| Dear
Internet Friend,
Not Reaching
Your Goals Fast Enough?
One of These Blocks May Be Holding You Back
By Lynea Corson-Hadley, Ph.D
If you’ve followed all the right steps
to achieve your goals and success still eludes you, look for
obstacles in your subconscious clinging like grease deposits
clogging up the works.
Here are six common blocks and strategies
for dissolving them:
1. Comparing Yourself to
Others Comparing yourself to others is counterproductive because
it makes you feel bad (you know that part) and creates unconscious
negative programming.
For example, if Rosemary sees others getting
big commission checks and thinks in sadness and frustration,
"What's wrong with me? Why don't I get checks like that?"
she’s programming her subconscious to forever be the
one left empty-handed. When you repeatedly feed your subconscious
negative criteria (missing big check) and feelings (bad) it
dutifully produces more of the very thing you don’t
want.
Action Steps: Write
positive denials linked to affirmations such as: "I'm
not different from associates who receive big checks. I'm
just like them. I no longer say I don't have big sales. I
do have big sales. It's not true that my deals fall through.
They all close. I don't believe I don't have enough money.
I have more money than I need. I'm not sad, mad, and scared
any longer. I'm happy and rich. I forgive myself for unknowingly
creating 'no big sales’ in the past. I now create big
ones. I work smart, and get lots of money. I have several
big sales, and big, monthly commission checks just like the
others."
Take your photo with associates who receive
big checks. Write, "I'm one of them. I get $____ checks,
too."
2. Language Boomerangs
Your subconscious always takes you literally. When you say,
“Gee, I really need a sale this week,” your subconscious
defines “need" as "lack of" and hears,
“Gee, I really lack a sale this week.” Your appeal
backfires because you feel the need for sales rather than
the joy of receiving sales. Change your tune. See and feel
the excitement of achieving your goals rather than the fear
of needing and not getting them.
Action Step: Talk with a friend about
your block. Describe the situation in detail. Tape your conversation
and edit it for literal meanings. For example, if you hear
yourself say, “This is getting serious. I have to get
on the phone and make some calls,” recognize that the
goal you’ve stated is to “make some calls,”
so once you’ve keyed the phone the goal is reached.
Be specific. Set a goal to reach x-number of people and sell
x-amount of your product or service on or before x-date.
3. Stalled Creativity
You may be trying to achieve goals by relying primarily on
logic and ill-fitting techniques borrowed from others. Instead,
tap into your own creativity.
Action Steps:
Stare for ten minutes at a picture of your completed project.
Or sit quietly and visually focus on a flower, tree, or other
appealing object while muting the chatter in your mind. An
idea may suddenly come to you.
Tune into sounds that stir your creativity.
Could be voices, music, birds chirping, even machinery, like
the hum of electrical tools, a printer or washing machine.
Crashing waves and bubbling fountains are favorites —
and both water and plants give off negative ions which also
increase creativity.
Being physically involved may trigger your
creativity. Try sitting at your computer or piano in a state
of relaxed expectancy. Doodle with a pencil, clean the garage,
walk, or go for a leisurely drive. While pursuing activities
that don't require much concentration, your subconscious may
supply a creative idea to help you reach your goal. A plus:
Mild physical exercise brings more blood to the brain.
Think of times when you were most creative.
List the factors operating (alone at the beach, sitting at
water’s edge, reading a relaxing book) when the creative
idea suddenly came to you. Then repeat the sequence of events
to get your creative juices flowing.
4. Loss of People or Things
Feelings of loss generate more loss until you dissolve the
feelings and forgive all involved.
Action Step: List your losses as far back
as you can remember — all the way to early childhood.
Connect your mind and body by hitting a chair with a rolled-up
towel, having a temper tantrum on your bed, pounding a board
with a hammer, or hitting a punching bag. Cry till your are
not sad and pound till you are no longer mad about the loss.
Forgive yourself and others.
5. Feeling You Don't Deserve Success Due
to childhood experiences, you may believe that doing something
wrong requires being deprived of something pleasurable. If
so, you could be basing decisions about how much you deserve
on wrong-doings as well as good deeds and accomplishments.
Action Step: Forgive yourself for
all past misdeeds. This will allow you to have the things
you want.
6. Slumps After Major Accomplishments
It is common for people, particularly salespeople, to experience
a lull following a major accomplishment. Here are three possible
causes of slumps:
You think, "I'll never be able to make
that big a sale again,” or "I'm not doing as well
as I did last month. I don't know what’s wrong with
me.” As you look for reasons to explain the dry spell,
you unconsciously formulate a new goal — the goal of
not doing well.
Action Step: Listen to what you’re
saying to yourself and remember, your subconscious takes you
literally. Amend your self-talk.
You simply forget to program the next goal.
It’s like baking a cake. Once the cake is eaten, it's
gone. If you want more, you must bake another one.
Action Step: Set a new goal.
After a major accomplishment you continue
business as usual, albeit a little more slowly (the old postpartum
syndrome). Pretty soon a voice in your head says, "You're
not working. How do you expect to put bread and butter on
the table?" You start affirming, "Gosh, I'm not
selling. I won't be able to make ends meet!" Repeated
over and over, this message becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy
and you find yourself in a slump.
Action Step: You need to enthuse and rest.
Give yourself guilt-free time to relax and celebrate. How
much is entirely up to you.
Affirmations to go with all of the above:
I never compare myself to others and feel bad. I am fully
deserving of all my goals.
It's easy for me to relax and tap into my creativity.
I freely release all feelings of loss.
When there is a delay in reaching my goal, I easily discover
the cause and dissolve it.
I prevent slumps after major accomplishments by resting, celebrating
and programming ahead.
I'm grateful I don't judge or punish myself for mistakes I
made in the past. I unconditionally forgive myself and others.
I dissolve all previously accepted limits on how much I deserve
to have, be, or do. I am free to achieve at whatever level
I choose.
Lynea Corson-Hadley, Ph.D., is an expert in
helping others break through blocks to reaching their goals
in all areas of professional and personal life. She is president
of Life Skills Unlimited, publishers of sales, health and
educational materials; an international speaker and trainer;
and coauthor of the book, The Secrets of Super Selling, from
which this article was adapted. Corson-Hadley was one of only
twelve people in the U.S. to qualify for the 1985 President’s
Honor Club with Success Motivation Institute, the world’s
largest personal development company.
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