There's been a common theme in my one-on-one coaching sessions this month and it's tied to the idea of success.  Tell me if this story sounds familiar to you.  

You're really smart and great at what you do.  Like the best.   You've paid your dues, you work really hard and you're pretty evolved in your thinking.  You've done decently well in your career—but you know you're capable of so much more.  So when you evaluate your current status and the money you're making, you feel like a  big failure. And feeling like a failure make you feel worthless and creates and endless cycle of negativity.  

I get it.  I've been there.  I've had several careers over the last 12 years and I didn't always feel great in them.  In fact, when I launched my agency back in 2007 and didn't make the millions I'd envisioned, I felt like a huge flop and wallowed in shame.  And even when I launched my current business and wasn't immediately featured in Entrepreneur Magazine and hailed "coach of the year" I felt like I'd failed and felt shame there too.  But shame owns us and keeps us stuck.  So it's our job to find the shame, heal the wound and move fully into your badass amazing potential.  

Below is the exercise I take myself and my clients through whenever the weight of "success" or "failure" is feeling too great.  Find a quiet place and give yourself at least  30-minutes to journal on all the prompts below.  And if you need more support, you can always book a session.  

1. Journal on why you might currently feel like a failure.  Identify and name the fear in the story you're telling.  I.e. "I'm such a failure because I set a goal to get two juicy corporate clients by March and nothing has come through.  I'm afraid that if I don't get those clients, I won't meet my annual goals." Notice what's a story and what are cold hard facts.  

2. What is the limning belief tied to the fear? Limiting beliefs are thoughts that keep us small and stuck.  I.e."If I don't make enough money and meet those annual goals it means I'm capable or good enough aka my value is tied to how much money I make."

3. Turn the thought around.  Cite three examples from your life where you didn't hit your fixed goal, but still felt innately amazing and valuable because you lived and you learned.  I.e. "I felt valuable when I didn't meet my revenue goals in my last sales cycle because I learned that my timeline to close these projects is 4-6 months and I got wiser about how to close these deals.  So that was a major win and I felt really valuable." Make this turnaround thought your mantra and even take it into daily meditation with you, make it the background of your phone or place it on your fridge.  

4. Define what success looks and feels like to you from a growth mindset perspective.   According to Carol Dweck author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success "in a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.” What would make you feel successful through that lens?

5. Create an action plan to success. Based on your evolved definition of success, what actions do you need to get on the court with to achieve your newly defined success?  Does it mean learning a new body of work?  Getting curious about what works in your sales process?  Create a 30, 60 and 90 day plan with SMART goals so you can start to embody your new definition of success.  If money is coming up a lot for your in this exercise, I want you to do the money exercise in the blog post below.  

6. Check back in whenever you feel stuck.  If you're meeting resistance, are you in the fixed mindset?  Owned by shame?  Stuck in a limiting belief pattern?  The process of discovery and growth is on-going so lean into it and run yourself through this process as often as you need to.  

And if you need  more support reach out and book a session.  

How to change your money mindset by uncovering and healing old wounds. 

In order to uncover why we might feel stuck around the concept of money, we need to dig into our belief systems.  Because our beliefs systems are often unconscious. Like an operating system running in the background that we didn’t know we had.  

We’re going to dig into what you believe about money and how it might be currently shaping your reality. We want to explore who you are in relation to money. What do you believe about money for yourself? How did you come to believe these things? 

The ideas you hold about yourself and the world around you make up your CORE BELIEFS.  These CORE BELIEFS are often unconscious and unexamined.

And you might be wondering why, in an exercise on money we are talking about beliefs, well, I’ll tell you.  Beliefs are so important because almost every action you take in LIFE is influenced by them whether we realize it or not. And your Core Beliefs can either support or get in the way of the fulfillment of any intention. Everything you currently have in your life is a result of what you believe is possible in this world.  Take that in for a moment. That might be making your head spin. It did for me initially.  

So now, we're going to dig into some pretty deep questions.  Grab a notebook and pen, find a quiet spot where you won't be disturbed for at least 30-minutes, and take three giant and cleansing breaths.  Now, open your notebook and run yourself through these journal prompts.  

Part 1: THE HIS/HERSTORY

1. What were your early memories of money in childhood? Visualize it like a picture. What did you decide about money in that moment?
2. How was money handled in your family?
3. What messages were you given about work and money?
4. Was there emotional trauma around money?
5. What was your biggest fear about money when you were younger?
6. What were your parents’ fears? Have you adopted any of these as your own?
7. My biggest fear around money is?
8. My father felt money was?
9. My mother felt money was?
10. In my family money caused?
11. My early experience with money was?
12. Money equals?
13. I’m afraid if I had more money, I would?
14. In order to have more money, I need to?
15. When I have money, I usually?
16. If I could afford it, I would?
17. People with money are?
18. I’d have more money if?
19. What did you learn? How did your early experiences and parental messages affect you?

