What to do when things feel like they’re going backwards

So I woke up this week and lost 150 followers overnight. Sigh…

But what happened next was not what I expected at all. I did one tiny thing, took me less than five minutes, and the results genuinely shocked me.

Come listen. I think this one’s going to stick with you 🥂

Let’s go with this ⬆️ 

👉 Read this!
👉 DM me on Instagram — what are you writing on your whiteboard?

Transcript

Okay, I wanna talk about something so relevant today that I think a lot of us just need this little, mm, like let's go, let's light up that rocket and just get out of our own way. I feel this is really gonna be such, hopefully, an inspiring episode for you to do the same. And you guys know every time I am jumping on the mic, there's something that I've done this week that I also get so excited about sharing out with all of you, and you guys are just amazing. But first, did you guys hear about Instagram this week? If you are an Instagram entrepreneur, as in you grow your brand using Instagram, this week Instagram did a mass purge of bots, of fake accounts, of old inactive accounts, and some people lost hundreds of followers like me, literally whoosh, like gone. And I remember waking up going, "What the hell just happened?" Like, I was on track to hitting, you know, the next milestone, and then like literally I think I lost about 100, maybe like t- not 200, maybe 150 followers overnight. And I know that some people had lost thousands, and then others, like superstars and all that, popular people and famous people lost hundreds and thousands of people. So, um, that happened. If that happened to you also and you haven't heard the news, that's why it may seem like your followers just went down overnight. I think Adam Mosseri went online and said, "Oops," like, "We didn't know it was gonna happen like in one whoosh." It was supposed to have happened gradually, so next time he's like, "It won't happen so drastically, or we'll warn you guys that this is coming up and this is happening." Anyway, I wanna talk to you about this for a second because it really spurred on this whole episode and what I wanna talk about, and what that did in terms of the reaction that people had and what they were telling me. Because I know that if you've built a sense of safety in your business on the number next to your name on an app, and that number disappeared overnight, that is a very confronting moment. And it's not because the followers mattered to you necessarily. I mean, of course there's always gonna be a level of ego and a level of social proof that you wanted attached to your brand name, but also because it showed you where you were placing your power. And I, you know, woke up the next day, lost hundreds of followers, close to hundreds of followers, and realized that, you know what? Like, wow, why do I care so much about this? And it kind of annoyed me/upset me that I cared so much, to be honest. I was messaging a friend of mine and I'm like, "Did you lose lots of people or was it just me?" And I'm like, "What did I even do? I haven't even really been posting anything controversial, or is it just boring that like 100 people overnight decided I was boring?" You know, and I know a ton of you are showing up, and you've been creating content, and you've been growing your audience, and then suddenly the scoreboard doesn't reflect, you know, the things that you're wanting it to reflect, especially, right, if your sales have been down. And then this just feels like another big hit to your confidence levels, and it feels super demoralizing. And I get it. You know, it's this sense of, am I being graded on something that has just changed overnight on me? And it's almost as though, you know, the marketing criteria has shifted from underneath you without telling you. But I want you to be reminded that it was always vanity. We didn't just want to say that out loud ever, but it was always vanity. Even Adam Mosseri said it will not actually affect your engagement rates. In fact, it should, you know, kind of stay the same, if not go up, because those people were inactive anyhow. They were never real. They were never people who were going to buy from you. They were never people who were gonna collaborate with you. The followers are never the business model. The relationship was the business, okay? So you've gotta trust the business. You've gotta trust the relationships that you have online. And if you're not someone who likes reaching out, who likes DM-ing, who likes building a community online, then I feel that maybe this type of business might not be for you. And I know that sounds really harsh, but here we are in 2026, a social media following without you interacting and reaching out and having, not even, like, deep conversations, guys. It doesn't really go that deep. But just having a level of back and forth. You know, I've said many times, a lot of my high-ticket clients have come about because we're just, like, exchanging memes with one another, or we're laughing about dumb shit together online and, you know, you find a level of common ground. Just something to connect