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NOTES & INSPIRED ACTIONS

Useful quotes

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him. Buddha

Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. From Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

It doesn’t matter how long we’ve had a negative pattern, or an illness, or a poor relationship or lack of finances, or self-hatred. We can begin to make a shift today – your problem no longer needs to be the truth for you. Remember you are the only person who thinks in your mind. You are the power and authority in your world. Louise Hay, You Can Heal Your Life

What is a belief?

A belief is a repeated thought that has become a set pattern. But it is still just a thought and as Louise Hay says, it’s only a thought and a thought can be changed. Sometimes takes time, but not always.

A belief is a thought or series of thoughts we hold and deeply trust about something. Usually without realizing it. We seldom question beliefs; we hold them to be truths, as they are so familiar we think that is the way the world is.

“If we want a joyous life, we must think joyous thoughts. If we want a prosperous life, we must think prosperous thoughts, If we want a loving life, we must think loving thoughts.” Louise Hay, You Can Heal Your Life

2 Parts to Affirmations

1. Use them to uncover the negative thoughts you do have, so you can air them and let them go; unearthing beliefs that are getting in the way of you getting what you want.

2. when you’ve let go of all the negatives, objections, justifications etc you get to state the affirmation as if it were true right now – this is the LOA in practice. You don’t have your thoughts in the way so much (or if you do, you can let go of them), and so you are free to focus simply on the good feelings associated with that aff. Now using them as energy medicine where you are matching up your thoughts and feelings.

A common difficulty with affirmations is that a mismatch between the new thought being said and the emotion being expressed while it is being said.

Affirmations and LOA

It is the feelings that are the point of attraction within the LOA. When you shift your thoughts, you shift your vibrations, and vice versa. It is too easy to say an affirmation such as I have plenty of new clients over and over and at the same time be vibrationally in a place of lack, for instance, if you don’t feel good while you’re saying that affirmation, or you’re actually remembering you’ve only got one client at the moment, then you’re cancelling out the work you’re doing. Now you may not believe that affirmation in the moment, but you can be working towards that becoming a belief, AND feeling good about that process. Or you can be criticising yourself for taking so long, or worrying about money, or berating yourself for not having charged more, or whatever. So what’s impt is work with the aff which you can feel good about. How do you do this? Step by step.

View Step by Step Rich Thoughts on the website (click here)

“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step’. Martin Luther King

Exercise: Attitudes to success.

Note what your response is to the statements below. Notice any thoughts you have in response, and any feelings in your body. Useful to do this exercise regularly, say every three months, to check out how you are progressing.

I’m an excellent therapist, practitioner, consultant

I run a really successful business

Exercise: Success Seat Vision

Be clear about what you want for your business success.

Move into another seat, if possible do it physically right now. If not, just do it in your imagination.

This is your Success Seat. As you sit in this seat, you are the owner of a successful and very satisfying business.

Now notice what that means:

• Where are you? How does it feel to be where you are? What are you doing? What can you see around you? If you’re in an office, what’s on the walls?
• How does it feel to be sitting there? What can you hear?
• Who are you working with? What kind of clients do you have? What is your income? How does it feel having that in your bank account? What profit are you making?

Really let yourself feel what this place of success is like – what can you hear, how do you feel, what can you see, what are you touching? Become very familiar with this place, because this is the place where you belong. This is who you truly are in your business, This is you being successful, right now. Inhabit this right now, make this place your friend.

Exercise: Monitoring

What you measure you can manage. Peter Drucker, (author of management books).

Monitoring results brings confidence.  See previous email for the PDF of the monitoring sheet for you to use.

Inspired Actions

Choose to use an affirmation consciously for a week and see how you move with them; or practice sitting on your Success Seat every day.

Business/Soul Partnership Indicator - tells you exactly what you need to be focusing on. You can do it at the start of each month, or even each week.  Then review Part II and act on the answers.

See Handbook (Actions section) for a copy of the Indicator.

Today is about welcoming a partner into your business,  your soul. When you feel you are co-creating with your soul, then the soul of your business itself gets activated in line with yours and there is a whole two– way flow going on.  What is the soul?  It’s life-force, essence, energy.  We cover this more in another class, but everything has essence, everything has a soul, and so does your business.

So how do you have this partnership? Well, it’s like any other partnership really. Firstly it is based on communication. And that involves both listening and sharing. So when you use the Business/Soul Partnership Indicator, whether you realised it or not, that was your soul speaking to you. (So long as you weren’t censoring!).  Whenever you are quiet and still and hear or sense words, images, or sensations, that is your soul speaking. When you have an inspired idea, it’s coming from your soul.  When you ask for help, or pray, when you receive answers, they are coming from your soul.  So this is a really important relationship, and if you are not already beginning and preferably ending your business day in some quiet time with your soul partner, then I strongly encourage you to do so.

