brand on a strategic foundation.

When you know what strategic, intentional message your brand’s visual identity is trying to communicate through fonts, logos, and colors, you remove your brain’s tendency to compare and project your insecurities onto your branding decisions. You’re able to build and grow your brand’s identity based on thoughtful, meaningful choices, which brings confidence and clarity to your branding process.

You’re not working in your zone of genius

I think my subconscious was telling me something when I fell in love with and married a man with an accounting degree: I’m not good with numbers.

Sure, I got a relatively high score in math on my high school ACT, but as soon as I was no longer prohibited from whipping out a calculator to solve simple math equations, I abandoned the left-brained studies for those of the right-brained.

If you’ve ever felt drained, bored, or frustrated when working in a skill set that’s not your strongest, then you’re not working in what the business world calls your “zone of genius”. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re bad at that skill; it just means it doesn’t light you up and utilize your unique strengths to their best advantage. In other words, if you’re like me, you make your husband handle all communication with your tax advisor.

If you’re still trying to DIY your branding, chances are you’re not working in your zone of genius, which is costing you not only time but also mental and emotional energy. And I know you’re too busy for that.

If you’re spending hours on a single Instagram post design; hunting through your cluttered desktop folders to find your logo file; or frustratedly wondering “how do I know what colors should look good together?!”—branding is probably not in your zone of genius, and you’re expending unnecessary mental energy to push a square peg into a round hole.

For the record, I’m not against DIY branding by any means (in fact, I’ve got a blog post with ALL my juiciest DIY branding tips!). But keep in mind that as your business grows, if branding isn’t in your zone of genius, you’ll want to offload it ASAP in order to free up your best mental energies for doing what you do best: running, growing, and scaling your amazing business.

Your fear of failure is fueling your fear of investing in yourself

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: fear of failure.

Whether it’s our parents telling us our businesses will never amount to anything or it’s the voice in our own heads telling us we’re “no good at running a business”, fear of failure is a universal experience for every single one of us entrepreneurs.

And this fear of failure oh-so-sneakily sabotages our branding in a fear of investing in ourselves.

Our fear of failure fuels our fear of investing in our branding: we fear making the wrong decision, losing resources, or—most insidiously—we fear investing in a business that we don’t know if we have what it takes to make successful.

As you can see, if you follow the thread behind your fears of taking risks and growing your brand to the next level, it’s not as much a financial decision as it is an emotional one. It takes an immense amount of courage to trade time, resources, and trust in someone else to invest in your branding. And it takes even more faith in yourself as the leader of your business that not only is your business worth investing in, but you yourself are worth investing in. That you do have what it takes to run your business in a way that is authentic and specific to you and your unique path.

So, friend, whose voice are you going to listen to? The voice of fear and self-doubt certainly hasn’t gotten you to where you are in your business. That has been all you. It’s time to kick fear of failure, imposter syndrome, and self-sabotage to the curb and instead step out boldly and bravely.

If you’re recognizing that it’s time to bring in an outside perspective and take a step of faith into investing in your brand and yourself, we’d love to walk with you. Download our pricing guide to learn more about our branding offerings and begin this new chapter in your business with us!