If you say money flows to you effortlessly and consistently but clients aren’t showing up for their appointments, and as a result, you can’t pay your bills or buy groceries — well, to state the obvious, you’re straight up confessing things that are contradicted by reality. You're trying to deceive your subconscious mind, and because you’re going against nature by forcing yourself to look past the truth, inner turmoil between who you actually are and who you want to be will manifest itself in the form of things that fail to match up to what you confess.
In the article ‘Don’t Sell Me Dreams, Sell Me Reality!’, I spoke about this false sense of optimism local small service business owners have with things they have no validation for. Have you ever considered why you’re always internally inhibited when you try to make certain moves? Our subconscious mind is our memory bank and we’ll always remain unfruitful if we don’t practice depositing the right information there.
It Doesn’t Matter What You "Believe", It Matters What You Act On!
Nothing is wrong with seeing yourself through someone else’s eyes if it’s helping you move in the right direction. But, you also have a part to play in that equation. This is where I believe some sole-traders get messed up with affirmations. They unconsciously look at it as “easy money”. Don’t insult your intelligence by smothering it with fairytales of things flowing to you without ever doing the "right" things to logically have that expectation. Anything less makes what you believe justifiably questionable. It comes off as ornamental when you just sit there without acting on acquiring the things necessary for you to come into the life you want for yourself apart from "believing" you deserve it. But you also come across as unconscious when despite your results, no introspection is made.
I see this type of slothfulness undermine some of my client's efforts to be more productive and efficient in providing their services. And it took me a while to realize it's because unconsciously they're treating the experience of getting a website like another affirmation. Just believing you're more productive and efficient because you have a website doesn't mean you are if despite claiming you're "trustworthy", you refuse to give potential patients a tangible reason to trust you online, or despite claims of "believing in a better shopping experience" clients lack clarity on what the next steps are in a project with you, or despite touting "multiple streams of income" in potential clients faces, you have no real plan in place for continued work with them in the future No amount of motivational or inspirational quotes will veil who we truly are deep down inside. So we should all just quit trying to bluff our subconscious mind, confront who we are, and be committed to effectively dealing with whatever comes up if we expect to walk our talk.
Here Are Some Authentic Weaknesses I’ve Observed And What To Do About Them
My last client praised my professionalism. As another client of mine put it in his review of working with me, "most service providers are typically disorganized". But, the ability to put my clients at ease during the designing of their website didn't manifest itself out of me sitting around chanting "I am smart and successful" all day.
Through observation, I used my intelligence to developed a system around how I worked that brought my clients aims to light. Therefore, it was easy for me to whole-heartedly believe when publicly complimented on my work ethic (going back to my point of seeing yourself through someone else’s eyes) because it's something I have been consciously working on for years before ever becoming self-employed. If anything, self-employment made me focus on my craft more because the success of the type of projects I enjoy being a part of, depends on how much hand-holding I see a client needs to sincerely feel like they got what they wanted and more out of their experience. And that, has actually created the opportunity for ongoing creative work in the form of visual branding.
So, don't underestimate the value of little things because in my experience, they lead to consistent money. Here are a few areas to start with:
Have respectful hours to go to bed and wake up: Being self-employed also means having control over choosing your most productive work hours. So, train yourself to begin paying attention to the hours your prefer to be of service to your clients, and the hours you need to regenerate.
Practice to eat proper meals: You may not be in the best position to eat the way you’d like, but neither was Steve Harvey the first night he spoke at the Apollo. And at first, I was no different. But, despite being depleted on cash I refused to let that stop me from taking care of my basic nutritional needs. Make temporary smarter purchasing decisions; for example nearly each day I drank oats, 3 times a day, until I started making more money. I’m not ashamed to admit that because I used it to make me more focused in my efforts because I wanted better and you can’t deal with other people’s problems if you’re hungry, unhealthy and by extension unhappy.
Dedicate a work space for yourself and be protective of it: Stop taking business phone calls with distractions in the background, if you know it reduces your ability to focus or retain what’s being discussed. And if your memory typically takes a hiatus, practice taking notes! Too many times I’ve had to chasten clients for their inability to either recall things because an email I sent got lost amongst the 17000 other unopened emails they have per tab in their inbox, or not documenting what was discussed because they “know I’ll be the responsible one and remember it for them.” Don’t just depend on other people’s memories when you’re running a business too. That’s just imprudent and an invitation for trouble with the right people. If a virtual assistant is achievable for you, then by all means hire one. But if you’re like me and don’t have the budget for that or care to, maybe you need to create an automatic filter for emails of a certain age, decide what to do with emails you never open, or develop a process for documenting important information and store it on Apple’s iCloud or Google Drive because these things chip away at peoples perception of you.
Become more organized: Your time is precious. Learn how to use it, and become protective of it so you’re never caught feeling unproductive with your time, your loved one’s time or your client’s time. Stop storing your branded images on your phone. Have a safe place like DropBox, or an external hard drive for storage because you can easily lose your phone and your investments along with it!
Watch what you invest in: After earning some money, don’t just spend it all! Have you forgotten that you’re building a business? If you must buy something, focus on things that can be added towards the growth of your business. Maybe you don’t own a pc. With some research, you can get a net book for $3000.00, maybe less, that can temporarily assist your workload.
Put something away for a rainy day: What are we doing if we’re earning money and spending it all? If you ask me, that’s called “spinning top in mud”! Have a specific percentage of your finances that you put away in the company’s savings and don’t EVER touch it!
When I first started my business, it was hard sustaining my finances. Each time I would reach $3–4000, something would come up due to the dry spell experienced trying to get new clients, and the money would be used. But in hindsight, I was actually practicing restraint in my spending all along, which has been so helpful, because when my business started making a sizable income I was mentally prepared to put it away.
Don’t wait until you’re making a large amount of money to practice saving. Build the muscle from scratch so you’ll be prepared when the opportunity to financially stabilize your business presents itself.
Malcolm X said “Once you change your philosophy, you change your thought pattern, once you change your thought pattern you change your attitude. Once you change your attitude it changes your behavior pattern and then you go on into some action. As long as you have a sit-down philosophy you’ll have a sit-down thought pattern. And as long as you think that old sit-down thought, you’ll be in some kind of sit-down action.”
Spend time becoming aware of the things holding you back, be honest about what they are and why they occur. That’s the only path to progress because through your recognition you can do something about it, and be authentically celebrative of any verbal or written representation of the results of your actions.
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