Do you ever feel like you’re blocking your own success?
So many of people do. In fact, so many people never create the success they dream of because they don’t know how to get out of their own way.
Someone who’s experienced the struggle of is Carrie Green. Back in 2011 she found herself feeling utterly miserable. She knew she was smart, capable, and by all outside standards, she was doing well for herself. Yet despite all of that, she still wasn’t living the life she wanted.
That changed when she stumbled over a quote by Tony Robbins that said,
“Your destiny is determined by the choices you make. Choose now. Choose well.”
She realized that the thoughts driving her decisions on a daily basis may be what was holding her back. Her life — and career — changed dramatically when she focused on retaining her brain and taking disciplined action as a result.
Today Carrie is the Founder of the Female Entrepreneur Association, a global network of over 380,000 women from around the world, and author of a new book, She Means Business. She has a seven-figure business teaching other women how to turn their ideas into reality — and maximize for both impact and personal happiness.
In this interview, Carrie shares the steps she uses to rewire for her brain for success and overcome stumbling blocks like fear, overwhelm and confusion that all entrepreneurs face.
What advice would you give to someone thinking of starting their own business who is doubting they have what it takes to be an entrepreneur?
Success is not an accident, it’s something we have to make happen on purpose and that starts with making a very definite decision to be successful. Let go of the doubts or misplaced beliefs and choose to become wildly successful, when you do you’re instantly allowing more success to flow into your life.
Once you’ve decided to be successful, the next step is getting clear on what that looks like for you — you need to begin to create the future you truly want. Do this by vividly visualizing how you want your life to be when you’re successful.
Close your eyes, take a deep breath and imagine it’s 6 months from now and you’ve create so much more success in your life — what does your life look like? What have you created and experienced? How do you feel? What have you achieved?
Pay attention to where you are, who you’re with, what you can hear and smell. Make this as vivid as possible.
Mohammad Ali used to do this before every boxing match. In fact, he called this technique ‘future history’. He would vividly visualize winning the match in his head over and over and over again, so when he walked out into the ring he was not only prepared physically, but mentally too.
So start preparing yourself mentally for success.
As you know first-hand, being an entrepreneur requires being bold and taking risks, which can be scary! How can aspiring entrepreneurs deal with fear and doubt?
When we start to dream big and think about the success we want to create in our lives, it often causes resistance to rise up inside us. Often the negative committee in our mind start telling us we can’t do it or that we’re being unrealistic. Fear can take over and we begin to doubt ourselves, every single one of us experiences this over and over again.
The truth is, no one ever gets rid of this negative voice inside — the doubts and worries will always creep up, but it doesn’t mean they have to stop us or hold us back.
In order to create success we have to get really good at tuning it out.
This is a choice we have to keep making over and over again — we have to choose our dreams over our fears and doubts. So next time you feel your doubts, fears and worries holding you back rise up and choose
In your new book She Means Business, you share actions we can take to rewire our minds for success. What are some of your favorite?
You have to have a selection of strategies on hand to help pull you back on track so that you can keep moving in the direction of your dreams. I like to call these strategies my bag of mindset magic tricks — I have all sorts of fun strategies in my bag and I use them all of the time!
These are strategies/techniques/exercises that will empower you to stay positive and aligned with your success. Use whatever works for you and leave the rest.
Here are the top 3 things in my bag of mindset magic tricks:
- My inspirational music playlist. It’s a playlist I created with songs that make me feel inspired and like anything is possible. I have songs on there like the themes tune from Rocky and ‘I can go the distance’ from Hercules (no joke!). Music is powerful, it can change how we feel in an instant, so it’s a quick way to get you feeling empowered and ready to take on the world again. So create your inspirational music playlist to fire you up whenever you need it.
- Writing in my journal. This might not seem all that magical at first, but it truly can be. So often we get stuck in our head, so when we take some time out to sit down and write out what’s going on and how we’re feeling, it enables us to surrender and move forward.
- My personal development library. When I’m getting in my own way, I know it’s time for me to listen to some person development, whether it’s an audio program of Tony Robbins, an inspiring podcast or a Les Brown video on YouTube — I’ll watch anything that empowers me to get out of my own way and go for it!
I suggest you put together your own bag of mindset magic tricks and have fun with it.
Ultimately, if you want to create more success in your life make the decision to create it and then immerse your life in things that empower you to feel successful and enable you to create the success you desire.
We can all do it, every single one of us. So make the decision and go for it.
Originally published at medium.com