you with the number that's next to your name on a social media following actually goes such a long way. So anyway, if this week did sting a little bit because of all the reasons that I've already said, I want you to use that to your own advantage, and I wanna show you where perhaps you may have been outsourcing your power or your sense of power to this thing, and how there's one way that you can take that back. Because I have to say, I was really discouraged, you know? And I was like, "Oh my God." I was saying to my husband, "Oh, it just sucks," because I see a loss of followers as money, and, uh, let me explain. I have run boosted ads. I've run, you know, even, like, Meta ads. A lot of my time, time is money. I've put so much behind it with, you know, just, like, even, not so much lately, but when I used to get social media help from my assistant, you know, and I'd have to pay her. That was money. I see all of that kind of gone in one sense of, well, I've just put, put so much investment behind something, and all of a sudden it's like hundreds of people just left. Again, not real people, but that's how my mind went. But, you know, I use that as a level of excitement for me, and it wasn't easy to turn that from annoyance to excitement, but more just like, you know what? This is working out in my favor. Everything is always orchestrated towards my divine goals and my favor. Because this is exactly, honestly, what I've been doing this week, and I wanna show you, and I wanna share it with all of you because the results have been actually kind of staggering and amazing, honestly. So I dusted out my old whiteboard. I have this whiteboard that a lot of my clients give me shit for because it is such a small, tiny whiteboard. It's actually... It's probably like A1 size, maybe slightly bigger. It sits really beautifully on my desk, and I can see it behind my laptop as we speak. And right at the top of my whiteboard, I have the tarot cards that I pulled for the week, and then I've got the, um, just like a statement that I want, and the statement is "50K May." I just thought, "Oh, that kind of rolls off my tongue." 50K May. And I've been in a really intentional place around this goal. I wrote it on my whiteboard. I said it out loud. I decided that this was the month that this would be very easy to hit 50K, and I see it every day. There's something to be said around brain science by, you know, seeing the thing that you want every single day, which is why dream boards or vision boards on your lock screen is such a big player for the subconscious mind. Seeing your goals up front is such a big player for your subconscious mind. And then I did something that almost felt like so embarrassingly simple. I wrote down the names of the people that I really wanted to work with, either again or work with for the first time, and these were real people's names. They were people I already knew. They were people that I was exchanging dumb jokes on the internet and sending silly memes and people that I had worked with before years and years ago, or people that... You know, I don't know if you feel this also, but I can always sense when someone's energy is around me. Even online, I can sense when they're checking out my stuff. I can sense that they're about to message me or they're checking out my sales pages, and sometimes it is like the actual evidence. You know, people are literally writing to me saying, "Hey, I'm thinking about working with you." But sometimes it's in other ways, like their names pop up in my mind as I'm running at the gym, like I kid you not. Or I will see a post of theirs on my feed, and I haven't seen their posts for a really long time. I'm like, "Oh my God, I wonder how Jenny's doing." And then Jenny's name will be in my mind. So I write down their names on this whiteboard, and next to their names, obviously, I'm checking out what they've been doing and, and just sort of stalking them online a little bit and seeing where things are at if I had worked with them before in prior weeks, months or years. And if they're new, I'm like, "Oh my God, I would love to be an advisor into their business." And I write down the offer next to their name. You know, I write down like what I would love to work... where I would love to have them. So it could be inside of the Daily Sales Mastermind. I'd love to catch up with them every two weeks. I'd love to have a one-to-one call with them. Others, I think, "Oh my gosh, wouldn't it be great to have a one-on-one in-person day with them?" I have a feeling they would be willing to travel to the Gold Coast. I could put a day on for them. I could make it a whole vibe and just really talk about where I see their business going, and then scoping out something for them, and I just think that would be really cool. So it's just things like that. And I start to write down the name. I write down the pricing even of what I would charge them, and I put it somewhere where I can see every single day. And what started to happen was subtle at first, and then it really wasn't that subtle at all. I started noticing money potential everywhere. Like, my whole state shifted