The Studio CEO: Business Coaching For Yoga & Pilates Teachers & Studio Owners

Q&A Episode: The biggest obstacle to overcome & what do you when you want to quit

• Jackie Murphy

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Ever felt like walking away from your studio? That “I can’t do this anymore” moment might hold more wisdom than you think. This episode isn’t about pushing through burnout—it’s about listening to what those quitting thoughts are really trying to tell you.

Most studio owners think they need better marketing or pricing. But what’s often missing is the deeper self-concept work—the quiet, internal shift that changes everything. If you’ve ever asked, “Who am I to charge that much?” or “Maybe I’m just not cut out for this,” this conversation is for you.

Inside this episode:

  • Why the urge to quit is actually an invitation
  • The mindset blocks keeping you stuck (and how to move through them)
  • A 3-part framework to reconnect with your role as a leader
  • How to stop strategy-hopping and start building from a place of alignment

We’re pulling back the curtain on what it really looks like to lead through the hard seasons—and how to come back to yourself in the process.

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Speaker 1:

This one is for the moments when it all feels too big or your launch feels too quiet, when the studio is only half full, when motivation is gone and you find yourself questioning why you even started in the first place. If you are in need of some motivation and overcoming wanting to quit it all, then this episode is exactly what you need. Welcome to the Studio CEO, the only podcast that empowers yoga and Pilates teachers and studio owners to step confidently into their role as CEO. If you are ready to show up with passion, take your business seriously and scale to new heights without burning out, you are in the right place. I'm your host, Jackie Murphy, an award-winning certified business coach with over 12 years of experience inside the yoga industry. I have seen firsthand what it takes to build a profitable and scalable business and scalable business. Join me as we dive into strategies, insights and real-world advice that will help you grow your revenue, build a thriving team and create a business that serves you as much as you serve your students. It's time to embrace your inner CEO and make more money without working more. This is just the beginning. Hello and welcome back to the Studio CEO Podcast.

Speaker 1:

I am your business coach, jackie Murphy, and recently on my Instagram, I put out a Q&A box that said I'm going to do a Q&A podcast episode Ask me anything that you would like to know. And there were two questions that were submitted on the same day, at the same time, that I actually think go hand in hand, that we are going to talk about in this episode. So one of those questions was Jackie, what is the biggest obstacle that you help your clients overcome? And the second question was what do you personally do when you feel defeated and you want to quit? And I think those two questions go hand in hand. So I want to answer both of them within this episode and I'll just go ahead and tell you this is not going to be like a five steps to success type episode. This is going to be more like a conversation that we would have on the floor of your studio after the classes are done, barefoot cup of coffee or tea in hand. After the classes are done, barefoot cup of coffee or tea in hand, talking about how to keep you going, how to step back from the cliff of burnout and come back to the passion that you once had for your business.

Speaker 1:

So the first question what is the biggest obstacle I help people overcome, the biggest obstacle that people want help with is strategy. Always, this is something that I see with clients and I've seen this for almost five, six years now is that most people will lead with a strategy question or seeking some sort of strategy and I don't want you to get me wrong like working on your strategy for marketing, working on your pricing structure or your offer suite. That is incredibly important, but sometimes that can actually be solving the quote unquote easier problem. This like superficial, surface level problem that won't really change or help you create the results that you want in your business, because there's always going to be a different strategy that you can try and that will always shift. But the part that really changes everything, the real work that is often more uncomfortable to do, is self-concept work. So, specifically, the biggest obstacle that I help people overcome is helping them remember who they are and helping them lead from that place. Here's what I see over and over again I see a yoga teacher who just has a gift for delivering a beautiful class come to me, always second guessing her pricing if she can charge that much. Her pricing, if she can charge that much. Or I see a studio owner with such a loyal community that is afraid to raise rates, create boundaries or offer some sort of premium value offer. Or I see a retreat leader who holds space for absolutely everyone else but she doesn't believe that she should be allowed to take up space herself. So what's behind all of those examples? The common thing that most of my clients have and the obstacle that we work to overcome is their beliefs, their beliefs about themselves, specifically something along the lines of, like I'm not ready or I'm not experienced enough, or who am I to do that? That would be impossible for me. So we help clients build six and seven figure businesses, and you can't do that without strategy. So we give the strategy, but what we're really doing is rebuilding their self-concept from the inside out, because when you see yourself as a leader, your energy is going to shift and your audience is going to respond to that and your business moves. It's not magic, it's just alignment.

