Picture this: Miami, April 2024 at our Consulting Success mastermind event.
A room full of consultants just like you, each nursing their own private doubts about what’s truly possible for their businesses.
As the ocean breeze carried whispers of potential through our session’s windows, we uncovered a powerful lesson…
The ceiling on your success isn’t market conditions, competition, or luck — it’s the invisible cage of self-limiting beliefs you’ve built around your ambitions.
You may have built a solid consulting practice, sure.
But what if those steady ripples of success could become waves of transformation?
What if the only thing standing between you and industry-shifting impact was the size of your own thinking?
Here’s the raw truth as we step into 2025: you’re exactly as successful as your beliefs allow you to be.
While others are paralyzed by perfectionism, waiting for the “right time,” the consultants that we work with are out there taking imperfect action and making their impact on entire markets.
This isn’t just about setting bigger goals; it’s about demolishing the mental barriers that have kept you playing small.
Ready to break free?
In this article, I’ll share with you the very exercise in Miami that helped the consultants in our community break out of their shells and into greater success.
What Does It Mean To “Think Bigger”?
Self-limiting beliefs are those quiet but persistent voices in your head that whisper “you can’t” when opportunity knocks.
For consultants, these often manifest in thoughts like…
- “I could never charge that much”
- “My market is too small for significant growth”
- “I don’t have enough experience to work with Fortune 500 companies”
In his seminal work “The Magic of Thinking Big,” David Schwartz puts it perfectly:
“Belief, strong belief, triggers the mind to figure out ways and means how to.”
This principle is particularly crucial for consultants. Because the size of your thinking directly impacts the scale of your opportunities.
Consider these real-world examples of how limited thinking holds consultants back:
- Believing you must handle every client interaction personally, capping your growth at your available hours
- Assuming your local market is your only market, when remote consulting opens up global possibilities
- Thinking you need decades of experience before targeting enterprise clients
- Setting your fees based on what you’d be willing to pay, rather than the value you deliver
Thinking bigger means challenging these assumptions.
It’s about seeing yourself not as a freelancer trading time for money, but as the CEO of a consulting enterprise that can create lasting change for your clients and their organizations.
It means shifting from “How can I get more clients?” to “How can I build a reputation that consistently attracts ideal clients?”
The consultants who thrive are those who can envision possibilities beyond their current circumstances — and take bold action to achieve them.
And we understand that it’s not easy to think bigger all on your own.
We started our Clarity Coaching Program to provide consultants with coaches to help them to think bigger, and hold them accountable to those desired beliefs and outcomes.
In the next section, I’ll share a concrete example of how one of our coaches helped consultant Ken Ramaley to think bigger.
How We Helped Ken Ramaley To Think Bigger
When Ken Ramaley first connected with us, his thinking was locked in the familiar trap that constrains so many consultants.
As the founder of a digital transformation consultancy specializing in REITs, he saw himself as “absolutely a one-guy shop, trading time for money.”
His mindset was fixed on limitations rather than possibilities. Every dollar spent on growing his business was, in his view, “a penny I wasn’t going to be spending on my mortgage.”
But here’s where Ken’s story takes a transformative turn.
Through our Clarity Coaching Program, Ken didn’t just learn new business strategies — he fundamentally rewired how he thought about his consulting practice.
The breakthrough moment came when he embraced a radical new belief: “The idea that I’d rather have other people do things that I used to think only I could do changed everything.”
This shift in thinking unlocked exponential growth. Ken’s revenue exploded from $150,000 to nearly $2 million.
But the numbers only tell part of the story.
The real transformation was in how Ken viewed his potential and his business.
He evolved from a solo consultant trapped in the time-for-money paradigm…
…to a true consulting business owner with a team of five handling execution and three more in leadership roles.
Perhaps most telling is what this bigger thinking enabled: In August 2022, Ken took almost the entire month off — something unimaginable in his previous mindset — while his business continued to thrive and generate revenue.
His success wasn’t just about implementing new strategies; it was about shattering the self-imposed ceiling on what he thought was possible.
Ken’s journey perfectly illustrates why thinking bigger is so crucial.
When you expand your vision of what’s possible and challenge your limiting beliefs, you create space for exponential rather than incremental growth.
As Ken puts it, “Consulting Success helped me do enough of the things I needed to do to get to a place where I never have to do them again.”
How To Think Bigger & Overcome Self-Limiting Beliefs: Exercise
In this section, I’ll share with you the exact exercise that we took our clients (like Ken) through in our Miami mastermind.
We called the exercise “Thinking Bigger” — and it’s designed to help you do exactly that.
1. What is your big hairy audacious goal for 2025?
The biggest block to growing your business sits between your ears. What roadblocks exists for you that might be limiting your thinking?
Take a few minutes to write down the mental roadblocks that limit your thinking (eg. fear, assumptions, habits, beliefs, etc).
2. How might you overcome each one? For each identified roadblock above, write down a potential option to address it and the benefits and solutions.
Make a column for ROADBLOCKS: where you write down anything limiting your thinking.
Make a column for POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS: anything that might help you overcome your roadblocks.
Make a column for OUTCOME ONCE SOLVED: the benefit of overcoming each roadblock.
3. Now it’s time to think big. Push past your roadblocks. What are some bigger, bolder goals you could set if limitations did not exist?
4. ACTION STEP: Take one of these roadblocks and their potential solution(s) — and set a date for which you will implement it.
Take an hour or two to do this exercise.
And most importantly, for number 4, commit to a date for which you’ll try out a potential solution to one of your roadblocks.
If you begin to systematically root out your roadblocks one by one, you’ll be shocked how much you can transform your consulting business — and yourself as a consulting business owner.
Get A Systematic Plan For Achieving Your Entrepreneurial Consulting Goals
Don’t let 2025 become another year of “what-ifs” and unrealized potential.
If you’re tired of setting ambitious goals only to see them fade by February, the new “Jumpstart” version of our Momentum consulting course is designed specifically for consultants like you who are ready to think bigger and take real action.
In just 5 weeks, we’ll help you break through those self-limiting beliefs that have kept your consulting practice playing small.
This isn’t about vague promises to “network more” or “do LinkedIn more.”
It’s about creating a concrete, strategic plan to fill your pipeline and keep it full using our 80/20 methodology.
The biggest barrier to your success isn’t the market, your competition, or your skills. It’s the ceiling you’ve placed on your own potential.
Ready to shatter that ceiling?
LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR MOMENTUM “JUMPSTART” PROGRAM
Join our Momentum program and turn your biggest, boldest goals into your new reality.
Spaces are limited. And like your potential for growth, this opportunity won’t wait forever.