from, "Oh, I can't believe I lost 100 followers or 150 followers overnight," and suddenly I was instead focusing on opportunities. I was starting to focus on, you know, seeing where the money flow doors were easily going to open for me. And then I started to see evidence of money actually coming in, whether that was daily sales, which now happens, like, every single day in the background. It's ticking away. The other day we had a $5,000 day. Unbelievable. You know, I woke up this morning and there was a $347 sale which came in. Unbelievable. But I also started to see affiliate income. So I get affiliate income from a couple of different sources, from the tech platforms that I refer to and, you know, like the things that I say to my clients of like, "Hey, this is the platform that I use. You can also use it. Here is my affiliate link." Then, you know, obviously it's no further cost to them, but I just have a really nice income at the end of each month. That usually comes through a system called PartnerStack, and I opened up my email and I could see like, "Hey, you've got $1,997 of affiliate income which has come through." Things like that. Things like that. And conversations as well flowing in because I had reached out to them to say like, you know, "Oh, hey, Vicky. How are things going? We had a one-to-one call about six weeks ago. I just really wanted to check in." Or I got a message from my client Lex, and she wrote to me saying, "Hey, I saw that you were promoting this. Is this right for me?" I also had another message from a previous client of recent times, and this is Katie, and she said, "Is there... Do you do a one-off session?" I said, "Actually, I do one-offs for past clients and current clients, so here is the link to that." So all of a sudden... Do you see what I'm saying here? It's not that the opportunities weren't there. They were always here. It's that I was not in a great state to see them. I was in a great state to see that I had lost 150 followers. But my great state was so far away from getting on with it, being an entrepreneur, selling, putting myself out there, creating opportunities for myself. That's what changes when you take back your personal power, and you stop waiting for the algorithm to deliver customers to you, and you start, you know, really looking at- What can I do differently? And you start moving like an actual entrepreneur. You start making decisions from a place where you know exactly where the money opportunities are. And I want to explain why this works, because I think people dismiss it as this, like, woo-woo thing or, oh, that's what energetic or spiritual people do in business, or, you know, it's sort of just neither of that, and it just feels so hard for you to even sell right now. When you write something down... I'm a huge believer in journaling. I'm a huge believer in calling it in through written word. When you name it, and when you look at it every single day, you're telling your brain what to prioritize. Have you noticed that? When it's in your head, it's so hard to actually go, "What's a priority?" And you have to write it down, and then when you write it down, even if it's out of order, you s- your brain starts ordering it in a sense of this is your priority based off today, your life goals, level of urgency. You don't need a fancy system to do that either. You could just do that on your iPad, or you could do that on a piece of paper. And there's actually a part of your brain called the reticular activating system. We've heard this before, the RAS, the R-A-S, and its actual entire job is to filter the world through whatever you've decided matters, whatever you've decided is really important. And it's when you decide what you want. Like, uh, a client of mine really wants a Land Cruiser. She wants a white Land Cruiser, and she's got this whole image in her mind, tan seats. You know, do you guys know Lydia Millen? She's an old school YouTuber. She wants to basically be Lydia Millen, which, bless, I love it. So posh, it's so English countryside. And she's like, "I can't stop seeing these white Land Cruisers everywhere." And they are always everywhere, aren't they? Do you see them? I see them all the time. But because she's so tuned in, she's like, "I actually see the exact model," and it's right in front of her. So when you write down a goal, like I've written down 50K May on a whiteboard, and I look at this every day whenever I'm in the office, and, you know, when I wake up in the morning, I come in here, and I journal, and I have a cup of coffee. I pull my cards. I see 50K May. I can't not see the opportunities everywhere for me. And also because I'm telling my brain, "Hey, this is real. This is possible. Show me the path." And it does. I was talking to a friend this week, and, bless, she's a football mum friend. She said something that kind of really stopped me in my tracks because I hadn't heard this sort of languaging in a little while, like not even with my clients. It's, it's sort of languaging that sits in another universe for me. And she goes, "Ugh, don't you just hate it when you're scrolling on Instagram and you see