At the start of every New Year, we tend to become introspective and make a bevy of promises with ourselves about taking all the right steps for improving our relationships and work. Yet the inability to hold ourselves accountable to our goals leads to our lack of progress and the subsequent disappointment at the end of the year. If 2017 has been a tough and less than satisfactory year for you, this is the time to start sowing the seeds of change instead of just setting up ultra-ambitious New Year resolutions that you are sure of failing at eventually. As women entrepreneurs, there are lots of areas in our lives we struggle with; love, marriage, job, finances, business, friendships, and it bring so much guilt, angst and frustration to us eventually. In one of my Wealthy Wednesday episodes, Midori Verity, a serial entrepreneur and online marriage counselor, shared the fundamentals of improving one’s business and one’s relationships (not limited to marriage only) with us. Our dialogue helped us zero in on the following steps that can help us renew our business, personal and professional relationships and have a more fulfilling year ahead:
Finding Your ‘Why’ and ‘Because’
Whichever areas in your life you want to improve, be it your business or your relations, you need to explore and understand their fundamentals in order to put the necessary drive behind them. There is a reason behind everything we do i.e., starting a new business or a new personal or business relationship and sustaining it through challenges, or continuing with existing ones. This reason forms the vision of your life. Often enough, we forget this reason and vision and start doubting ourselves or our efforts. So whenever you are going through a phase of frustration and self-doubt, pause for a moment and ask yourself why you are doing what you are doing. According to Midori Verity, two very important words in this regard are: ‘why’ and ‘because’. Usually, we get so stuck on the ‘what’ part that we forget to bypass it and keep asking ourselves: ‘What the hell am I doing?’ What you need to do is to move past the ‘what’ of things that are giving you a hard time and go towards the ‘why’ and ‘because’. You are putting your efforts in your business or your relationship because you value it. For instance, you are not just working because you have to pay your bills, you are doing something because it gives fulfills your passion and life. Even if things are not going your way right now in your personal and business relationships, knowing the core of your passion, the ‘why’ helps you to push through the ambiguous and tough times, the phases of crisis? Once you start rationalizing your thought process, disjointed elements start falling into their place, and a clearer, synchronous pattern starts emerging.
Rewire, Reframe Your Mindset through Positive Affirmations
Our life experiences are framed by situations and how badly or how well we respond to them. A negative mindset keeps us stuck, desperate, poor, and forever struggling. It entraps us in our perception of a situation instead of its actuality. Reframing is a powerful exercise that helps us look at and respond to a situation in a different and positive way. It brings success not only in our professional life but also in the personal one. A growth-oriented mindset helps you spot possibilities and opportunities amidst the challenges. One great way to reframe your mindset is to practice positive affirmations and use them as a mental and physical response to the personal and professional situations you encounter on daily basis. As an actionable tip, Midori Verity recommends trimming out negative words and statements out of your vocabulary, such as ‘no’, ‘maybe’, ‘I cannot…’, ‘I shouldn’t’, and start using positive affirmations that start with the words ‘I am…’. For instance, I, Luci McMonagle, am creating a legacy because I am helping others create a legacy. Another conscious affirmative mindset exercise that I use is posting these affirmations at a prominent place on my workstation, on the mirror, even on the wall behind my camera, so that I can look at them, am reminded of them when I am working on an episode. You may use these practices or evolve some new mindset reframing practices and affirmations that work for you.
Bring Excitement into Your Life and Business
Have you ever thought that there is a lot of euphoria in the start of any relationship, whether you are starting a new relationship or a new business. But with the passage of time, things tend to fall into a rut, things start slipping away, the excitement wears off, relationships start faltering. We wonder what is wrong and why we don’t feel connected with our business, our passion, and our partner anymore. The problem is that we tend to focus on the short term vision of our business and relationship and not the long term. The truth is that nothing is self-sustainable, and sustaining your work and business, your relationship all require serious effort; it’s a skill that needs to be learnt. Every venture or relationship needs a deliberate infusion of excitement in form of conscious steps in order to keep it alive, fresh, and vibrant. One particular tip that Midori Verity gave about improving our relationships is about making small deposits in your relationship account through thoughtful actions and words on regular basis. These deeds and words are like an investment that grows and gives handsome returns. So take conscious steps and efforts to reinvent yourself in your business and in your relationships and get more sustainability, happiness, fulfillment, peace, and intimacy from them.
I, Luci McMonagle, have been working for years as a Mystical Wealth Creator to empower women entrepreneurs emotionally, spiritually and financially. I am helping women add more passion, fulfillment and success to their lives and their businesses. Through conscious efforts, right actions and guidance, you too can start and sustain a passion-filled the business and relationship and live the life of your dreams. To discover how I can support your dreams, have a free exploratory session with me. Click here