Speaker 1:

I want to give an example. Today I was coaching one of my clients inside of the program that I offer and she came to me and she wants to take her membership up a little bit. She wants more members in her business and she specifically brought all of this to the call and she was like I don't know if it's possible in my area. Do people even really want this? I don't really know if people want this. And then her question that she asked was how do I get more people registered for Saturday? So this huge thing that's kind of sitting within her, this thing that we have to coach on, we have to talk about, almost got pushed aside to talk about just the strategy piece of things how do I get more people registered? What can I do this week to get more people registered by Saturday? And I'm not.

Speaker 1:

This client is an example that just happened to happen today. Otherwise I would have tons of different examples, and I'm saying this from a place of love. But you can see in that moment that we're pushing aside the real core issue to solve a short-term quick fix. If you find yourself looking for hacks, looking for quick fixes, looking for quick wins, that might be a sign that you are only looking to solve strategy and you aren't taking it a layer deeper, a level deeper, to say who do I need to become to easily identify strategies to use, commit to one and then follow it through, because if you can answer that question. Then you'll stop strategy seeking, you'll stop strategy hopping and you'll finally be able to embody the leadership that you need in order to create the business that you want to have.

Speaker 1:

So, for this client specifically, we sat and we worked on what do we need to believe about her and her value, and what do we need to believe about her offer and who wants it, so that her self-concept can be of someone who's running a successful business, who is overcoming common problems that every single business has, like membership turning, and who is able to accomplish that and accomplish their big goals. Something that I told this client was if you have a big goal, if you have a dream that you want to accomplish in your life, one I really, really don't believe that that's an accident. I think if you have the desire, you have the dream, then it is meant for you. But if you have that dream and desire and then you're constantly internally telling yourself that it is impossible, you are in a lose-lose situation because the desire and the dream isn't going to go away and even if you push it aside and stuff it down and try to ignore it, it eventually will pop back up in some way, shape or form. So that's not going to go away.

Speaker 1:

And if you're telling yourself that it's impossible, that you aren't the person who can accomplish that, that your business isn't the type of business that can do X, y and Z, then you are fighting this dream. That is meant for you. You wouldn't have it if it wasn't meant for you. It would not be possible for someone who didn't want it. But because you want it, because you desire it, that is proof that it can be possible for someone who didn't want it. But because you want it, because you desire it, that is proof that it can be possible for you.

Speaker 1:

So if you're in the place of struggling with that, of seeing that okay, you know you're strategy hunting, you're strategy hopping I want you to know that the best thing that you can do for yourself is really start to think about how you are thinking about yourself. Are you seeing yourself as the exact leader that is meant for your business, that is meant for your community? Are you seeing yourself as capable and able and strong and willing to overcome any challenges that business throws your way? One of the interesting things about this conversation I had with a client was she was beating herself up internally, making herself wrong for a common industry average, that once I could tell her hey, this happens in every business, this isn't a you specific thing she was able to drop some of that internal struggle. If the internal struggle can soften and lighten, then you will start to find yourself being more curious, creative, compassionate and resilient in your business in the long run. And if that's how you show up, this is how you guarantee a business that is sustainable over years and years and years and years.

Speaker 1:

So, coming to the second question that I was asked, like, what do I do when I want to quit? And I think that, wanting to quit your business, we have to normalize it. We have to just normalize the fact that that thought is going to hit you once you hit a certain level in business. And once you hit the next level in business and once life changes and this happens and that happens, this idea that you get to a point in business and everything clicks and you've got clients and income and momentum, momentum, and you never think about quitting ever again, like you're off in the sunset and everything's just rainbows and butterflies. We have to just dismantle that completely. It is sold to you, but I want you to know that thinking about quitting your business is very real, it's very normal and it does need to be looked at and considered. The last thing that you want to do is push it aside and avoid it and say don't think that, don't look at that, pretend that's not there because it's probably coming up for some sort of reasons.

Speaker 1:

So I have had days where I, you know, have looked at my business and just thought, oh my gosh, I should just shut all of this down today. I have had moments after client calls where I questioned like, oh my gosh, was that helpful? Did I say the right thing, do the right thing? I've had seasons I'm in one right now where my personal life has kind of cracked open and I've had to keep showing up in the middle of it. So what do I do when I want to quit? Number one I get still and I get quiet. So I don't disappear because I really treat my business like a job. So there are days when you are going to want to quit your job if you have a nine to five and you still show up and you still go, even if the desire to quit is there. So I get quiet, but I don't disappear and I listen to the truth that's underneath the desire to quit.