someone on holidays, and they post something like-" Yes, live your best life. And, you know, she, she basically was saying to me she finds it ultra tone deaf. Like, you know, she went on to go, "Not everyone can live their best life," don't you think? Not everyone has that option, don't you think? It's just not realistic, don't you think? And bless, like, she is actually a really fun mum that I ... You know, we've gone out for some wines, and we have some good laughs together, but our values and our lifestyles are very different. That being said, I sat with that for a second, and I just let her go on and on, and I'm like, "Do you know what? I do love this woman." I understand where it comes from. She's had a couple of hard knocks the last couple of years, to be honest. She's folded her own business and all the things. And I just said to her, "Babe, that is a state of mind that you can choose to have or not have." And she went on to argue with me. She's like, "It's not a state of mind. I'm living paycheck to paycheck." And then I went on to tell her the story of when I left my day job, and I decided this was it. There was no plan B. It was plan A or plan A or plan A. And she's like, "Yeah, but that's because, like, you and your husband actually saved money." And I said, "Well, that was also a decision, that we decided to save money." And she goes, "We just can't get ahead and save money." At the same time, you guys, just saying, her and her husband just bought a brand-new Tesla. Just saying. Just saying. Ugh, anyway. You know when you just can't see it for yourself? Bit my tongue there. Lis, if you're listening to this, I'm sorry. But it's just ... I can see these things, and, and when I say it's a state of mind, I really don't mean that in a dismissive way. I mean it in the most literal, practical way, and this is actually how it works. Because I will say this like a broken record. The moment you decide that abundance is something that happens to other people, the holidays are for other people, the cars are for other people. You've already made that decision, that the good stuff is always out of reach, and your brain goes, "Understood. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Understood." And it filters out every single piece of evidence that contradicts that story, because you're so hooked into the fact that you need evidence to tell yourself that it's really hard right now, that other people deserve it and you don't, or that other people are luckier than you and you're not. And it's not about this level of be positive. It's not about this level of pretend everything is great, be dululu. It's fine. Don't do anything about it. It's simply about understanding that your state of being and the operating rules that you've given it is running on a set of goals that you've given yourself. And the set of goals that my friend has given herself is to just stay afloat. And that she knows how to budget her monthly paycheck and her husband's monthly paycheck to live a decent life. So of course, when somebody comes along and goes, "I can make $50,000 in May," and she's making, I don't know, 75,000 after tax a year, she's like, "That's bullshit." You know, she'll say to me, "That's absolute bullshit. I can't believe you, mate." That is, like, not as in she doesn't believe me. I guess it's an Aussie way of saying things. But she's like, "What the hell?" Basically. Like, how do you make that happen? And I'm like, "Babe, you can change it. You can change it deliberately. You can be on purpose with it. You can write things down on your whiteboard, that it's not just about being paycheck to paycheck, that you get to actually notice that your savings starts to grow, that you're making smarter financial choices." That's more about wealth and abundance than survival and just keeping things afloat. And, you know, you've also got to be willing to make those steps and make those changes and take some risks here and there. So here's actually what I really want you to do, and for you to start the ball rolling if this whole conversation's really landing for you right now. Firstly, stop looking at anything that equals vanity. I f- I had to remind myself of that this week. Thank you, Instagram, and for clearing out all the followers, because I didn't realize I was clitching ... Clitching? Is that a word? I didn't realize I was clinching so badly onto my follower count, but I was, as it's been nagging me for some time that I haven't moved off what, you know, this year. I haven't really grown that much on social media. So I'm closing that tab, like actually closing it off my screen, but also closing it in my head and my brain and my spiritual notes in the set of coding rules that I've given myself to believe in that, like, that's just it. Like, my social media's not growing this year. I'm not saying that out loud. I'm saying that subconsciously. But, you know, at the same time, I've written down some goals. So I've got some Post-It notes that's sitting to the side of my desk right now. So there's one particular affirmation that I've written down, and it says, "I am coherent with rapid social media