Since I have been doing this consistently over the last year or two, as opposed to sporadically, it has provided a sacred holding space out of which all my actions are taken.  You may be doing all this already with meditation or your own inner practice of some kind. What I’m suggesting is that you do this within the business context as well. If you don’t want to include it in your existing practice, then start your day with 5 minutes at least in your office, or just before you go there.  Bring yourself into a place of stillness and invite your soul to be present during your business day.  Actually the soul is always present, it’s more a matter of putting your ego to one side and remembering to continue to do that, so that you can benefit from your soul’s input!

What does ‘joined up’ or ‘connected’  look like in the human world?

It looks like feeling peaceful no matter what goes on around you; it looks like having an inspired idea in the moment, as mentioned in Peter Caddy’s book ‘In Perfect Timing’ about his experiences at Findhorn;  it looks like silently sitting and hearing the small voice within; it looks like feeling centred.  It’s about trusting that all will work out in the end.

Your challenge in your business (and in life actually) is to have the intention to be in that light filled, soul-filled place of quiet joy before you take action on your business. Now it’s not going to happen all the time, especially to start with. But when you take the time to be in that place, and if you’ve been practicing this you’ll realise it, your experience of your work is different. It’s almost as if it comes from a different place – and of course it does, because you are not alone. Your soul, your business partner, is there with you, guiding your hand, illuminating your voice, flowing through your body.  And you can tell this because you feel good.  You just feel good. Joy doesn’t have to be this incredibly exuberant feeling, it can be a quiet joy too.

Future Business Self visualisation

Getting in touch with your Future Business Self (see Handbook, Actions section for full version), ask these questions (and any others that come to mind):

What limiting beliefs have been getting in your way?

What are the fears that have been running you?

What behaviour patterns have not been serving you?  What have you been doing repetitively that has not been working, what is it time to give up now?

What is it I am doing right, or have been doing right?

Listen to your answers. Your future self knows the questions to ask, and wants to support you now in co-creating your business from a higher place, along with her and your soul.

How resistance (contrast) shows up in actions

“I cannot know that this is not the next step in my liberation” Barbara Swetina, www.sacredsongs.net

What is resistance or contrast? When you are pushing against the flow. Like the difference between going upstream (resistance) and going downstream (in the flow). Resistance or contrast shows up when we have stepped into the flow, and it becomes an obstacle. It’s when you are interfering with things that are really not your job. See my article re Working up to the Line

Typical ‘bad’ habits and likely forms of resistance from which they come (check these out for yourself, your particular habit may come from a different form of resistance, or more than one)

Habit                                                                           Form of Resistance

Procrastination                                                               Lack of time mgt

Feeling overwhelmed

Not doing what you said you would do

within the agreed time limit

Arriving late for meetings and appointments

Thinking you have to do it all, and therefore

rarely if ever delegating

Regularly working late, to the detriment of

home life

Never or rarely having holidays or breaks

Answering the phone during mealtimes/breaks

Not knowing inc/expenditure                                            Lack of financial systems

Lack of regular book-keeping

Answering emails more than 3 times/day                       Lack of admin system

Focusing on activity, not looking at the results

as a measure of success

Untidy office                                                                           Lack of focus

Multi-tasking

Never completing anything

Not asking for help/feedback                                             Lack of focus on big picture

Forgetting someone’s name within                                   or lack of self-worth

minutes of being introduced

Making assumptions about your market                        Lack of strategic thinking

Ineffectual management of staff

Plugging ahead with action before stopping                   Lack of trust

to engage with your inner self first

Whatever you are currently doing more of will define your current level of results. So the more regular inspired action you take regarding marketing, the more results you’ll see.

Jack Canfield in The Success Principles says ‘Good or bad, habits always deliver results’.

So the choice is to develop good habits out of a context of acceptance and co-operation, or bad habits out of a context of resistance and struggle, or pushing against the flow. It’s a no-brainer isn’t it!

3 examples of resistance and how to change it

1. Working IN your business not ON it. NOW – you might not be someone who wants to grow your business particularly. And that’s fine. What’s important here is that this is a matter of conscious choice, and not by default because you don’t really know what’s going on.

Running your own business means, according to Michael Gerber, that you are actually 3 people in one (Technician, Manager and Entrepreneur). Identify who you are being in different aspects of your business, and aim to have a balance.

Entrepreneur = the visionary, the creative, the dreamer, where often other people are just problems that get in the way of his dream.

Manager – pragmatic. Creates systems, order, runs after Entrepreneur cleaning up the mess, but without the E. there would be no mess to clean up!

Technician – the doer. ‘if you want it done right, do it yourself’. Likes to be in control of the work flow. (thinking is unproductive unless its thinking about work that needs to be done). Nothing is more important than the TO DO list. Very often s/e people are great technicians. Typical small bus owner is 10% E, 20% M, and 70% T.

