Building Momentum When Nothing Is Happening Yet
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I was over a year into my business before I made my first $100. Two and a half years before I booked my first client.
But I kept showing up. Posting. Pitching. Making myself uncomfortable on Instagram Stories. Creating content calendars like the marketing courses told me to. The clients just weren't coming. The money wasn't flowing. And every single day I questioned if I was being patient or just settling for scraps.
It’s exhausting.
Doing all the things. Following the advice. Showing up consistently. All when your outer world isn't reflecting your inner knowing. And so you start wondering if you're doing it wrong or if everything you've ever thought is just... wrong.
The Pattern Everyone Falls Into
Here's what I've observed: we all want to skip the hard part. No one likes being in that awkward, difficult phase where you're doing the work but not seeing the results. Everyone wants the clients, the income, the momentum. But we don't want the months in the dark.
The entrepreneurs who make it aren't the ones who never doubt. I've never talked to a mentor who said they knew it was a go from the beginning and didn't waver for one moment. We all have doubts. I've never doubted I'm on the right path for myself, but I have doubted if this is the way to get there.
The people who make it are the ones who keep building even when it looks murky. Even when there's literally zero evidence it's going to work out.
Why This Phase Feels Impossible
Your brain is working against you. It's designed to conserve energy, and when you're not getting immediate rewards, it starts screaming at you to stop wasting resources. No clients, no money, no external validation? Your brain says: this isn't working.
But entrepreneurship doesn't work on your brain's timeline. Success compounds slowly. Then all at once.
Think about compound interest. Those long-term investments work because you keep depositing money even when the market is down. The interest gains. The earnings add to your deposits. That $50 a month eventually works with the power of $500, then $5,000. Your business is the same. Every post, every pitch, every conversation compounds.
The "overnight success" who wasn't really overnight. They'd been working for 10 years in the background, not getting noticed. Then one opportunity put them in front of the right people. That's compound interest in action.
You're Comparing Your Beginning to Someone Else's Middle
I used to post on social media and check who was looking at my stories. Then I'd compare myself to my mentors or people who'd been online for years. People who knew what they were doing. I was still learning as I went.
One woman in my coaching certification program went viral off a dramatic video she made. I remember thinking: why can't that be me? Then I realized I'd never make content like that. I'm not comfortable doing that. And the idea of going viral is overwhelming. As a 1/3, I need my foundations in order before I welcome clients like that. I wouldn't even want that.
So why was I comparing?
You see other people with full client rosters and think “Why isn't that me?” “When is that going to happen?” But you don't see their first years. Their slow months. The quiet times when they almost quit. You don't see their doubts.
So know that you're not behind, you're right on schedule.
The Trap That Kills Most Businesses
You're waiting for external proof before you believe it's working.
I used to think, “When I have clients, then I'll be confident. When I'm making money, then I'll believe it's real.”
But it works the opposite way. You build the belief first. Then the evidence follows.
That first sale I ever made? It came after I'd been working on my inner belief. I'd shifted my approach (which meant new energy). I told myself: I get to do this my way. I gave myself grace and time to be more me.
And I made a sale. There wasn't much I'd done differently other than trust myself. But it was a beautiful signal from the universe that I was on the right track.
Your outer world is a reflection of your inner reality.
Patience vs. Settling
Patience is active. Settling is passive.
Patience looks like: I'm not seeing results yet, but I'm refining my approach. Learning. Building new skills. Showing up consistently.
Settling looks like: Nothing is happening. So I'm just going to keep doing the same thing and hope it changes.
When I started on social media, I was patient. I tried the way I'd been taught in MLM. It didn't work. So I took a marketing course. I applied what I learned. It still wasn't fully working. So I kept tweaking. I tried different angles. I asked myself: am I tweaking because it's time, or because I need to feel like there's momentum?
There's nuance there. But I gave it my all from different angles before I pivoted completely. Before I decided social media couldn't be my sole method.
Settling would have been doing the exact same thing for five years with zero results. Settling is ignoring what doesn't work because it's the only thing you know and you're scared to try something different.
Patience has direction. Settling just has hope.
Patience asks: What's the next aligned step?
Settling says: I hope this works out.
Hope without action is wishful thinking.
Trusting Your Design
Settling ignores your design. Patience trusts it.
