Wednesday 19 December 2007

Tackling Subconscious Fears

It is very tough to know what your fears really are.

Sometimes you can figure out logically why it is right for you to go out and earn £100 million or why it is right to have the most passionate relationship ever, but your life won't reflect what you know is logical.

You may find that you have set these goals and have lots of reasons why you want to achieve them, but you still find that you are not producing results that lead you in the direction of the goals.

The reason this happens is because you have beliefs that you are not consciously aware of that prevent you from acting towards these goals. For example, you may really want to be a multimillionaire, but you may feel that generating wealth involves lots of pain, because you might get rejected when you start new relationships with clients or you will have to work really really hard.

But how can you tackle limiting beliefs you are not even aware of?

I have developed two very powerful exercises for overcoming this challenge.

The first one is to take a bird's eye view over your entire life. Take a look at all your actions and decisions up until the present moment. Visualise the key moments in your life and see how your life has progressed. Once you reach the present moment, continue to visualise what will happen as you continue to take similar decisions and actions as you have done in the recent and maybe longer-term past. If you do this as honestly as you can, you can often get a strong idea of where your life is really heading. Sometimes it is easy to begin visualising yourself owning this massive company or helping lots of people, but when you look at the actions you are currently taking you might realise that some of the beliefs that cause you to make the decisions you do will seriously have to change.

Once you have done this exercise ask the following question.

What fears are holding me back from acting towards achieving my goals?

You will probably come up with a list of several fears.

Now take this list and work through each fear finding reasons why the fear is completely flawed or why the fear is not relevant. This may require some creativity but it is definitely worth it.

When doing this also try and visualise why the fears are flawed, because this will make it much more real for your brain.

It may be a good idea to try this exercise several times until you feel deep down that you are not afraid of pursuing your goals any more.

I think what is particularly powerful about these two exercises is that they tackle beliefs that you are not even consciously aware of. This also means that once they are changed you do not have to consciously pump yourself up to take the action you need to to achieve your goals, it should happen automatically because you mind will believe that taking action that will achieve your goals will be fun.

Thursday 6 December 2007

Creating a Business Idea

So you want to generate financial abundance for yourself and those around you. You plan to do this by going down the entrepreneurial route. There's only one problem - you don't have a business idea.

This is quite a big problem. How can you go out and get rich if you don't have an idea. If you don't have an idea, then you can't make a plan. If you can't make a plan then you can't act. If you can't act then you can't produce any results.

So what is the solution to this problem?

An idea.

All progress stops when you don't have an idea and everything can begin when you have an idea. There is no getting round this.

This means you need to employ every conceivable strategy possible to come up with your idea.

So what is it like to experience an idea? How do you know when you have really stumbled upon a great business idea?

Before you know if you have a great idea you have to be familiar with the industry. You might have a great idea, but someone out there may have already started working on it. Alternatively your idea may not be profitable at all.

So how do we overcome this problem?

If you have an industry which you prefer, then it might be a good idea to start studying that industry. Begin asking yourself questions like "what is missing from this industry?", "what would I really enjoy contributing to this industry?".

Once you start studying an industry you will likely begin finding things that are missing from that industry. You will probably begin to see places you can add value, or areas in which there are companies who have no competition and therefore produce poor products or services. These all represent opportunities.

Another great way of generating ideas is getting out of your current environment and experiencing loads of new things. For example, go travelling, go visit some friends far away, go away to some cottage out in the country somewhere for a week, etc. This will help you get a fresh perspective on how your idea is coming along.

Some important things to note...

Do not use your lack of an idea as an excuse for not generating value. Whatever it is you are doing at the moment to generate value, it is probably worth continuing to do so, unless it compromises you ability to generate your new idea.

Also, do not allow the fact that your "working on idea" to reduce your productivity. Just because you do not have an idea is no excuse for sleeping in until midday and then watching TV until 5 in the evening before you start doing anything. You have to make your actions congruent with that of producing a great idea. You also have to look after yourself in a way that when your idea comes along you are ready to give it 100%.

I've thrown a lot of information out here, so I'll summarise my key points below
-If you want to make a big contribution or increase your wealth substantially you need an idea
-Become aware of what it will feel like when you have this idea. You may already have a good idea, but not realise it
-Explore an industry you like and find out what you might be able to add to this industry
-Get out of your current environment to get a new perspective on your situation
-Get some new experiences under your belt
-Keep generating value for people until you have your idea, unless doing so compromises you generating an idea
-Get your lifestyle to a position where you will be ready to implement your idea the second you think of it