What Business Are You Really In? The Energy Management Business

Ever get a great idea, and then you are flying high with inspiration and possibilities? You outline your idea, you mind map it, you buy books on the subject, you easily draft up copy for an email campaign... you take a few steps, and then you share it with a few people close to you and... Bam! You hear "How will you do that?" "I don’t get it..." "Someone else I know has done something similar..." Next thing you know, your inspired actions have turned to staring at the computer and aimlessly reading tweets. Then your own psyche joins in the game and pipes up. "You’ve never done anything like that. What makes you think you can do it? Last time you tried a campaign, you didn’t get very many people signing up. Your message isn’t clear enough. Your list isn’t big enough..." Not enough, not enough, not enough... You’ve popped out of the flow. Hmm... time to go get a snack from the kitchen (I never realized my love for poptarts!). I MUST wash all the towels in the house (it must be done NOW). Or I’ve just got to clean out that silverware drawer (where did all these crumbs come from?). All this talk - the inner and the outer chatter - slam us to a halt because it’s colluding with our deep inner beliefs, those repetitive thoughts that have dug such a groove inside of us that they drive the train, and we may not even realize it. Stopping this chatter, shifting our thoughts, and creating new beliefs are what our work as an entrepreneur, as the owner of our business, is really about. When we can do that consciously and consistently, then we can DO anything in our business! The first step is always awareness. You have to be aware of the chatter that is self-limiting and pulls you down. The easiest way to create awareness is by paying attention to the signals your body gives you such as: • tightening shoulders, throat, stomach, heart arearn• clenched teeth and/or jawrn• headachern• upset stomachrn• fuzzy brain (that’s what I call it when you start feeling confused on a subject that you did have clarity about two seconds ago) The feelings that go with those body symptoms are: • irritabilityrn• frustrationrn• confusionrn• feeling of yearningrn• angerrn• sadnessrn• depression These are signs you need to:rn1. Let gorn2. Shiftrn3. Choose life-enhancing thoughts again It’s hard to choose a new thought in the moment of these intense, constricted feelings which I call the "grip.”rnFirst you need to let go and shift.rnLet go by: • drinking waterrn• breathingrn• listening to a meditation CD or meditating with another methodrn• going for a walkrn• working outrn• consciously choosing to do a new activity like sort the laundry or clean the silverware drawer Once you shift the “grip,” then you can think a little clearer and choose to shift your thoughts to ones that are more life-enhancing. (More on that in a future article.) For starters, practice noticing the signs in your body of being “in the flow” or being “out of the flow." Then choose to shift.