Overcome Fear For Good

I had an excellent workshop with an amazing client recently.  This studio owner has it together.  She is a fabulous teacher who cares about her students; she’s not very “woo woo,” yet she holds people to the power that she sees within them.  As we worked on her vision together, one large sticking point surfaced – FEAR.  We came to the conclusion that she needed to let go of a private client whose place in her life had fulfilled its purpose and was starting to become a burden.  It was definitely time to move on, to open up a space that had become stifling so that she could allow greater abundance in.

She held fear around various aspects of this needed step.  One of the biggest places fear had got its hold was around change.   The stable income was nice…and needed.  She enjoyed making a difference in this person’s life.  But she needed this space so that she could concentrate on the next exciting phase of her business.

Enter FEAR.  In my mind, fear is a Mean Girl.  You know, the cute but nasty girl in high school that always sat at the head of the cool table.  The Mean Girl is the fear that keeps you from fully stepping into your powerful gift.  She’s the one holding back your brilliance, keeping it close to the vest instead of shining for the world to see.  ”But why change anything at all?” asks this little saboteur on your shoulder.  ”This place is nice and safe.  It’s warm, comfortable, and seems to have worked for you so far.  No need to stir things up…”  This was the conversation that was playing out in our session.  I knew she needed to do this.  She knew it too.  But it was a tough sell to the Mean Girl inside.

What’s interesting about the Mean Girl is that she’s a charmer.  She starts off innocently, as if she’s really thinking about your best interests when she wants to keep you at the lowly table in the corner.  ”But you already know how the status quo works,” she purrs at you.  ”If you stay here, you won’t have to do anything differently, and everyone likes you here!”  She begins this dance easy on you, and if you back off now you won’t have to face her again.

If you continue your pursuit of success, however, she starts giving you backhanded insults.  ”You know, it really is nice here.  And think about it, if you stay, you won’t have to face any embarrassment when things start to fall apart,” she says through her smile at you.  ”Because they always do, and I just don’t want to see this happen to you again!”

But if you keep walking toward the cool table, things take a turn fast.  You see, so many people start off with amazing intentions.  They actually take those first steps, and face those fears.  They haven’t listened to the Mean Girl…yet.  Sometimes the hardest part is not the beginning, when you are just getting started in your business, but it’s when you are ready to take that next quantum leap, and really crank things up.  That’s when she gets nasty.

“I guess you didn’t hear me.  My table is not for losers.  Your table, the loser table, is over there.  You aren’t meant to sit at this table, you don’t have what it takes.  You are making a fool of yourself in front of all these people, you look like an idiot now and they can see right through you.”  And then…you start to believe her.  You falter, you lose your footing, you trip, and your Coke goes splattering all over the front of your new shirt.   “She’s right,” you say to yourself.  ”Look at me.  I’m a mess.  I’m clumsy.  I’m an idiot.  All these people are laughing at me, they see I’m a fraud.  I don’t have what it takes.  I’ll never be meant for the cool table.”  And as you turn back to the corner, Mean Girl smiles.  She won this one again.

So the question is, how do we stop the Mean Girl in our heads?  Because she’s the one keeping you from succeeding.  I’ll tell you what won’t work.  You don’t need another training retreat to gain one more skill or certification to make that difference.  (However, business training is always a great idea.  You should be spending as much on your business training as you do in training in your field if you want to be wildly successful!)  In fact, more training in your field is usually NOT what makes most successful people make quantum leaps in their businesses.  What makes the absolute biggest difference, proven time and time again, is changing the conversation that’s going on in your head.  

As a Certified Money, Marketing and Soul Coach, I use a method of coaching that works with levels of alignment.  Certain things need to be in alignment before a breakthrough can happen.  And the three levels at the top of the list that MUST be in alignment include your Spirit, your Mindset/Identity and your Beliefs.    When these three things line up nice and neat with your goal, the Mean Girl doesn’t have a comeback.

• Your Spirit is your sense of purpose and passion.  Why is what you do important to you?
• Your Mindset/Identity is how you perceive yourself.  As a leader?  As a teacher making a difference?
• Your Beliefs support your sense of identity.  Do you doubt or believe that what you want to achieve is possible?

There is a caveat to all of this.  In the last paragraph I said that these three have to align with YOUR GOAL.  Often these three are in alignment, but they support a goal that is no longer serving your purpose.  For instance, you may have a goal of teaching international workshops.  But the trio is aligned with your previous goal of teaching one local workshop.  As a local workshop teacher, your Spirit or purpose might have been to help your local community.  Your Mindset/Identity is that you are a good teacher with enough of a following to teach locally.  And your Beliefs support that Identity, and you do believe in yourself as a local community teacher working on a small scale.  Do you see how the trio is in alignment with each other, but not with your new big goal?

The Mean Girl may seem like an enemy, but really she is your greatest teacher.  She is just showing you all this.  She’s saying, look, hotshot.  You got this far, but who do you think you are trying to go bigger?  What’s she’s doing in essence is urging you to reexamine beliefs that aren’t serving you anymore.

To get where you now want to get, you need to look deeper.  And you start with Spirit.  What is your larger purpose now? Why is it important to you to touch an international audience?  Why do you connect deeply with this purpose?  Your Identity then lines up, as you ask yourself, ‘as a leader of international retreats, how would I act?  What decisions would I make?’  And you Beliefs confirm it, as you ask yourself, ‘What do I have to believe to make this possible?’  And so on and on you dig through each of these three levels to get them in deeper and deeper alignment with your Quantum goal.

Once you have your Spirit, Identity and Beliefs aligned on a greater scale, the Mean Girl cannot have a say over something that powerful.  Your belief in yourself as someone who can touch and affect a large audience will have a profound affect.  As you start to sink into to this stronger alignment, Mean Girl actually becomes impressed!  She asked you “Who do you think you are?” and you told her straight up exactly who you are.  This newfound respect turns Mean Girl into your greatest ally.  You’ve proven your mettle, and her voice now becomes one of support, as she invites you to sit with her at the cool table, and experience success for yourself.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again many times.  Being an entrepreneur is the greatest self-growth and self-help project imaginable.  It’s really flippin’ hard sometimes.  But you can work through the fear that’s holding you back.  There’s no better time than now to become that fierce feminine warrior for good you were meant to be.

Next time I’ll talk about how to actually start changing your beliefs.  It’s easy to say – Change Your Mind, Change the World! – but how do we actually do that?  I’ll tell you soon, so stay tuned!

 

Tagged as: business, mindset, money, overcoming fears, successful