If you’re new to using personal development tools to get over your mindset blocks (like blocks around money or success or sales … or really anything that’s keeping you from growing your biz) this handy dandy checklist of the 7 top tools is a great way to get you started.
Affirmations — Some people swear by affirmations and some people swear they don’t work. I say they don’t cost anything and they don’t take much time, so why not give them a try? Sometimes when things are bleak, it’s helpful to focus on affirmations — if nothing else, it helps you concentrate on abundance instead of lack. So the way affirmations work is make sure you use present language — for instance “I attract wealth and abundance.” To make them even more powerful, combine writing them down with saying them out loud.
Gratitude — Start a gratitude journal and write in it every day. You can write about 5 things you’re grateful for in each entry, or you can find 5 evidences of abundance in your life (yes I’m sure they’re there!) because the more you celebrate and are grateful for abundance, the more the Universe will deliver abundance to you.
Journaling — There are a lot of ways to use journaling on your personal development path, but one way to use it to bust through your blocks is by writing about said blocks until the “charge” goes away. (Typically, when you’re writing about something that’s full of emotion, like your money blocks, you feel a charge when you write about it — the idea is you write about it until you feel the charge pop, or go flat. Once that happens you’ve diffused the block — doesn’t mean it’s completely gone away but you’re headed in the right direction. If you don’t know what I’m talking about with “charge” and “pop” and “flat”, that’s okay — give it a try. You’ll probably feel it as you’re doing it.)
Breathing — this is by far my fave and also the one I’ve personally had the most success with. Basically, when you feel the energy around worry, depression, anxiety, stress or whatever emotion you feel when your blocks come up, stop the story in your head and breathe into the energy and the feeling. Now, I need to give you a BIG warning — the first time you do this you’ll likely feel HORRIBLE. We’re so used to running away or burying our bad feelings that when we finally sit with them, they feel SO terrible you’re sure this technique can’t possibly be right. (Yes I speak from experience.) But if you resist — if you sit in it and let the feelings wash over you and just breathe into it — you’ll break it. And once you break it, you’ll never go thru anything that intense or that long again — you still may have to stop and breathe and feel, but you’ll be amazed at how quickly those old feelings will just dissipate. (Remember, feelings just want to be felt — if you run away or push them away or otherwise dishonor them, it doesn’t make them go away. The way to make them go away is to honor them the way they deserve — by feeling them!)
Watch your language. Like journaling, there are a lot of exercises around this, but to start, watch what you’re saying AND how you’re saying it. For instance — are you “should-ing” all over yourself? The moment you say you should do something, you’re immediately draining the energy out of it. “Trying” is another one — either do something or don’t do something – but don’t try. Stop trying or should-ing, or any other guilt or negative or shaming language you use.
Tapping (Emotional Freedom Technique or EFT). Tapping is an amazing way to get rid of those “hot buttons” and start rewiring your brain around busting through those blocks. Since tapping is visual, I can’t really describe it here, but you can definitely check out Kate Beeders (who is an expert on using tapping to help entrepreneurs bust thru their mindset blocks – at KateBeeders.com) or search YouTube for tapping videos.
Meditation. I used to detest meditation. I had horrible “monkey mind” that would never turn off and I could barely sit there for 2 minutes much less 20. Now I’m addicted. Daily meditation (along with breathing) has done wonders to keep me grounded and stop the worry and anxiety (plus it’s helped me focus, so I’ve gotten more done in the last few months than I think I have in 3 years). Now my monkey mind hasn’t stopped — it’s just less of a problem (there’s a reason why they call mediation a practice — because you’re never perfect) and I also don’t meditate in silence, which just amplifies the monkey mind. I would highly encourage you to get some meditation tapes and use those if monkey mind is a problem for you, too. The ones I started with were $10 on iTunes for 6 meditations (“Heal Your Mind, Rewire Your Brain” by Patt Lind-Kyle).
Now, you can try all of these at once, or pick the one that most appeals to you (or maybe you pick the one that least appeals to you). But all of them, especially if you develop a daily practice around them, will help you bust through any block you have around growing a successful, profitable biz.
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