Why Your Messaging No Longer Reflects Your Expertise
How Subtle Shifts and Adaptations in Your Messaging Go Unnoticed
A few years ago, Botox gave me a weird little wake-up call. When I tried it on my forehead, I could no longer do my habitual eyebrow-lifting, forehead-raising thing.
Suddenly my eyelids felt soooooo heavy. Not tired-heavy. More like an, "I need to lift my eyebrows with my fingers to get relief" heavy.
After a month of this, I thought, "WTH is going on?!" Turns out my eyelids had fallen enough that I'd lost 50% of my vision.
FIFTY PERCENT!
It took months to realize that Botox had removed my "compensation" habit.
Apparently, I'd been raising my eyebrows and forehead for years, trying to see.
^Me, a week before my surgery. I'm literally thinking,"Open your eyes as wide as possible, Jen."
I'd become completely desensitized to changes in my face from looking at myself everyday.
When the doctor explained it and told me I needed Blepharoplasty surgery, I felt actual relief. Ohhhhh. This makes so much sense.
But also. How'd I not see this happening?
It's so obvious, especially looking at comparisons now.
It happens fairly silently when you’re busy building your business, continuing to deepen your expertise.
You're always stretching into new territory and your offers shift along the way. Your thinking sharpens, your client work gets richer, more nuanced. You can probably deliver results faster too.
But the messaging that shows up in the words on your website, how you introduce yourself in small and big rooms, and even the way you talk about the value you bring doesn’t keep up unless you're mindful of it.
The changes are so gradual, so subtle, you don’t notice there's a gap growing. You just keep moving forward, navigating around the friction, making little tweaks here and there. Then eventually you see (and FEEL) the chasm.
No need to judge yourself. This is what we do as humans. When something no longer fits, we adapt & find workarounds.
We get creative when we need to explain what we really do, or we overcompensate by adding more context, more detail, more energy to make up for messaging that just doesn't fit anymore.
It’s like me unconsciously raising my eyebrows to see more clearly, until something external (Thanks, Botox!) forced me to notice how much effort I was expending just to function.
Just to SEE!
Most of us don’t realize how much we’re compensating until the habit is disrupted.
When was the last time you really listened to yourself explain your work? I mean without defaulting to autopilot or your old elevator pitch?
Is there a part you wish you could say out loud, but doesn’t quiiiiite fit your current messaging?
Notice the places where you're overworking to translate the brilliance of where you are NOW.
That’s where those sneaky adaptations hide. Awareness is the first step to making the invisible visible again, so your messaging can evolve with you.
-----------------
Compensation Mode: The Energy Drain of Outdated Messaging
Here's what slipping into compensation mode with our messaging looks like:
You tweak a sentence here, add an extra paragraph there.
In the moment, it feels easier to overexplain your work than to overhaul your message.
But over time, these workarounds accumulate and drag you down.
You find yourself rephrasing, over-explaining, or even apologizing for what you do, because your words no longer match the depth and evolution of your expertise.
Instead of your messaging doing the heavy lifting, you translate your brilliance on the fly, again and again.
This becomes more than a minor annoyance. It starts to drain your energy.
And every time you try to articulate what makes your work different, you don't speak from a place of clarity and confidence.
To your audience, that sounds like you're second-guessing.
It gives you a sense of dread when you sit down to write a social post, an email to your list, or update your website.
Worst of all, in a sales call, it can sound like hesitance.
It keeps you from wanting to share your work, your insights, and your brilliance.
If this feels familiar, pause the next time you’re asked, "So. What do you do?"
Do you take a deep breath, brace yourself, or launch into an elaborate backstory?
There's your sign: you’re compensating.
That's when you ask yourself: What am I tired of explaining? What feels clunky or out-of-date?
Awareness is the first step toward getting your messaging to finally keep pace with you.
-----------------
Why Self-Awareness Isn’t Enough to Spot Messaging Gaps
The problem with living inside your own expertise is it's suuuper easy to forget what others can see and what they still don't get.
Think about how day after day, you’re steeped in your own language, frameworks, and history.
You know exactly what you mean when you say, “I help people transform,” or “My process is holistic.”
But your audience is outside of your brain, trying to piece together why they should care about any of it.
