The Business Traps Keeping You Stuck (and What to Do Instead)

Let’s be honest…. the online business world is full of rules. Rules about how to sell, how to price your offers, how to market yourself, how often you should show up. And most of them? They don’t actually work… at least not for you.

Today we’re going to talk about three of the biggest traps that keep entrepreneurs stuck: lowering your prices, creating fake urgency, and feeling like you have to be selling all the time just to be seen.

And then we’re going to talk about what actually works instead… the thing that finally shifted everything in my business and in the businesses of my clients. And spoiler alert …it’s not another tactic. It’s alignment.

Here’s the thing. I’ve been in business for over 13 years. And in that time, I have followed all the rules. I’ve lowered my prices when someone said they couldn’t afford it. I’ve tried fake urgency with countdown timers and ‘enrollment closes tonight’ offers. I’ve pushed myself to show up and sell every single day even when I felt exhausted.

And let me tell you: none of those things created sustainable growth.

What they did create was burnout. Frustration. That awful question … ‘what’s wrong with me? Why does this work for everyone else but not for me?

And if you’ve ever thought the same thing, let me just pause here and tell you the truth: there’s nothing wrong with you. The problem isn’t you. The problem is that you’ve been building your business on rules that were never designed for you.

One of the biggest traps I see business owners fall into is lowering their prices.

It usually starts with good intentions. Someone says, ‘I really want to work with you, but I can’t afford it.’ And because you care about people, because you want to help, you think, ‘Maybe I should lower my price so they can say yes.”

But here’s what actually happens when you do that:

• You weaken your own belief in your offer. If you’ll bend once, you’ll bend again, and suddenly your pricing feels like it’s on shaky ground.

• You send the message to yourself that your work isn’t worth what you decided it was worth.

• And here’s the truth when someone says they ‘can’t afford it,’ it’s rarely about money. If they truly believe your offer is the solution to their problem, they’ll find a way. We’ve all seen it: people spend money on what they value.

So when you lower your price, it’s not actually helping the client. It’s teaching them to undervalue the transformation. And it’s teaching you to doubt yourself. That’s a lose-lose.

The second trap is fake urgency. You’ve seen this a million times — countdown timers, bonuses that ‘expire,’ doors that ‘close’ but then magically reopen next week.

Here’s the problem: fake urgency creates quick yeses, but they’re not solid yeses. They’re pressure yeses. Which means they often turn into cancellations, refunds, or worse…clients who don’t show up fully because they only said yes out of fear of missing out.

I’ve been on both sides of this. I’ve bought from fake urgency and regretted it. And I’ve used fake urgency in my business and felt gross about it. Neither felt aligned. Neither created the kind of long-term, sustainable sales that actually feel good.

And then there’s the third trap: constant selling. This is the idea that you have to show up every single day, selling nonstop, or else your business will crumble.

That’s a lie.

What happens when you buy into this is you’re always in chase mode instead of leadership mode. You’re scrambling to be visible, scrambling to get noticed, scrambling to make the next sale. And that scramble energy is repelling the very people you want to attract.

The right clients don’t need you to beg them or chase them. They don’t need convincing. They need clarity. They need resonance. And when you’re showing up in alignment with who you really are, that’s what they feel.

This is where Human Design comes in.

Human Design showed me that there isn’t just one way to sell. There isn’t just one way to market yourself. There isn’t just one way to run a business.

There’s your way.

When you understand your design …your type, your strategy, your authority, your profile … you stop second-guessing everything. You stop wondering if you should lower your price. You stop feeling pressured to create urgency or sell nonstop.

Because you know how you are designed to sell, lead, and show up.

And that’s when business gets easier. That’s when sales feel natural instead of forced. That’s when you stop hustling for validation and start magnetizing the right people, the right opportunities, the right clients.

And this… this is exactly what I’m teaching inside my free 3-day workshop called Burn the Biz Rulebook.

If you’re tired of playing the game by everyone else’s rules… if you’re tired of being told that you just need to lower your price, or sell harder, or follow some one-size-fits-all strategy… this workshop is for you.

We’re going to dismantle the BS, uncover what’s actually been draining your business momentum, and show you how to rebuild your business in alignment with your unique design.

You don’t need another formula. You need clarity. You need permission. You need your energy back.

And that’s exactly what you’ll walk away with in this workshop.

You can save your free seat right now at stefcarlstedt.com/burnit

And if you’re listening to this thinking, ‘I don’t want to wait. I want to start right now,’ I’ve also created a 2-week experience called the HD Business Jumpstart.

It’s a focused, two-week process where we take the first steps of integrating your Human Design into your business. By the end, you’ll know exactly what to shift, what to stop doing, and how to start selling in a way that feels good for you.

So here’s your takeaway today: you don’t need to follow the rules that don’t feel good. You don’t need to lower your prices. You don’t need to fake urgency. You don’t need to sell every second of every day.

You need to build your business your way. By design.

I’ll see you inside the workshop.

ROOTING FOR YOU!,

Stef