Speaker 1:

So I stop trying to solve it within my head and this is when I go into my body and I'm like what am I feeling? Where's the feeling? What needs attention, what needs to be felt, what needs to be processed? Am I out of integrity with something? And I get really curious. I actually do this so often that I have included an emotional unblocking meditation within the program, because I know that this is going to come up for everybody. And so having the just meditation to pop on to say, okay, there's an emotion in my body that needs to be felt and needs to be processed before I can get back to the strategy head stuff and just sometimes that alone is enough, right, like sometimes the awareness and calling out and naming the thing that's going on is all that needs to and just saying, oh, look at this, I'm feeling this, this makes sense, this is what I need, this is what I want, that's all that needs to happen. And sometimes that can bring up something more that needs attention, that needs strategy, that needs reworking. And that is when I treat this as a much longer conversation in a long game issue.

Speaker 1:

So I want you to think about, like, when you are really wanting to quit, when are you giving yourself time and space to get quiet, listen to it and feel it and then, once you felt it, you'll either know, okay, like the feeling has dissipated, I feel some relief and I can keep going, or like, oh no, this is something I deeply need to pay attention to and might need to make some tweaks and shifts. When that happens, I want you to let it be messy. You don't need to toss out your whole business, I promise you, but you might need to create more space in some ways. You might need to realign, you might need to rework, reorder. You might need to realign. You might need to rework, reorder. You might need to set more boundaries, there might need to be some adjustment and you have to sit in the discomfort and let the data tell you something. Don't make quitting a solution. When you are just in a temporary moment of discomfort, there's not power running from it. So when you want to quit, you can take it as a sign that like, okay, something needs to shift.

Speaker 1:

Not everything is working, and that is business. That is business all of the time. One of my favorite things to do here is to get out a journal and write down every option of how I could tweak or how I could pivot within my mind. So this could be like okay, option number one shut everything down, refund every client, shut it down. This could be stop the podcast that was on my list at one time. This could be hire. This could be take a vacation. This could be rework offer structure. There's a million different things that could be.

Speaker 1:

And the point is that you let yourself think of all of the different ways that you can pivot and tweak to get back into alignment for what works for you. And I will tell you, like your first couple of ideas are probably not going to be great, but when you get to like the 30th idea, there's going to feel a sense of power and relief of knowing that you have control over your situation and there are tweaks and pivots that you can make. Here's the caveat with this you do not go immediately into making these tweaks and pivots. I highly, highly, highly, highly highly suggest that you bring that list and your proposed shift to a business coach, to a mentor, to someone who's been there before you who can say, hey, objectively, looking at this, here's what I see, or here's what we could do or hell. Yes, this makes so much sense. Let's create out a strategic plan for it.

Speaker 1:

I don't want you to rush out of discomfort. I want you to allow it, get curious about it and then make long-term strategic changes that support you in the life that you want to have and support the business that you want to have. Sometimes, when we're in discomfort and we make a quick change because we are feeling that overwhelm, we're making a decision that can harm the business in the long run. So you have to make sure your business is your baby. You got to make sure you're taking care of the baby and you're taking care of yourself, and there is always a way to do both.

Speaker 1:

Now the third thing is that you come back to service. All of you started your businesses because you deeply care about the service that you're offering. It's been life-changing, it's been transformative. You have experienced it from the inside out and you want to share it with the world. And so come back to the heart of why you created your business. This could be opening your DMs and seeing messages from clients. I had an OBM, an online business manager, once. Create a folder for me in my inbox that says you're doing a great job and anytime we got like a testimonial from a client or just a kind email, she would put it in that folder so that if I needed just a moment to go to like, oh, I'm making a difference, like this is working. This isn't about me, this is about the people that I'm serving I would go to that folder and I would read through those messages and I think about my clients. I think about the women in my world who are building something beautiful, who've asked me and are trusting me to help them, and I go back to this isn't about me, it never was. This isn't about me. It never was. When the business is hard, you can return to the people, because that's where the energy always is.

Speaker 1:

Now, this next little thing. What do we want to call this? This next little piece of advice? I told you this is a conversation. This isn't written out.

Speaker 1:

The next little piece of advice I want to give you is from Esther Perel and it's regarding marriages. But Esther Perel says there is no right or wrong reason to stay married and I think, especially in a marriage, we can think these are the right reasons to stay married. These are the wrong reasons to stay married. I want to take that same concept and offer it to you for your business. There is no right or wrong reason to stay in your business. Some days you're going to be so lit up by service and your students and the impact that you're making and we could very easily want to deem that the quote unquote right way to stay, right reason to stay in your business. And some days you're going to check your bank account and you're going to stay in your business because an extra 400 bucks a month for your family to buy groceries is actually really important at this current moment. Or hey, maybe you're going to stay in your business because you want to be able to do X, y and Z in your future with your finances, and so that's why we're in business and I don't want you to think that's the wrong reason to stay.