Part 2: MAKING YOUR DECISION TO MAKE MORE MONEY

1. What would you like to change?
2. Complete the following sentences 10 times: Money is______
3. What did you learn?
4. What do you believe about yourself and money:
5. Stepping into growth, what do you choose to believe about yourself and money
6. In your notebook, write this sentence: IT’S TIME TO MAKE MORE MONEY.  The sheer act of writing starts programming your unconscious mind.
7. Read it aloud three times.
8. Now fill in the blanks: This year I will make_______
9. How did you feel writing that? What is difficult or easy? Why? Was it uncomfortable or felt natural? Do you notice any resistance?

 Part 3: GETTING CLEAR

1. What do I want to make?
2. Why do I want to make that?
3. Why don’t I want to make that?
4. What does your child self say?
5. What does your adolescent self say?
6. What does your negative ego say?
7. What does your future self say?
8. Why will I let myself make what I want?
9. What did you learn? Any surprises?
10. Write down anything you think is holding you back?
11. Who is in your community? You are the average of the 8 people you spend time with. Who’s on your list?  Who would you like to remove and who would you like to add?

Part 4: THE ACTIONS 

1.  Use a money tracking app so you can see where you are spending your money and where you can be smarter about your money.
2. What can you cut back on?
3. Do you feel resistance on cutting back on this?
4. Fill in the blank:
5. I’d love to spend less, but: ______
6. I’d love to save more, but:
7. I’ve love to get out of debt, but:
8. I’d love to invest, but:
9. Are these reasons true? How can you counter them?
10. Make promises just for money: I commit to overcoming my money struggles and commit to 30 days of cleaning up my relationship with money. What behaviors can you promise to change or evolve to heal your relationship with money?

If you need more support on this topic, we invite you to book a session.  

**Exercise is adapted from Overcoming Underearning.

I don't know about your, but 2018 has been a year. It feels a bit like five years stuffed into 365 days. And you, like many of my clients, might be ready to turn the page and be done with this one. I hear you, I see you, I feel you.

This year I launched my Digital course, I filmed a pilot, I wrote a book, I shot a speaking reel, I coached over a dozen incredible souls one-on-one, I lead Fortune 100 companies to major shifts towards thrive culture, I wrote for MindbodyGreen, Thrive and Medium, I supported the launch of three super groundbreaking wellness businesses, I deepened some amazing friendships (you know who you are), I took several amazing trips, got in some loving fam time, and I lost my aunt, my uncle and my grandpa.  It's been a year.

What I've noticed in conversations and in sessions though, is that people can have a tendency to associate hard with bad.  This year was hella hard.  Especially, losing one of the people I love most in the universe, but hard has been the biggest blessing of my life.   Hard has cracked me open, allowed me to feel deeper, think bigger and reminded me of my own grace and greatness.  Hard is a gift—we just need to pull back the layers on it to see it.  We need a moment to witness and honor where we have been, who we have been and how we've shown up.  And only then, when we've really SEEN ourselves, can we start to think about turning the page.  

So, as we head into 2019, I invite you to do the following exercise to take inventory of what this year has been and who you've been in it.  It's a powerful way to honor your greatness, let go of what no longer serves you, and take the best of you into your new year and journey.  

2019 Intention Setting Exercise

I recommend starting with a little celebration.  Take a moment to witness where you won big this year and what the circumstances were that supported these big wins.  And then I want you to think about where you might have missed the mark and what you want to release as a result.  

You can put your celebration list on your altar, your fridge or somewhere you'll see it.  I also recommend releasing the list of what you want to let go of by tearing it up or br

Now, I want you to think big picture for 2019.  I invite you to think of your broader mission and vision and how you're doing to bring it to life.  You can do this for one specific area of your life, or all areas.

“Resilience is very different than being numb. Resilience means you experience, you feel, you fail, you hurt. You fall. But, you keep going.” — Yasmin Mogahed

Today’s training is about building a resilience mindset, so that no matter what happens—in work or in life—you can experience your emotions, but still feel whole, powerful and intact. 

Life, by nature, can feel up and down.  You might have an amazing day, get tons of praise at work, be in an amazing relationship and feel like an all-around rockstar as result. And there might be days when you fall up the subway stairs, mumble through a presentation or get really bad news about a loved one and it can make you feel really low.  So how do we ride the waves without having our emotions live in the wild extremes of life? By being so deeply rooted in our truth that nothing can throw us off kilter. 

