How I use micro experiments to build new beliefs that explode my business growth

Doubt was holding me back - here's the exact methodology I used to shift it

My group programme The Sales Belief Experiment is coming to a close next week (at the time of writing) and I have been using the methodology I share with the business owners on the course in my own life and work too, with mind blowing results.

The 8 weeks I’ve been running the course have been a transformational one in my own life as I closed down my long running membership at the end of February and step boldly now into what I’ve been calling Vicky Shilling Ltd 2.0: changing up the ideal client I want to work with, the content I share, the messaging about my work and the ways I work with people.

❌ No more playing it safe with generic business coaching.

✅ I now own my space as the coach who teaches solopreneurs how to move through fear, trust their decisions, and create real momentum in their business, with a full permission slip to be human as part of the process.

My name will become attached to a movement of solopreneurs who operate from deep self-trust and who changes how women experience business.

And I want the people in my world to know: The best way to make a bold move feel safe is to turn it into an experiment.

Naturally with a falling away of on ‘old’ identity (one that from reading this Substack article from Patricia W I have been encouraged to view as something to grieve as it slips away) and the stepping into something new, my friendly but oh-so-helpful protective voice turns up her volume.

This is a part of the psyche in The Sales Belief Experiment we call The Safety Guardian. The part built over years of experience, to be on high alert for risk. The risk of failure, the risk of embarrassment. The risk of disappointment, rejection, loss, or even success if it feels like it’s going to hurt us.

Into the void of experience of this new version of my business, comes my Safety Guardian, flexing of all the tools it has to keep me safe and small and not go for this change.

ChatGPT image of how I imagine the Safety Guardian

Through my own work I’m now adept at becoming aware of the beliefs that this Safety Guardian protective part of me holds and what drives its voice and its impact on my actions.

And the biggest protective belief that is echoed over and over again in the last two months as I make this shift is:

No-one wants this work. No-one is willing to pay for mindset work alone. No-one is interested in building self-trust. They only want practical advice. No-one will buy this. It will fail.

In The Sales Belief Experiment I share 7 Sales Synapses that over half a decade of working with the self-employed I’ve seen are essential to making a solopreneur business thrive.

One of these is focused on the client: it is essential to believe that clients understand and want what you offer, to successfully sell it to them. If you don’t think anyone wants it or gets it, then guess what? No-one is going to buy.

This is where my own belief is falling down at the moment.

And so this is where the experiments come in.

Through the methodology I teach in The Sales Belief Experiment I have taken this belief:

“No-one wants self-belief coaching, no-one will be willing to pay for it.” (Which at the core of it is a belief: “If I put out this coaching I will be rejected.”)

And instead I have looked at a more helpful belief I would like to focus on to override this one.

In order for the method to work most effectively the new more supportive belief needs to be something I believe and think is true currently, no wishful thinking and empty affirmations here.

So I have chosen to embrace:

“Self-belief is a strategic advantage—without it, no plan works effectively.”

But how to embed, embody and go to this belief by default in my mind and let it impact my work and actions?

Experiments.

Try out something in the real world to help back up and reinforce the new belief. Build evidence. Like a scientist in a lab building evidence for a hypothesis.

The concept of experiments was introduced to us as Self-Belief Coaching students at the SBCA around the middle of the course. I got it at a basic level, but struggled to implement it with clients.

Mainly because my default position when faced with a challenging belief is to try and do something way too triggering and likely to reinforce it, rather than taking baby steps to build belief first.

Afraid no-one will pay your prices? Put them up anyway!

Afraid no-one will come to your webinar? Promote it anyway!

Afraid clients won’t like your new offer? Sign them up anyway!

You can see my problem.

I’m not saying that bold action isn’t necessary. We need to be stretching the comfort zone in business as there are so many things to learn and gain from trying out new skills or getting our work seen or scaling our income with new offers and services.

But when it comes to belief work, what we need instead is a micro-experiment (or several) to act as groundwork.

Smaller steps to build evidence of our new belief. Rather than diving straight back in and risking reenforcing unhelpful, protective beliefs.

This gentler, more considered approach still yields incredible shifts and seismic changes. But it’s subtle. And it is a bit of an art.

However, because I am so unused to doing anything by halves, I struggled to come up with ideas for how to experiment in small ways with my new beliefs. And it was the same for my clients.

We’d identify their protective beliefs, come up with a new more helpful supportive belief, and then I’d say “now experiment with this!” But all I’d get is blank looks.

Just like my clients, I’d stare at the worksheet I was given that said, “I will change my action to X, and collect the following data in order to find out if this more helpful protective belief is true.”

Like… what exactly am I meant to be writing in those boxes?!

So as part of developing The Sales Belief Experiment I created a custom Design A Belief Experiment GPT, where participants on the course can go through this process themselves and get the GPT to generate ideas for micro-experiments instead.

And I’m using it too.

Here’s how it works:

The GPT takes your unhelpful protective belief, makes suggestions for a more helpful ‘True Experimenter’ belief to work on instead to replace it; you can chat to it about this and refine it, or just make your own suggestion if you prefer.