“While the E dreams, the M frets, and T ruminates!” Michael Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited.

“Without balance, without all 3 personalities being given the opp, the freedom and the nourishment they need to grow, your business can’t help but mirror its’ own lopsidedness.”

Most businesspeople are so busy working for their business or in their business that they never find time to work ON their business. Thus they fail to anticipate what might happen or what they might be able to make happen. Really important to schedule one day a quarter or better still, one day a month to look at where you are going. You can know where you are going, and be going in the right direction, but it’s important to keep one eye on the ground as well as one eye ahead of you so that you see what you are stepping in!

Enlarging the Heart of your Business visualization.

Different from your jewel, remember your jewel infiltrates everything you do in your life. This is just about your business and expanding it from the inside out. (see visualization and handout in Handbook)

2. Thinking you haven’t enough time

Why is this resistance? Because if you set up a time mgt system, or a structure for your day, but then still have the sense you are not getting everything done, then the system will not be working for you. People resist completing timesheets because they think it will mean they can’t do what they want to do.

Tip: difference between projects and tasks. A project is selling a new product or service. ‘Let’s offer a two day seminar on Time Management’ – get all excited about it, and then comes the tasks. If you only focus at the level of Project, you will easily get overwhelmed with all that has to be done. But if you take the ‘time’ to list the ‘tasks’ that have to be done, then you’ll easily have a sense of progressive achievement as you complete each task bit by bit.

Tip: Deadlines: Help you to focus, and combined with an attitude that you have enough time, then it becomes easier to complete your tasks. Experiment with these, play around with them and watch your thoughts and feelings.

The best way to experience that you don’t have enough time is to tell yourself you don’t have enough time! YOU WILL NEVER GET IT ALL DONE. It just doesn’t happen. Even if you get to the end of your TO DO list, there will be another one tomorrow. So trying to get it all done simply doesn’t work. What does work?

a) knowing how much your time is worth (work out exactly how to calculate it here)

b) committing yourself to prioritising (Read an inspiring article here about how to do it)

Put the figure of what you are worth up somewhere you can see it often, because if you find yourself doing work that someone else could do that means you are paying a lot of money for that work. You’re probably doing a lot of technical work that you could pay somebody else to do—just as well—for less money. If you discover that your hourly rate is less than you would like, then one of those figures in that calculation has to change.

3. Choosing motivated action over inspired action

Quote: Michael Gerber E-Myth Mastery:

“ Action is more than the physical doing of something. It’s first and foremost the mental doing of something…..if I start moving before I start dreaming, which is what I call thinking without a clear, identifiable purpose, I lose (my idea or inspiration) more often than not”

What is an inspired action? Joe Vitale of www.mrfire.com says ‘any action you take that is based on an inside nudge’.

Inspired action moves you towards what you want, not away from what you don’t want. Hence it often feels easy and effortless. Action taken out of yearning, fear, or worry will always feel more of a struggle.

Motivated action is the kind of action that comes with a sense of ‘pushing’. If you feel that is happening, better to stop pushing. Just like Joe Vitale, let it go, and trust that what you said you wanted will indeed come to you – just not perhaps in the way you thought it would.

But how do you tell the difference between just ‘doing nothing’ and ‘being inspired’? Many people think that the LOA means saying what you want, focusing on it in various ways, repeating mantras or affirmations over and over, and then sitting back with your arms folded while you watch everything you want coming to you. The problem with this is that the nudges you are being given from within are not being noticed, and therefore not being acted upon. And it is these inspirations that are crucial in success. So STOP. BE STILL. LISTEN. AND ONLY THEN ACT. This doesn’t mean that you don’t answer emails when you don’t feel like it. It means that you free yourself from the negative feelings associated with answering emails by stopping. You let yourself be still for a moment. You listen. Then you may find that inner nudge. And so then you act.

How to find yourself feeling inspired to act. Here’s a good article:

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/12/how-to-take-action-consistently/

Inspired Actions this week

1. Calculate your hourly rate, pin it up and see how it works for you

2. Stop. Be still. Listen. Act when you feel inspired to act. Commit to doing inspired action tomorrow and see what happens.

3. Take the baby step that you saw from your enlarged heart to bring you nearer your goal

All who are on the RichThinking Way are interested in making a difference, therefore it is important to say what you do in such a way that it will make a difference to those who hear it. Your elevator speech is from the outside only. To find a really authentic and impactful way of speaking about what you do, it’s best to start from the inside and work out.

Your jewel is your passion and your ‘calling’. It’s the qualities that belong to you that shine through all kinds of things in your life not just your business. But it shines or doesn’t in your business too.

Your Jewel is already there – just forgotten. Or ignored, or not really seen properly. Not shining through as much as it could. But very valuable. When selecting one business over another, you are resonating with their jewel, and the qualities their jewel expresses.