Let me be clear here—there is nothing wrong with deeply experiencing your feelings or your pain—in fact I advocate for it.  If we deny them, or bury them, they'll surface in another way or time.   

The difference between feeling our pain and anguish but having the ability to keep going, is really a conversation of self-worth. Resilience, at its root is about knowing that whatever happens we will be loved, respected and worthy regardless of circumstance. That knowing allows us to move through our circumstances with the belief that we'll be okay.  But how do we get there?

Today I want to share my go-to tools for building a mindset of resilience and greatness.  Watch the video to learn more.  

Do you ever take stock of your life and wonder how you’ve gotten where you are? You might think to yourself, I’m so capable and bright, why doesn’t my level of success reflect that?  I’ve been there. I’ve always worked very hard and when I didn’t feel it was getting me where I wanted to go, I layered in some new-age self-help tools such as daily affirmations and visualization—but my dreams still felt like they resided in a distant and mythical place. They felt out of reach and beyond me, despite my best efforts.  A few years ago, after landing in an astonishingly uninspired place in my life regardless of my hard work and enthusiasm but knowing deep down that I was meant for something different, I decided I needed a fresh perspective. 

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I started working with a therapist who used hypnosis and deep meditations to get a stronger understanding of what was happening in my subconscious mind.   And it was pivotal. You see, our subconscious beliefs actually run the show. According to Dr. Bruce Lipton 95% of what we do is controlled by subconscious so we need to get a handle on the belief systems residing there.  Otherwise, those beliefs, in the words of Carl Gustav Jung “will direct your life and you will call it fate.” So much of our life is unconscious and until we make an effort to make it conscious, we will be stuck with the same old “fate.”  

In the below guided meditation, I’m going to help you get clear on the belief system that is inhibiting your success.  We’re going to dig into what you believe about the world and how it might be currently shaping your reality. What do you believe about yourself? How did you come to believe these things? What do you believe about the world? Have ever wondered how you came to form these opinions?

The ideas you hold about yourself and the world around you make up your core beliefs.  These core beliefs are often unconscious and unexamined. Beliefs are so important because almost every action you take in life is influenced by them whether we realize it or not. And your core beliefs can either support or get in the way of the fulfillment of any intention. Everything you currently have in your life is a result of what you believe is possible in this world.

According to David Eagleman, neuroscientist and a New York Times bestselling author of Incognito, "the conscious you is the smallest bit-player in the brain"—can you imagine that?   It’s so small to the point that even our most important and personal decisions – like choosing a partner, deciding which city to live in and even the work we choose to do– are directed by brain mechanisms that we are unaware of.”

How do we come to cement these core beliefs and how is it tied to our success today?  Our core beliefs are often cemented in childhood and are learned from our predominant caretakers, such as parents, grandparents, siblings etc.  What they believe about the world (and us) is projected on to us and we take it at face value, because in our younger years, we don’t always know to question it.  So, if you grew up in a household where your parents believed that money was hard to come by, or easily made and easily lost, it’s likely that you have the same beliefs and might be operating from them and not even realize it.  So, it’s our responsibility to dig into those beliefs about the world that are lurking in our operating system and learn to evolve them. 

Everything we have in our life is a reflection of what we believe we are worthy of.  So, let’s dig into what you think you are worthy of (or not worthy of) and recreate those old beliefs to new ones that serve you in a much bigger way.  Please listen to the guided meditation and then journal on the prompts below. 

Journal Prompts

1. What’s blocking you from success?

2. How might you and your beliefs be getting in your own way?

3. What limiting belief system might this be tied to?

4. How might you believe that you’re not worthy of success?

5. How might you be hiding from success because you believe it might come with things you don’t want? Or that you’d have to do things you don’t want to do?

6. Why might you be keeping yourself stuck? What theory does that prove to you or a loved one? (For example, did your parents tell you that you were no good with money, or couldn’t achieve what you set out to? Or that you couldn’t be good at everything)

7. What does not reaching your highest potential mean for you? What is it connected to from childhood?  What belief might it be fulfilling? (i.e. you’re not worthy of success, or that life is always hard for you?  I had a client who got a lot of attention when he was broke or sick.  His parents would call him “poor Tim” and give him tons of attention and help him.  So subconsciously, he set out to be “poor Tim” because that’s where he got attention and love.)

8. Who did you learn this behavior from?

9. What emotions are tied to you staying stuck? Does it make you stay safe? Humble?  Does playing small keep you out of harm’s way?

10. How might limited thinking be holding you back?

11. What are the new beliefs you want to cement? How can you look at life through this new lens?