A Great Fear Killer

It’s no secret that many things in life are beyond our control. While we cannot control what happens to us and the situations where we find ourselves, we can control how we respond to them. Positivity is a great fear killer. One could say that we do have some control over the situations where we find ourselves because often it’s based on our responses to past situations.

If you already know that 99% of life is mental, then there must be quite a bit that we are able to control. One of the most powerful ways you can walk through fear and be successful in all realms of life is by exercising positivity in the way you frame your thoughts and responses to situations.

According to the Mayo Clinic, researchers report the health benefits that positive thinking may provide include:

• increased life span
• lower rates of depression
• lower levels of distress
• greater resistance to the common cold
• better psychological and physical well-being
• reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease
• better coping skills during hardships and times of stress

There is an exercise I have seen many times. One person asks the other person to hold their arms outstretched and keep them strong and firm. Then, the person is asked to think of a happy memory. The person who asks tries to push down the person’s outstretched arms. This is difficult. Next, the same person is asked to think of a sad memory while keeping their arms outstretched. Again, the first tries to push down the others’ arms. This time it is much easier. There is little resistance. It really is amazing the way our thoughts so powerfully affect us – even physically!

Aside from physical health benefits, postivity can make an enormous difference to the level of success you experience. Here are a few pieces of Shawn Achor’s article in the Harvard Business Review titled Positive Intelligence that I want to highlight for you.

“Research shows that when people work with a positive mind-set, performance on nearly every level—productivity, creativity, engagement—improves.”

“Yet happiness is perhaps the most misunderstood driver of performance. For one, most people believe that success precedes happiness. In fact, it works the other way around: People who cultivate a positive mind-set perform better in the face of challenge.”

“Another common misconception is that our genetics, our environment, or a combination of the two determines how happy we are. To be sure, both factors have an impact. But one’s general sense of well-being is surprisingly malleable. The habits you cultivate, the way you interact with coworkers, how you think about stress—all these can be managed to increase your happiness and your chances of success.”

“Training your brain to be positive is not so different from training your muscles at the gym. Recent research on neuroplasticity—the ability of the brain to change even in adulthood—reveals that as you develop new habits, you rewire the brain.”

The other day, I was thinking about some ways that I want to grow my business online. My mind became so wrapped up with the incredible pace that online marketing and social media trends constantly change and I quickly became overwhelmed and felt like I was trying to run a marathon at a sprint pace. I had to remind myself how far I’ve already grown in a short period of time and that my pace will continue to quicken the longer I continue. Changing my thoughts calmed me down, gave me strength, and hope. However, this isn’t unique to me.

Keep this in mind as you go about your day. The next time you find yourself in an uncomfortable, upsetting, or annoying situation or simply battling negative thoughts in your head, think about how you can change negative self-talk to transform a situation and grow your business by shifting your perspective. I would love for you to share in the comments section telling how your thoughts have affected your business, positively or negatively.

Also, check out today’s 1-minute video and download a free ebook about overcoming fear on my homepage to learn how you can become a more positive person and lead a more successful life.

Here are links to the above-mentioned articles.

http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/positive-thinking/art-20043950

https://hbr.org/2012/01/positive-intelligence

How to Win in Business and Stay Sane

It can be easy to start out strong with your business, idea, or project when you are excited about doing something new or differently because you are inspired. The sun is shining and the birds are chirping their beautiful song. You are in your happy place and nothing can stop you.

The problem is that those initial feelings can quickly fade into monotony. Suddenly, you feel overwhelmed, you realize you have to do the same thing over and over, and faster, or you will be quickly eclipsed by the competition. The sun that was so cheery and wonderful is now blinding and way too hot, and the birds that sung a harmonious melody are now annoying the crap out of you.

Especially if you are the only person in your business or one of a small few, all of the hats you wear and the quick turnaround times for areas that you’re still learning are now tearing you apart at the seams. Ok, I get it. I’ve been there. We’ve all been there. And you know what, we’ll all be there again.

How do you talk yourself off the ledge and away from that half gallon of butter pecan ice cream in the freezer? In addition to taking control of your emotions like I discussed in my last blog, how do you tackle all of these tasks that are piling up? Ugh!