Human Design was instrumental in my making shifts. I stopped posting online as my main form of business growth and went invisible. That was the only strategy I'd ever known. YouTube. Instagram. TikTok. That's what I studied. That's what everyone told me was the way to grow.
And I dropped it.
I'm a Projector, acting like a Manifestor. That was settling. That was me accepting someone else's story instead of trusting myself.
If you're a Manifestor trying to wait for invitations, you're acting like a Projector. That's settling. If you're a Generator forcing things instead of responding to what lights you up, that's settling.
Patience honors your design and how you operate. Your specific design is how you're built to build momentum. In a way that works for you.
How to Create Evidence Before the Money Shows Up
Stop waiting for external validation. Start creating your own evidence.
You're building the skill of showing up. Every time you introduce yourself as this new version of you, you're building evidence. Every time you hold your price without offering a discount, you're showing up. Not as someone who's wildly successful (yet), but as someone who shows up anyway.
It took years before I was comfortable talking about my businessting time. You're refining. My messaging has shifted a lot over the years. That's not backtracking. That's evidence you're on the right track.
You're expanding your nervous system capacity. Every time you do something scary, you're becoming someone who can hold more. Every pitch. Every follow-up. Every time you put yourself out there. Even if nothing comes of it externally, internas. Now I can say: I'm a Human Design strategist. I help women who know their purpose but don't know what to sell build their signature offers so they can launch their business and start landing clients. Two years ago, I couldn't do that. That's how you know it's working.
You're clarifying your message. The first time you explain what you do, it's clunky. By the tenth time, it's better. By the hundredth, it clicks. You're not wally you're expanding.
You're learning what doesn't work. A lot of entrepreneurs see no's as failure. But no's either expand your capacity or tell you what needs to be refined. Usually both. The fastest path to success is through a lot of no's.
How to Build Momentum
Shrink your timeline. Stop measuring success in months or years. Start measuring in weeks or days.
I used to do yearly vision boards. They never worked. The things on them were too big, too far away. Then I tried quarterly bingo cards. Small goals I could tick off. Book three discovery calls. Host one workshop. When I look at my bingo board now, I see all these X's. I'm one box away from a bingo this week.
Track leading indicators, not just results. My email list is a leading indicator. Every new signup means my message is spreading. My reach is growing. For every one person who signed up, there are probably a hundred who didn't. That's reassuring.
Results are lagging indicators. Email lists convert at 1.5% to 3%. If you have a thousand people on your list, you might get one sale. But that one sale is a reflection of 1% of your list. And those thousand people are a reflection of maybe 50,000 to 100,000 who saw you but didn't sign up yet.
Celebrate micro wins. You sent a scary email? Win. You posted when you didn't want to? Win. I recently changed my approach to storytelling in my emails. That's a win. I got good feedback. Momentum isn't giant leaps. It's a thousand small decisions.
Regulate your nervous system daily. Morning grounding before you check your phone. Midday movement. Evening wind down. One practice I've been doing lately is mirror work. I look into my left eye (non-dominant) and do EFT tapping while saying: I love you. You're doing okay. I am smart. I am worthy. I am successful. Sometimes I get really into it. Sometimes it feels like whatever. But it's had an almost immediate impact on how I handle things throughout the day.
Listen to the Full Episode
In this episode of Worthy of Wealth, I dive into:
Why the "nothing is happening" phase is actually the most important phase of your business
The difference between patience and settling (and how to know which one you're in)
How your brain is working against you and what to do about it
Why comparing yourself to other entrepreneurs is costing you more than you think
Four types of evidence you can create right now, before the money shows up
How to shrink your timeline so wins stop feeling invisible
The mirror work + EFT practice that's shifting Matalya's days almost immediately
Listen Now:
What's Next?
If you're in the phase where nothing is happening yet, start here: take the free Prosperity Block Quiz. It'll show you exactly what's blocking your momentum and how to move through it.
And if you're ready to stop waiting and start building from aligned action, Purpose to Profit is the place to do that. Book a strategy session to learn more
About the Author:
Matalya Onuoha is a Human Design Strategist and Clarity-to-Prosperity Guide for Women & Teams. She helps women transform confusion into clarity and purpose into prosperity using Human Design, NLP, and somatic techniques. Host of the Worthy of Wealth podcast.
