The reading level for this article is All Levels
The first time I heard that your subconscious could be sabotaging you, 2 things went through my mind.
The first was relief — OH maybe this isn’t completely my fault after all.
The second was confusion — what the heck does this even mean? All I want is more clients, and I’m doing all this work to get more clients — how can my subconscious mind be stopping me from getting more clients when my actions are all about getting more clients?
And so my journey on the long, twisty road of personal development/spiritual development began, and many times, what my teachers told me and what I actually SAW in my life felt like two very different things.
So today I want to talk about exactly HOW your subconscious blocks you, so you can start recognizing the signs and patterns. Because the only way you can start getting a handle on your blocks is if you can finally see them (and they’re tough little buggers to see).
Here are 2 signs to look for in your life (and while I’m going to be giving business examples, the reality is we all have blocks in lots of areas in our lives, so this can also be applied to anywhere you’re feeling stuck).
1. You don’t like what you see in your outer world (i.e. your reality). So in this case, you don’t like what’s going on in your biz. You don’t have enough clients, you aren’t making enough money or maybe you’re stuck at a certain income level and you can’t figure out how to make more money.
And you may be doing everything you can to get more clients, but it’s just not working and it hasn’t in awhile. So you may also be blaming external factors (i.e. economy or how much time you have or even how much support you have).
Now I’m not saying those external factors aren’t a part of the equation, but what I AM saying is you also have some blocks going on that are preventing you from creating the reality you want.
So how do these blocks work? Well, that’s where the next sign comes in.
2. The definition of insanity — doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So in your mind, you’re busy doing all this stuff to get more clients in the door.
But are you really?
Here’s what I mean. What are you actually doing to get more clients? Do you:
* Work super hard during slow periods — doing everything you possibly can to bring leads in — and then as soon as you land clients, you stop marketing? You may still have marketing activities on your to-do list, so you may say you’re still marketing, but deep down you know you aren’t and you won’t until your current clients drop off again.
* Have every intention of marketing on a regular basis, but somehow something always comes up, so things either never happen or happen sporadically? You know what you SHOULD be doing, but somehow life gets in the way and it never gets done – or if it does get done, it’s fast and sloppy — you just throw it out there so you can say you’re marketing.
* Not really know what you SHOUD be doing to bring in more clients? Maybe you’ve even looked into buying products, or hiring someone to help, but either you don’t actually spend any money (because nothing seems right or maybe you want to wait until you make X amount of money before you spend it, but because you don’t know what to do, you never do make X amount). Or, maybe you actually have invested in a product or a program or a person, but the information is sitting on a shelf because you don’t have “time” to go through it. Or maybe you attend an event because you know you need to network, and you spend the whole time with the friend you went there with rather than meeting new people. Or maybe you DO meet new folks and come home with biz cards, that then sit on your desk because you’re “too busy” to follow up with. (And you don’t have any other system in place to follow up with them.)
* Hire a team to help you, but something always seems to happen to the team so things still aren’t getting done? Your team isn’t doing what you want or keeps dropping the ball or quitting (or you keep firing them because they just “aren’t right”).
Now, why I’m going through this is NOT to give you a reason to beat yourself up, but to help you see your pattern. Where you STOP in the pattern is where the block happens.
Willpower may get you so far — it may get you to the event or have you buy the program and even start to go through it — but then something always happens that you’re probably not even aware of that keeps you from finishing. It may even seem like a really good reason as well, but if you have a pattern of “good reasons” that keep stopping you from the activities you need to do to consistently grow your business, that’s when you know you have a block.
But remember, knowing you have a block is the first step to unblocking yourself. So once you can pinpoint exactly when the block shows up, rather then doing what you always do to get through it (i.e. maybe you try to push through it or you give up and start surfing the Internet all day) do something else instead. One thing you can do is try breathing into the block, or journaling about it to see if you can try a different approach to getting through it.