For one thing, stick with it. Like everything else in life, these feelings will pass. The way we persist through any situation or difficulty is to just keep going.

This is much easier said than done – believe me, I understand. The way we keep going is by continuing to put one foot in front of the other. In the life of your business, this means tackling projects in bite-sized pieces, one at a time. Take the time to master the first piece. Don’t think about the next one yet.

When you move forward, not only will you do a better job on each task (the way you really want to do them) but you will also start a snowball effect and accomplish subsequent tasks more quickly. This is partially because you are forcing yourself to be focused, disciplined, and growing in your confidence. The tortoise really does beat the hare.

While I understand that you can’t shut out the world and client proposals and deadlines, you can carve out 30 minutes here, an hour there, and an occasional 90 minutes to get something completely done – and done well.

Another tip is to build three minutes of inspiration into the start of your challenging task. These may be difficult tasks or they may be annoying, tedious, or boring tasks. Regardless, you’re not looking forward to it. The best thing you can do is find inspiring quotes or part of a biography of someone you admire and spend just a few minutes getting pumped up by seeing others overcome obstacles and realize that you’re no different from them. The key to this is limiting your time spent on it. Don’t let it overtake your time. You are really looking for a momentary boost to give you momentum. Give it a short time limit and set a timer.

Stop as soon as it goes off.

5 Ways to End Your Love/Hate Relationship with Marketing

I get incredibly irritated by terrible marketing and am impressed with those businesses who know how to do it well. When it’s done well, it comes across as funny, impressive, informative, helpful, and other positive descriptors. It makes me interested in what is offered and possibly leads me to buy what they sell. What I find most difficult as a business owner and marketer is not wanting my marketing to be cringe-worthy, annoying, or useless – presenting something poorly so that others aren’t interested. Business owners out there, do you feel me? Who is tired of feeling paralyzed that your own marketing efforts may not be up to snuff and you worry that you look like an idiot or are simply spinning your wheels?

So, what do you do? The answer is to remove yourself from communicating to your audience based on how great and helpful you know your product(s)/service(s) are and step into the mind of your target audience and translate it into something they find valuable.

Here are a few keys:

1. Target your audience. While what you offer may be something everyone needs, you won’t attract as many customers while you cast the net out to anyone. It’s too blah, too generic, no one feels like you’re talking specifically to them. Think about who your best customers are and what similarities they have.
2. Learn more about your target audience. Do more of them tend to be male or female? How old are they? What is most important to them? What do they enjoy or what gives them the most satisfaction? What is their biggest fear? Understand that most people are extremely careful about how they spend their money – no matter how much they have. Why is what you offer vital to them?
3. Set yourself apart. Don’t sound the exact same as everyone who offers what you do. Think about how you are different than others in your industry. Also, are there ways that your competitors do a poor job of conveying what all of you offer? What aren’t they saying or what do they say that rarely results in a buying decision from customers?
4. Know the reason why you devote your work life to this profession. Write out what made you decide to forego every other profession for this one. Is it a funny story, a heartfelt story, is it the source of your passion? Your customers want to know you and what makes you tick.
5. Connect on an emotional level. People make buying decisions based on emotion. They back it up with facts but humans are typically drawn to something based on emotion. They believe it will improve their lives in some way. The emotional level doesn’t have to be heartfelt and weepy. While it might be, it also might be something fun to add adventure. It might be serious. It might be a status builder. It could be something completely different. Find the way to connect emotionally with your audience and brainstorm a bunch of scenarios to communicate that emotion, tying it back to your product or service.

Create a Mindset For Success

How do you shift your mindset to walk through your fear without turning and running the other direction?

Your mindset determines your level of confidence, success, the way you snap out a bad situation, and more.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog about knowing your reason why you do your business. Whether you are: starting a new business, growing your business, or making a major change in your business, we all find coping mechanisms for dealing with things we don’t want to truly deal with and handle. When you know the reason you absolutely must walk through whatever it takes to get to the other side, you will have what it takes.

Think of William Wallace in Braveheart. He had nothing but a desire to be free and was willing to do whatever it took to accomplish his goal. Don’t worry, I’m not saying that you have to be willing to die to have a successful business, I’m only saying that you will encounter difficulties, you will be thrown out of your comfort zone, and you will have to make sacrifices.

