Today's TRAINING:
The blocks that prevent you from seizing an opportunity are easiest to understand when we look at their timing. The first block prevents you from even seeing or noticing the opportunity. The second block prevents you from
accepting your opportunity. And the last block prevents you from following through with and finishing your new thing.
Want to do some big work today? I want you to figure out which block is giving you the most trouble. You likely have one phase that you continually get stuck in.
JUST KNOWING WHICH BLOCK YOU STRUGGLE WITH
IS POWERFUL.
“I am blocked from seeing opportunities”
The blocks to spotting or recognizing an opportunity are energetic (if you've been reading me for any time at all, that statement is no surprise, as everything is energy
based).
You cannot see the opportunity because the opportunity is being broadcast on 108.7 FM. If your energy is 103.1 FM you will never see or recognize that opportunity. Even worse, if someone actually told you directly about this awesome new thing, you would find fault with it or feel highly uncomfortable about it
(Note: Comfort should never be the standard for our decision-making, but it often is anyway.)
An easy example of this is when you know someone who is an amazing baker. And everybody tells them over and over again “oh my gosh, you should be a professional baker and open a bakery.” Even though they hate EVERY moment of their boring desk job and would much rather BE baking, they can’t see it happening. Their faith in themselves
is nowhere near the frequency of the opportunity, so even the idea is uncomfortable and intimidating.
Another way this shows up is as a deep, core belief that you will either fail at whatever new thing you attempt (or succeed at too high a cost). With that belief operating in you your subconscious, it sabotages your ability to see ANY opportunity in order to keep you safe from
your "inevitable" failure (or unwelcome success).
DO THIS If you have "Blocks to Seeing"
I recommend that you begin expecting small, easy opportunities. No, these are not the ones that will make you rich and famous or cure cancer. But you can begin to build the habit of being the kind of person that CAN see your good all
around you.
The absolute easiest way to start spotting opportunities is to ask the Universe to help you see easy opportunities to be of help. Yep, aim to be useful to someone other than yourself. These opportunities are falling off trees. And they are the easiest ones to learn to begin to spot.
My process for "seeing" the opportunity: Expectation (I know it’s here), Awareness (Now I see it) and Willingness to Accept it (It’s
mine!).
“I am blocked from saying YES to something new”
The block to accepting an opportunity or saying yes
when it's time to say yes is a problem for nearly everybody.
Should you go to that party, take that trip, leave your current job or end a marriage?
Fear is always the culprit here. The flavor of fear that shows up for this block is Fear of the Unknown. Fear of Risk. Human beings are wired to seek
security, yet paradoxically we get bored if we don't have enough variety, challenge and risk.
After 20 years watching, I noticed that people generally accepted risk where they should have required security and sought security where they should have permitted more risk.
The standard should be Build Secure Relationships and Allow Risk for Purpose, Work & Play. Have you got it backwards?
When I started college (a long time ago and in a galaxy far, far away), they would have big campus fairs where all the student activities set up a table and attempted to get the
new freshmen to join. I walked by the Racquetball Club’s Table (University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana!).
They asked me to join. I said “Why?” The guy said, “Well, we don’t have very many girls yet.” Seeing a marvelous opportunity to have a very favorable guy-girl ratio, I said YES!
I’d never played before. Didn’t even know how. I was a runner and had never touched a racquet. I said YES to this new thing.
Fast forward many years, I have won national championships and
spent years traveling the country as a fully sponsored player for a racquetball company and even done color commentary for a pro match.
All from that a single YES 21 years ago.
DO THIS If you have "Blocks to Saying YES"
Start saying yes to more little stuff. Practice finding things around you to make a decision on and say yes to. I always teach that what you first do tiny - you can more easily do large.
The other thing I want you to do is shift your focus to list out all the bad consequences (the cons) of saying YES and the cons of NOT saying YES (that includes AVOIDING deciding too). This will get you
out of your head where your ego is arranging things to suit itself. You will notice what you're losing. Humans are very, very motivated by loss. In fact, usually more so than by gain.
Just writing down what you will miss out on if you don't say YES actually helps you focus on the POSITIVE (the things you’d lose are desirable things!).
From my story, I would've lost a chance to be
one of a handful of girls, i.e. guaranteed male attention for the new girl with no friends yet!
And the granddaddy of them all…
“I am blocked from finishing what I
start”
If you want to worry about one, worry about this one.
You can always find SOME new opportunity (because there's like 10 of them a day, so at some point you're going to notice ONE of them). Maybe you are missing the sexy
ones, but you’ll still see something. You'll go & get yourself excited about "it" and slip past your fear of failure and say YES. Let’s GO!
And……that is pretty much where the wheels start to come off the bus.
You can't finish. You don’t finish. Something ALWAYS stops you.
Distracts you. Slows you down.
If this is you, you're gonna look back and see relationships that you invested massive energy in that blew up or fell apart. You're going see yourself start an exercise program, lose 7 pounds and the next thing you know you're off of it.
You download ebooks and trainings you don’t read and sign up for webinars you don’t attend. Your inbox is filled with folks whose emails you haven’t opened in months. You start work on your resume and stop.
You don’t finish.
I recently started working with folks in direct sales. These are people that sell products to you directly from their manufacturer - like Arbonne, Mary Kay, Avon or Amway.
They see the opportunity with the company. They get excited and they say YES. And then… they don't finish. They can't keep going and follow through on what they originally committed to do.
That is the reason why about 98% of the direct sales people don't ever really make any money.
Contrary to other people who have chosen to tar and feather the companies (often referred to as MLM's - Mass Level Marketing companies), it's NOT the fault of the company or the products, it's the people.
KNOW THIS If you have "Blocks to Finishing"
A finishing problem is a lot like a toothache. It usually only gets worse, it begins to interfere with everything you are doing, only rarely can you treat it yourself and you probably need a professional.
The most
powerful 2 second advice I have to help you with finishing is - if this IS your problem, know it and claim it RIGHT NOW.
That awareness will help you as the first step to breaking this habit. Second, look for the pattern in your history and own the truth of what it’s cost you. Then plan for how to stop yourself from bailing on whatever you’ve just started.
If you have a "block to finishing" the best plan for you is AWARENESS to begin change.