expansion." So I say that all the time. "I'm available for a new social media range and a significant increase in followers that are relevant to me. I am matched to going viral on social media for my niche." For my niche is very important. I don't wanna go viral for anything else. I just wanna go viral for the things that I'm talking about, that it empowers a lot of people. So I'd love for you to do the same. Get your equivalent of your whiteboard out. Could be a butcher's paper, could be just ripped out from your kid's note- like, A4 notebook and stick it up right in front of you wherever you sit for your office. Write down your big goal for the rest of this month. It could be a follower count also, by the way. So whatever you're matched to. And then I want you to find an actual pen and an actual piece of paper and write down the five things that you're gonna do to reach that. So for me, 50K May was five names. So people who I wanted to look at, people who are already in my world who said that they needed some help at some point, and I just never followed up. Because honestly, that's never really been my style. But I go through seasons where I'm like, "No, it is my style. I wanna do this." So, "Hey, couple of months ago you asked me about one-to-ones. Do you wanna do that? Like, I've got some room in June. We can kick something off and do something between June and the end of this year, and this is the plan that I have for you." People love that. You're thinking of them. You're not pitching them like this yuck way. You're just saying, "I've got some time. I've got some space. Do you wanna come in?" It's like I got, uh, a text message actually from my hair girl the other day, and she's like, "Girl, how are you? I've been following you on the Gram. Uh, do you wanna come in next month? Because you're probably due, and what we can do is we can do a bit of a bundle if you don't mind me taking some photos for social media." Yes, thank you very much. She saved me from thinking about when the right time is to go get my hair done. And it wasn't her... Oh, sorry, it wasn't a bot. It was actually her messaging me like 7:30 at night. Love her. Love her to bits. Shout out to you, Astrid girl. Love her so much. Anyway, that is the energy I want you to be in. Write that down, five things. If it's a social media goal, you know, really think about, like, the next five intentional pieces of content and who are you gonna tag to borrow their audience. You may wanna collaborate with somebody, right? And then next to each goal, I want you to write the number. It could be the number of, uh, followers that you wanna gain. It could be the number of money that you wanna make. So I've got here... I won't say their full names, but I've got a client, first name R, 1497. Another client, first name M, 397. Second client, S, $3,500. Fourth name, V, 3K. Fifth name, L, 1497. You, you get what I mean. Anyway, guys, I feel like I've done this, and why the results are so astounding is that everything I've written on my board is gonna get me to 50K. I'm actually... I think I'm already there. And as I'm recording this, it is Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day, my loves. Uh, 10th of May. I'm already there. That is the power of the written word, writing down your goals. Notice what starts to shift. Look at it every single day. Because the money and your goals is not hiding from you. You've probably just been telling it to give you evidence of it not working even though you might say to me, "There's no way I would do that." There is, because things haven't been quite flowing for you in some way, and there is a subconscious thing happening right now where you're looking for all the reasons why things aren't flowing. And now that I've said it, you probably won't be able to unsee it. But I just want you to see that so that, you know, it gives you an idea of where you may have been looking for validation in the wrong places, and you're waiting for the algorithm to send it to you instead of walking towards it yourself. 50k May started with a whiteboard, and yours can too. So from here, I'd love for you to go down to the note, show notes, and I want you to click on the link that says Click Here. I've got a proposal for you guys, because if this has really resonated, I know that the work that we're gonna do, especially over the next six weeks, is really gonna resonate. Click on the document that says Read This, and then come message me on Instagram if that resonates with you. All right. I love you all so much. I cannot wait to hear how this has really changed the way that you've thought about the rest of not just this month, but the rest of this year. And please do always message me, DM me. I love hearing from you guys so, so much. Have a fabulous rest of your day. I'm about to go out for a Mother's Day lunch. I hear it involves oysters and little side dishes and tapas. It's, like, right up my alley. Give me a side dish, like, meal any day. I'm so Korean in that way. I'm side dishes queen. Um, anyhow, I'm rambling now. Mwah, mwah, mwah. Big kisses, and I'll see you in the next episode. Bye, my loves.