This will look a little different for everyone. For some who may be busy mothers, it will mean that you teach yourself that you are worth the time to set aside and work on your business. Sure, distractions will pop up and so will people who want to convince you otherwise, but you are now on a mission and you will commit to remaining focused on the task at hand for the time you have carved out to do this. Inch by inch, you are succeeding, expanding, and growing a stronger business.

For others, you may have a deluge of work and know you aren’t spending the time you need to refill your sales funnel by networking, blogging, reaching out to prospects and past clients, etc. You feel like you are so busy taking care of your clients that you aren’t taking care of your own business. This is how we experience peaks and valleys with sales. Commit time to your clients but don’t neglect to set aside a few hours a week blocked out on your calendar to continually grow your future business. Remember, if you don’t do this now, your business may not be able to take care of your clients the way you want to in the future. You are doing this both to help sustain your level of client/customer service and your own business growth.

3 tips to achieve this - Recognition: When you start to hear the familiar voice of dread, guilt, shame, or fear pop into your head about a particular task, recognize it for what it is doing to your business – creating an impediment to your success. I’ll get into this a little bit more in another blog in a few weeks.

- Replacement: Once you have recognized it for what it is, get it the heck outta there! In advance, you should find 3 quotes that you memorize about your willingness to do what it takes to accomplish your goal. Say those out loud over and over until the thought and emotion attached to your fear pass. Now you are telling your mind what it can and cannot tell you.

- Re-energize: With your mind now focused on your goal, attach an emotion to this quote and mindset to invigorate you to press on toward the goal. When you do this routinely, it will begin to become second nature.

If you haven’t read the previous Knowing Your Why and the Root of Your Fear blogs in this series, I recommend you take a look. Also, this entire blog series on fear encapsulates pieces of my free ebook Step Through Fear into Success that is available for download on my homepage.

Advantages to Fears in Business

How does fear play a part in your life and business?

What is it that stops you from really tackling your fears or desires? Why do they continue to linger with no resolution in sight?

When you’re in the middle of a dark place or feel like nothing is changing no matter what you do, it’s easy to feel like it will be this way forever. When the light at the end of the tunnel is nowhere in sight, how can you be sure it’s really there? We become complacent and stuck in our fears instead of stretching for the freedom we receive when we overcome them.

This is where your foundation is there to save you, and if you find that you don’t have one or that it’s shaky, create a new one.

A strong foundation will get you through the dark, scary, and rocky times – both in life and in the life of your business. This starts with knowing who you are, what you believe, and specifically the direction you are headed. Since none of us can accurately predict the future, we won’t know where we will actually end up but if we don’t even know the direction we want to go, we will toss and turn with an identity crisis that keeps us running in circles instead of moving ahead.

If you do have a strong foundation, go back to the truths that you do know. On what is your business based? Do you have a mission statement and a vision statement? Are the core competencies of your business written out? If you wrote these truthfully, cling to them as you walk forward in the darkness. You will eventually find the end of the tunnel.

If you don’t have a strong foundation, this is the best time to create one. You need to sit down and do some honest brainstorming with yourself. Forget what everyone tells you that you should want or the way you should do something.

Write down what you know is the core of who you are and how you yearn to use your gifts and talents for others. Once you let your defenses down and are honest about who you are and what you want, reread the thoughts you wrote down.

Start whittling it down and see the words, themes, and ideas that arise as a pattern. Boil it down to a few words or a sentence for each of the key areas you find. This will likely also reveal what is holding you back.

Use your findings to clarify your mission and vision. Use those to guide your decisions, thoughts, and actions about your business. You now have the beginning of a strong foundation that will keep you steady when you go through doubts and trials.

When you get to the heart of your fear, you can face it. When you face it, you can finally begin to move forward with a strong momentum and the work gets easier. You become more pulled than pushed.

So, the advantage to having fear in your business is that it can ultimately lead you back to your foundation or help you create one. This is powerful because it can be a springboard for the growth you desire and provide fulfillment.

There is an exercise I offer in my free ebook Step Through Fear into Success that focuses on digging into the heart of the reason why you’re never able to cross something off your to do list. It will help get you moving in the right direction. When you uncover the deeper reasons why you aren’t able to move forward, you can then begin to cut out whatever is holding you back.