From that new belief you want to embed the GPT generates 20 micro-experiments for you to try out to help build evidence and strengthen the new ‘synapse’ you need to see more success and ease in your work.

It’s such a simple process that it feels almost silly, certainly to me anyway.

How are these tiny experiments doing anything to shift such central, core beliefs that I have had since childhood, in some cases?! Shouldn’t I just get on with marketing my business, not messing around with these little tasks?

But I’ve found the outcomes to be magical.

Not just that, it’s a fun process, it’s simple (especially with the GPT’s help) and can be enacted quickly. Without too much effort you can make your belief experiments very much as part of a working week as many of the tasks involve forms of networking, marketing and sales anyway which you would ordinarily be doing. It’s just that you’ll undertake these tasks with a particular lens on, scanning for evidence and results as you do.

I wanted to give you my latest example of how I’ve been implementing these experiments in my own work from the last two weeks. Because it has honestly been a game changer for me with what had, up until now, felt like an extremely sticky belief.

Here’s how it’s gone:

Protective belief: “No-one wants self-belief coaching, no-one will be willing to pay for it.”

True Experimenter / helpful belief:

“Self-belief is a strategic advantage—without it, no plan works effectively.”

After using my Create A Belief Experiment GPT, these were the experiments I tried out to embed this belief:

1. Journal about a time when confidence (not strategy) helped you make a powerful decision

2. Post a poll on social media: “Which is harder: knowing what to do, or believing you can do it?”

3. Record yourself saying “Self-belief is a strategic advantage” and play it back daily for a week.

4. Pay attention to conversations – do people bring up self-doubt as a reason they’re stuck?

5. Pitch a podcast or blog post titled “Why Self-Belief is the Most Overlooked Business Strategy.”

6. Share a success story about someone who shifted from self-doubt to confidence and saw results.

7. Speak to other coaches who teach strategy and ask whether mindset and self-doubt show up for their clients and if so, how

I did all of these over the course of 2 weeks and the transformation in me and my belief has been massive.

Here’s how I implemented the experiments and the outcomes:

1. Journal about a time when confidence (not strategy) helped you make a powerful decision

Ever since I was a blogger my journaling has largely taken the form of blogging, hence being so comfortable in a space like Substack!

So what started as writing for myself turned into this Substack post: https://open.substack.com/pub/vickyshilling/p/when-confidence-not-strategy-led which received 7 likes, 6 comments and 2 re-stacks, with 1145 views and a free subscriber off the back of it – which for my little Substack is a fair amount of interaction.

This was great validation that people resonated with the idea of belief being as or more important than strategy and opened conversations.

And the process of writing it of course also helped me craft a story and give myself evidence that I know belief and self-trust is central to making business decisions, so others must know this inherently too.

2. Post a poll on social media: “Which is harder -knowing what to do, or believing you can do it?”

I actually did two polls across my social media around this. One on “what’s harder” and another one my Belief GPT suggested which was “Would you rather have a perfect plan, or unshakeable self-belief?”

Overwhelmingly the responses came back in favour of belief on both polls.

Though not 100%, which is totally understandable (and I have to remind myself that a lot of the people in my audience aren’t perfect fit clients!), even just putting these polls out and getting some lovely DM chat with others because of them helped change my belief, even a tiny bit. One coach who responded saying “I picked belief [on the poll] and that’s coming from someone who teaches people how to plan 😆”

It was all SUCH good evidence that what I am offering is a thing that is needed.

3. Record yourself saying “Self-belief is a strategic advantage” and play it back daily for a week.

This sounds so ridiculous. But it’s so effective.

I did this in two forms: firstly I set a weekly text reminder to pop up on my phone with this phrase. So that makes me smile each time I see it now. It also reminds me that when I first started my business I had about 15-20 different affirmations scheduled to pop up on my phone throughout my week, and that I should get back to it because it works to keep dropping these statements into the psyche!

And secondly I didn’t just record this one sentence – I added it to a Daily Business Belief Statement I’ve wanted to develop for a while and been chatting ChatGPT about recording, but never got around to.

This experiment gave me the push I needed to sit down and record it. It didn’t need to be complicated or fancy with equipment, I just did it as a voice memo in my phone in 2 minutes, no microphone. The whole statement is framed in the present tense and the affirmative.

Here’s how it opens so you get a feel:

I run a successful, impactful business rooted in trust, boldness, and experimentation. My work changes lives, not because I have all the answers, but because I help people find their own

Every day, I grow in confidence, clarity, and alignment. I trust myself to refine, evolve, and lead with authenticity.

I now need to get my AirPods charged up and commit to a week of listening to see the impact. Reflecting on just the recording process alone though was interesting, because as I started reading those opening statements the words stuck and felt awkward, but as I carried on speaking it out loud, forcing myself to complete, the more I got into it and felt I believed what I was saying.

