Today is the last day of your mini reinvention course. If you missed the last few days, they are all on the blog here.
Each day builds upon the previous day. There are steps to finding yourself and your purpose. You’ve got to have a solid foundation to build your vision. And then, once you get that clarity, there is all the “stuff” that gets in our way from making it come to life.
Here’s your recap:
Day 1/Stage 1: Do you Feel Significant?
Summary: You’ve got to know that it’s your birthright to be significant. There is a grand design for your life. The lesson here is to break away from needing to conform. Discover and let go of the influences that disempower you.
Day 2: Peeling the Onion: Conditioning and Deconditioning
Summary: Next, you’ve got to remove the layers that you don’t want. Put on the layers that you do want and recreate yourself. Life isn’t about discovering yourself, it’s about creating the person you want to be.
Day 3: The Hedgehog Principle: Finding Your Sweetspot
Summary: Now that we’ve got the foundation of who you are, it’s time to find your most profitable talent. We are ever so distracted in our noisy world. Look within to all the experiences that made you come alive. The key to success is leveraging the heck out of your talent.
Day 4: Control Your Mind, Master your Business
Summary: Discovering your sweets-pot is only the beginning. Making your vision come to life is where all the fun begins and it’s where growth happens. Master your mindset and know the strategy of successful launches.
Day 5: Living Your Values: Consistency is the Key
Summary: Knowing your core values and living them is the key to perseverance. It’s also the best way to connect with people on the deepest level and make your marketing memorable. When you’ve mastered staying true to your values and communicating them, you stand out because you stand for something.
Day 6: Love Yourself More and Become Visible (without caring)
Read below: This is a perspective that you’ve never heard before.
Today’s topic is confronting for me. We’ve all heard the saying you’ve got to love yourself unconditionally.
However, let’s get real here, there are conditions and consequences. I’m not going to go through life pretending that I love myself so I can let myself off the hook for living in fear. Yes, it’s a conundrum for me. If the opposite of love is fear, how can I truly love myself if I’m living in fear?
Starting a business, particularly venturing to create a niche “intangible service” isn’t easy. It takes lots of courage and commitment to stand out and blaze a new path for yourself. We experience visibility fears and that annoying impostor syndrome that doesn’t seem ever to go away. I’ve struggled with this for years. I know how painful it can be and want to give you some insight on what’s worked for me and a different perspective.
Loving yourself isn’t a feeling you can easily conjure up, at least not a real one.
Positive affirmations and reading self-help books won’t help unless they’re backed by action. Self-care rituals and habits of practicing kindness to yourself are important to allow self love.
However, if you’re not honoring your truth, you slowly chip away at your soul and that can feel like a slow death. At least it did for me for many years.
That’s why I’m so passionate about helping others break free.
Here are 2 tips for loving yourself more and overcoming fears of visibility.
These two tips are so closely related as you’ll see below and they have nothing to do with the “feeling” of loving yourself more.
1. Am I expressing my love in action?
Rather than think about how can I feel love for myself, think about what can I do to express my love in action. Stop focusing on yourself and how you feel for a moment and switch it to others.
At the core of branding is about how others experience you. It’s about giving people an experience, a feeling or emotion that enhances their life. It’s not about you.
Lawrence Boldt in his book “ZEN and the Art of Making a Living,” talks about your work as essentially love in action. He considers work as “an intersection of the duty to yourself to follow your bliss and make your fullest contribution.” We are motivated not by external rewards rather self-expression and service to humanity.
So, when we think about marketing our business, think if it as expressing your love and it will come back to you in more ways than you can imagine.
2. Do you trust yourself?
Rather than work on the “feeling” of loving yourself, practice honoring yourself through learning how to trust yourself more.
Start here. It’s the ultimate form of love and respect for yourself.
Acting on what your intuition is telling you and stop second-guessing yourself is trust.
And when you can trust the promises you make to yourself and others, amazing things happen to build your self-esteem and confidence.
As we trust in ourselves and our abilities, we love and have confidence in ourselves.
Sounds so simple, right? So why is it so hard?
Something happened to the human evolution that makes us cling to feeling safe. Back in the caveman days, our basic primal need was to feel safe and protect ourselves from all the scary animals. However, most of us aren’t living like cavemen anymore. We have food and shelter. But we haven’t let go of that drive to feel safe.
Ask yourself, what do you have to be afraid of?
There are two directions you can move in life. You either move forward into growth or move backward into safety. Life isn’t about having all the answers but learning how to trust yourself and move forward in that direction courageously.
As Ralph Emerson is one of my favorite philosophers. He has an interesting definition of trust.
“Do you trust what is in your heart is also in your heart is also in the heart of others?” When you believe this, then you want to share your truth. It becomes a natural expression of who you are – being love in action.
The fear of visibility or self-expression comes from the belief that what you know is the truth isn’t something that is in the heart of others. We fear rejection. It takes a lot of courage to be vulnerable. And it’s the best way to attract your best like-minded customers.
We know this fear isn’t true. We are all human, struggling with the same issues and with the same desire to feel connected. It feels great when someone shares a story that you haven’t quite been able to articulate. That’s what sharing your truth can do for others.
People who trust what is in their heart is also in the heart of others naturally stand out and excel in the marketing game – they become thought leaders.
Fears around visibility become a non-issue and instead you feel enthusiasm – almost a duty to share your truth.
This year, will you be someone who trusts what is in your heart is also in the heart of others?
If you’d like to get clear on your message and how to reach them, you can book a discovery session here.
I hope you enjoyed this blog series and it’s given you a new perspective on becoming more visible with your message and mission. Your “work” can be an expression of your love in action. When we evolve our personality and patterns because we are committed to reaching goals, we understand why reinvention is part of life. Embrace it and have fun.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the reinvention series, please comment on my blog here and let’s start a discussion.
In the upcoming weeks, I’ll be writing to share with you more tactical advice on how to get your message to more people, build your brand and positioning in your field. I’ll be sharing how you can offer such great value that people won’t be able to ignore you!
I’m opening my reinvention program, one-on-one experience. If you’re interested in receiving the most comprehensive business, brand, and life course that turbocharges excellence in your life, you can apply here.
