If you’ve been paying attention the last few months, you may have seen a change in me, mama.
Being at home all the time, being still, not racing around all the time, gave me some space. I started to see and feel things I never had the time to notice before. I’m paying attention to the cyclicality of my hormones, my mood, and my output. I’m feeling my feelings.
Basically, I’ve become… a little bit woo.
To help me on this journey, I’ve hired the amazing Jillian Bolanz as a coach. And one of the things she and I are working on is reprogramming — rewiring — my brain.
I’m a highly logical person. And Jillian Bolanz has shown me that I try to bypass my feelings and go straight to a logical justification. That’s good — to a point. It keeps me moving forward and focused on my goals. It keeps me from getting mired down in sadness. But it’s not good to never allow yourself to feel.
So I’m learning to feel things, even when those feelings scare me.
In my first year of business, someone tried to use a trademarked term that I owned. I thought that the other business owner and I could solve it amicably between ourselves, but it turned into a legal kerfuffle that cost me around $15,000 — money I absolutely did not have at the time.
Every time I see this person’s name online, I have a visceral, emotional reaction. Up till now, I dealt with it by shoving that feeling down and plowing ahead.
Jillian is making me linger in those feelings and explore them. I felt angry, because I was scared. I let that fear keep me small in my business for a long time.
A question Jillian often asks me is, “What’s the opposite of that?” I, being the logic lover that I am, go straight to the thesaurus and look up antonyms of words until I find one that feels right to me.
So I’ve created an affirmation and chose each word in it with great purpose and deliberation:
In this moment, I am safe and calm. I choose to live my life with unwavering conviction, certainty, and clarity.
Here’s the thing.
Entrepreneurship is the greatest personal development course you’ll ever take.
It’s usually not what we plan on when we start a business. We’re thinking about cash flow and systems, or about freedom and time. But suddenly, we’re face to face with mindset and rewiring our brains. And that’s actually the most important part.
You can be successful even if your cash flow is limited.
You can be successful even if you are building a business in limited blocks of time.
You can be successful even if you don’t have a college degree or you live in a small town or you’ve never done this before.
But you cannot be successful if you aren’t willing to do the mindset work. It’s an absolute requirement for success.
One of the first mindset shifts I made for myself was to consciously reject false choices. Family and finances. You can have both.
When you hear me talk, you’ll rarely hear me say the word “but.” Whenever possible, I replace it with the word “and,” because I believe firmly in the philosophy of “both, and.”
I’m still learning how to live this out everyday. I can be highly logical and deeply feeling. I can be a hard worker and surrender. I can be brand new to something and be qualified to do it.
If you’re ready to start shifting your own mindset, give it a try. The next time you feel a “but” coming on, see if you can replace it with “and.”
How does it feel? What does it shift for you?