I’m actually thinking about offering this as a mini service to people, ask them a few questions about their self-doubt and fears in their business, and then record them a personalised 2 minute Daily Business Belief Statement they can listen to. The idea is the statement will help rewire their brain to operate from self-trust instead of fear and start to claim bigger opportunities and create real momentum in their work. Let me know if you’d be interested in having me record one for you.

4. Pay attention to conversations – do people bring up self-doubt as a reason they’re stuck?

I’ve done this via Threads and Substack Notes, taking screenshots and saving them in a folder to review when I see them.

They might not always be out and out statements of ‘self-doubt’, but they’re always examples of people sharing the vulnerability, human-side and mindset required to run a business. Thinks like:

“This might be a red flag, but I really think the majority of entrepreneurship success can be attributed to just outright refusing to quit.”

Or

“My biggest troll has been making huge digs at me. She says I’m not growing as fast as when I started so I must be getting worse… And I’m going to publicly out her. It’s me.”

Or

“My biggest challenge in my business right now isn’t sales clients or visibility. It’s learning to be OK with people unfollowing, ghosting, being upset or disagreeing.”

Or

“I try my best not to focus on numbers but sometimes I catch myself feeling sorry for myself [and saying] I should be reaching more people. I can feel envious of others who seem to be flying along seamlessly.”

These were all posts from seemingly successful solopreneurs, with large audiences who are highly visible, creating content, making money, and yet still with protective beliefs and wobbles in trusting themselves (and those are the ones they’re willing to disclose). A great reminder for me that my work is needed.

5. Pitch a podcast or blog post titled “Why Self-Belief is the Most Overlooked Business Strategy.”

As it happens, I know that my shift in messaging is working because I’ve started to get asked to appear on podcasts and give guest teaching on self-belief, rather than practical business advice for the last few months. Which should all be good evidence for my brain that this work is needed.

And so during this two weeks I got back to someone who had asked me to be a guest speaker in their mastermind. Not just that (as that felt a bit of a cop out, as it wasn’t me pitching!), I challenged myself not just accept this one invitation, but to use it as a template to pitch myself to two other coaches who run group programmes that are very practical based, to see if they might also like to have me run a workshop for them along similar lines.

I pitched a few ideas including: “The 7 beliefs that supercharge your sales (and how to make them yours).”

One turned into an invitation to appear in a forthcoming business summit.

The other never replied. And that’s okay. I’m not making that mean anything.

6. Share a success story about someone who shifted from self-doubt to confidence and saw results.

Sharing stories has been part of my new marketing strategy anyway; to turn my clients into case studies and speak more confidently about the change I create for the people that invest in working with me, so this experiment was a good push.

Case studies and testimonials have been something I’ve typically shied away from and struggled to take ownership of over the years, not really believing that I have been of any help and thinking all my clients would have been successful without me. It’s rooted in a deep fear of disappointing people, which is another belief that needs my attention, but this article is already 2.5k words so I won’t digress right now on this one, something for another time!

In order to complete this experiment I turned my recent self-belief coaching client into an anonymous case study and shared it in this email and also this Instagram Reel.

I’d love to say it got me instant sign-ups for my coaching, but alas, it did not. But with 900+ views on the Reel and 15 clicks on the email, it proves to me people are paying attention and interested in a similar transformation.

7. Speak to other coaches who teach strategy and ask whether mindset and self-doubt show up for their clients and if so, how

I’m finishing on a biggie. Because this experiment was a game changer.

It was a safe bet still – I approached coaches I know and trust and who are firmly rooted in strategy and that I knew would be generous enough to share the insights from their own communities of solopreneurs.

I opened with something simple with them all like:

“I’m doing some mindset work on MYSELF – do you mind if I ask you something? When you run your mastermind / masterclass / do your work, do you find there’s evident self-doubt / lack of confidence / low self-trust with people, so they struggle to implement your practical recommendations?”

The conversations flowed from there and the results were wonderful, not just for my mind – opening up, connecting with like-minded successful coaches and feeling like I had hit on something, but also with tangible outcomes.

• An invitation to appear on a podcast

• An invitation to do a Substack live stream

• An invitation to swap market research and continue the conversation with another mindset coach

I reached the end of the two weeks on a high with this one.

All the tiny experiments have been adding up too, subtly rewiring my brain and helping me believe in the need for my work.

But this one, because it helped me bond with others and be in dialogue about my work, really helped solidify things for me.

Now I’m not finishing off saying I’m cured, I will never doubt the value of my work ever again and now totally believe in self-belief work 100% of the time.

That’s not how protective beliefs work. The Safety Guardian is constantly on guard and looking for ways to stop me and have me doubt myself.

But over the course of just 2 weeks I completed 7 experiments that totally rewired my thinking, opened me up to new opportunities, positioned me as a thought leader in this space and helped me continue to redefine who I am and what I offer.

Experiments work. Micro-experiments work.

And they’re exciting me.

If you’d like to join the waitlist for The Sales Belief Experiment you can do that here.

I’d love to know what you think.