You need your jewel as well as giving it. Nourishes you. You drink from it’s source – and then can give. “When you are fully nourished and feel a deep desire to be generous from that place, then people come”.

“The animating life force of the business is not it’s structures, systems or even its marketing. It’s the connection in the heart that shines through these things”. Anon.

DISCOVERING YOUR BUSINESS JEWEL PROCESS

1. Remember a time when you were doing your work with someone or a group when it was going really well. You were enjoying yourself and feeling great. Remember all the details, and let the memory come deeply into your body. Specify what it felt like, physically and emotionally.

Eg: excited; joined up, connected; in the flow; plugged in; flowing; ease; honesty; cheerful

Relive it. Maybe even felt easy. Often the jewel is something not valued by the person who has it. I often get told I’m inspiring. I don’t feel inspiring, So sometimes I try to be inspiring – doesn’t work!

2. Ask your Higher Self (or God as you understand it) to show you what your heart was giving directly to the person(s) you were working with. Really let your heart answer this. Name the feeling or quality you get when your heart is giving to your client(s) or customer(s). Don’t worry if it is just a sensation, or a feeling, that’s fine. Just drink it in; and name the qualities if you can.

Eg : Love, honesty, courage, fun, connection, hope, possibility, inspiration.

3. Ask to be filled with this quality or these qualities. How do you feel?

Feel full of love; calm; joined up; calm excitement; privileged; honest and genuine. Joined up; at peace. V. good and v. strong. Expressing who I really am.

4. When you feel full, ask to be shown what happened for your client(s) when they received this quality from your heart. Imagine that your client is now feeling this quality you have just named, How did it make them feel?

They got inspired to take action in their own lives; felt enthusiastic; brave; supported; loved; tender

5. Allow this process to unfold. Notice what changes happened in their life as a result of this process of working with you. Continue to ask to be shown how your client’s own heart began to unfold.

They began to feel hopeful, a sense of possibility; courage to take action; felt nourished; more buoyant and confident; it watered them so they could grow; helped them to step up and out in the world; grew in joy and happiness about what they were doing

6. With this perception and understanding of what is essentially happening when you are with a client and ‘in the flow’, write here what it is you really do. Use the names of the qualities that you identified happened to your clients in this process.

I help self-employed people feel truly nourished in their business, bringing them confidence, hope and more joy to what they do.

7. Now ground this statement. Eg, if you bring joy to people, what does that do for them? Think of this in terms of a problem and a solution. What is the problem your clients are facing and what solution does your heart and jewel provide? How would you describe the problem and the solution?

Problem: clients feel frustrated with their difficulties in finding clients, making money and having time.

If you want more clients, money or time, I can help you feel properly nourished so you can step out with confidence, hope and joy and find others who want some of what you’ve got!

Tips: Remember you need these jewel qualities as well, If you feel your marketing isn’t happening as well as it could ask to be filled more with the quality which you give.

This is a process, it develops and grows. Keep checking in with it to see what qualities are coming to the fore more and more. As you change, the qualities that sustain you, and therefore sustain others, may change too.

This idea of your unique jewel means you don’t have to concern yourself with competition. Because all you are wanting is other people to recognise your jewel, respond to it, and those will be the right clients for you.

How to move on from there with your elevator speech:

Once you have your jewel, you need your who and your what.

Who = the people you most want to serve (your ideal clients): what group are they in? eg if you are a hairdresser you can be just a hairdresser, or you can specialise in hair colouring for those going grey

Eg: gardener – or a gardener who works in gardens belonging to environmentally conscious people

Eg: masseur – or masseur who specialises in relief from computer shoulders (if you like working in business environment)

Eg: mine are heart-inspired small business owners or self-employed people

What = what you actually do. This is where your jewel comes in. You want to encompass the words of your jewel quality in this bit.

Eg hairdresser — I create hairstyles that make you feel stunning while being looked after

Eg: gardener – I make ordinary gardens feel heavenly to be in

Eg masseur – I bring a breath of fresh air to lessen the stress of your business situation

Me: I help s/e people to grow their business with heart and sou

Then turn it into the solving of their problem. Because people often only can see their problems, so don’t identify with the possible solutions. To serve as many as possible, point out their problems, and then provide the solutions.

Eg hairdresser. I give women who are going grey (who) an experience of being looked after (jewel quality) while colouring and cutting their hair into a stunning style (solves prob)

Eg gardener: I make the gardens of environmentally conscious people (who) feel heavenly (jewel quality) to be in while you’re out working (prob – no time to do garden)

Eg: masseur: I help your tension filled body (prob) become free of pain (solution) by bringing a breath of fresh air into your business situation, (who) so you feel renewed, refreshed and revigorated (jewel qualities)

Inspired action: play with uncovering your business jewel more and more, so that it becomes really familiar to you.