This is the mirror paradox I had with my eyes.
We can stand in front of our reflection with all the self-awareness in the world, but we're always way too close to see what’s become invisible through sheer familiarity.
You can be as genuine and self-reflective as possible, yet still miss the subtle ways your messaging doesn’t quite match the depth or direction of your current work.
What can you do about this?
Instead of relying solely on your own insight, get some structured reflection.
Read your website aloud to someone who knows nothing about your business and ask them to tell you what they hear.
Or swap content with a peer and ask, “What do you think I do?”
Take notice of the words that trip them up and the assumptions they make.
This honest, external feedback is gold.
Remember that what feels obvious to you is rarely obvious to your audience. Especially because you've been on the growth journey with yourself the whole time. They have not been witness to all the ebbs and flows, ins and outs, discoveries and discards.
-----------------
When Your Words Don't Match Behind: Attracting Clients Looking for Your Past Self
The strange thing is that the more deeply we evolve, the more our words get stuck in the past.
I see this all the time: coaches, consultants, and service providers who’ve outgrown their original niche.
Or - this is more subtle of a change - whose expertise has sharpened in ways they can feel but still struggle to put into the right words that convey it clearly.
This means the words on their website, in their bios, and across their marketing are still doing the heavy lifting for a previous version of themselves.
What happens is they attract clients who are a perfect fit for the work they *used* to do, not the work they’re most excited (and qualified) to deliver now.
While I loathe the word "misalignment", that's what happens. And it creates friction, even if it's silent or subtle.
It looks like finding yourself fielding sales or discovery calls that don’t light you up.
Explaining how your process has changed - or feeling resentful because what you're doing sucks the life out of you.
Worst of all, the clients you *want* - who would really benefit from your evolved expertise - don't see themselves reflected in your words at all.
When you noticing this mismatch, consider this:
When was the last time you reviewed your messaging through the eyes of your *current* ideal client?
Not the client you served three years ago, but the one who’s the best fit for your skills and focus now.
Sure, it's annoying to acknowledge this, and maybe even uncomfortable. BUT.
What do you wish you could say now but haven’t found the right language for yet?
The gap you feel is often your best clue for what needs to be brought forward in your messaging.
That's your first step to attracting the right people for who you are - and what your brand is and does - *today*.
-----------------
Evolving Your Messaging is an Ongoing Practice
Okay. Deep breath here. Because updating your messaging isn’t about swapping a few words or hiring a copywriter for a quick polish.
Lordy, don't we all wish it were that simple!
The real work is deeper and requires you to ask some hard questions:
- What do I truly want to say now?
- What have I outgrown?
- Where am I hiding behind old language because it feels safer?
Try this: Instead of waiting for frustration or a business plateau to signal it’s time to update, treat messaging evolution as an ongoing practice.
Start talking about what feels most alive in your work - RIGHT NOW. Don't wait for permission.
Just start. Let your messaging breathe and grow as you do.
The more willing you are to check in and listen to what you know you want to say - and what you know your audience needs to hear - the easier it becomes to speak in a way that truly fits who you are, right now.
If you're frustrated by not saying what you want to say or your messaging isn't working to attracting the right people…
Consider: have you outgrown the way you describe what you do?
You might find your message is speaking for a version of you that's no longer fully there.
So stop pushing harder and ask what's really changed in you & your work that your messaging needs to express for you?
-----------------
Stay Ahead of Your Own Evolution
Take The Message Gap Diagnostic. In 5 minutes, it will help you see exactly where you need to focus and provide follow up ideas to help you make those changes…
Instead of feeling like you need to overhaul your ENTIRE messaging strategy.
-----------------
Conclusion:
Good news: you're normal :)
Gradual, invisible adaptations are part of being a growing expert and business owner.
But they don’t have to hold you back.
The real opportunity lies in noticing where your messaging no longer fits and having the courage to update it so it truly reflects who you are today.
Allow your words to evolve alongside your expertise so your marketing will be less of a struggle and bring in the right-for-you people.
And the next time you feel the urge to over-explain or sense a mismatch between your work now and your messaging, ask yourself what you really want to say.
Let your messaging catch up with where you are now because that's where the right clients can find you.