Speaker 1:

But when you think about your reasons to stay in your business, whatever reason comes up for that day, just be like you know that is my reason for today and I'm taking quitting off the table for now, and that for now, maybe for the day, that's okay. That for now, maybe for three months, for six months, for a year, and you just take it off the table and you give yourself the kind of boundary of hey brain, you can stop romanticizing quitting. You can stop obsessing and thinking about should I quit, should I stay, should I quit, should I stay, should I quit, should I stay? And instead just decide, for whatever reason, that you are staying and you'll revisit in six months time and see if you want to make a new decision. That will give you so much time and space and freedom to actually be in your business and see what it's like without having one foot in and one foot out.

Speaker 1:

Now, as you stay in business, I think the desire to quit does get less and less and less. At least for me, it's very temporary when it comes up now because I am so committed to my business and I am so connected to like. This supports me, it supports my clients, it supports my life, it supports my family. There's just not a lot of reasons for me to quit. But even with all of that, there will be days where I'm like, oh my gosh, being a stay-at-home mom and baking bread this is always my like go-to fantasy. I'm a stay-at-home mom, I'm baking bread, my kids never cry, they play outside all day and they're happy and life would be amazing that thought comes up. One, I reality check it. That's not how it would play out. Two, because I am so committed to my business, even if it comes up, I don't give it much airtime.

Speaker 1:

I recently saw someone um talk about this of like first round of thoughts. Second round of thoughts. Like your first round of thoughts are reactive. Your second round of thoughts are going to be more responsive. So a first round thought may be like we should quit. This is too much. Then your response, your second round of thought, might be like actually, here's our reasons for staying, here's what we want to do. Yes, give yourself time and space and you can reevaluate and you can tweak if you need to. But like this is why we're committed to this business.

Speaker 1:

The other thing is that if you are like getting to the point where you want to quit, what I would ask yourself is have I built a business that I can sell? Because all of the work and all of the effort and all of the energy, I want for you, in the long run, to have been an investment. And so, if you are wanting to quit, I want you to think about okay, let's make this a strategic exit, let's find potential buyers, let's look at my profitability, let's see if I can sell this business for X, y and Z, and if I can't do, I want to make sure that the time and energy and effort that I've put into this so far is going to come back to me versus just walking away from it. I want you to be paid for the work that you've done, because it is not easy to get a business going and growing and scaling. And so keep in mind like, hey, if quitting really is what I want to do, can I do it in a strategic way that's going to benefit me and my students, because that is also an option for you and your business.

Speaker 1:

So, closing reflections of this podcast, you don't need to become someone different to grow your business. You don't need to search for another strategy. You don't need to wait to really feel like a leader, the one thing that you do need to do right now, in this moment. Let my voice remind you who you are. You are the exact right leader and teacher for your students, for your business, for your community. It is not a mistake that you are where you are today, with the desires and the dreams that you have in your heart. You have been called for a purpose and for a reason. This is not an accident and so move from that place that maybe even with doubt, even with discomfort, even with the desire to want to quit sometimes that you will either already have the skills that you need to create a successful business or you are capable of acquiring those skills, like maybe this podcast landed in your lap at the perfect moment to help you acquire the skills that you need to have the strategy that can keep you going to be the podcast that helps you remember that you are a leader and then let your business reflect that evolution of yourself.

Speaker 1:

If your business isn't transforming you, if it's not asking you to be a leader, then you are probably stuck on the superficial strategy level and I don't want you stuck there for long.

Speaker 1:

So if you are in a season where you are rebuilding, redefining or just feeling a little wobbly and wondering what's next, you're not behind. You are just becoming. You are becoming the studio CEO, and you don't have to do it alone. You should be able to get strategy and support and you should be able to be in a place where your leadership grows in real time If you are ready for that next level of where you want to go, I want to invite you to the Studio CEO program. We will link the program in the show notes, but this is where you can access support. Enroll in the program and access support within the next five minutes so that when you have these moments of doubt, the confusion around the strategy, the desire to want to quit, you have someone else to turn to, because you can gift yourself support in your business and it makes it so much more fun and so much more sustainable. I'll see you inside the Studio CEO program.