Are Your Emotions Hurting Your Income?

Are your emotions costing you money and sales? 

Hands up if you are like me and get a new idea every second day? Or maybe you have a new emotion every few hours? Let’s face it – it’s the blessing and curse of the entrepreneur – the one who can’t get through 10 minutes in the morning without being distracted by an email link, an exciting video or a phone message. Sounding familiar? 

Sometimes I start the day really well – feeling great, get up, exercise and write a list – and then I walk into my office and experience severe procrastination because I’ve seen the chaos on my desk. My husband called it “Hurricane Louise”.  All my plans go out the window and I lose focus on what I had planned to do because of feelings of overwhelm.  

 The DNA of the entrepreneur is often someone who has high right brain tendencies, ie: emotional and creative. This is truly an amazing and wonderful thing.. we have the capacity to create awesome ideas and services that are impossible for others who prefer a safer more mainstream lifestyle to even think of. However there is a down side. On a bad day we can sabotage our genius and allow our emotions to ruin our success. 

 Understanding how to shift into different parts of our brain is key to being able to create an amazing business, which requires all parts of our brain eg: financial, organisational eg: marketing, creative and people skills/intuition. So go ahead - have a read of these three steps to see where you are on the scale of emotional sabotage and how to start to fix it. 

 STEP ONE: Are you leaving money on the table? 

 You’re a natural creative – you often come up with amazing ideas – but when it comes to execution – it all gets a bit too hard. For example you meet someone at an event and going home you think of a great way to joint venture with that person, or a product or service that could help them. What do you do? 

1.  Follow up by contacting them immediately 
2. Overthink all the things you will need to do to make it happen and feel overwhelmed 
3. Chicken out because you think they might say no 
4. Have a cup of tea or go and clean the kitchen 

 Start to shift your focus. 

 The left side of your brain needs a workout! 

You have become paralysed with all the tasks you need to do to follow through.  If the words planning or time management make you shriek in horror – it’s probably the area of your business that is stopping you from achieving the success you truly deserve. Don’t run away now that you’ve heard that horrible “P” word …HELP is here! There are ways to execute your plan with less pain and more energy! It’s just that you’ve always been taught about planning and time management from the kind of person who hangs out their washing at exactly the same time every day and ticks off every item on their shopping list in the supermarket.  

ACTION: Remember a time when you organised something fun or enjoyable. Maybe it was a wedding, a dinner, a holiday. Write down all the organising skills you used. You do have those sorts of skills – but when applied to your business you may feel de-energised and uncertain. Link your organisational time to an exciting or happy emotion or reward. Eg: When I get my accounts done I will go for a coffee with a friend. Make small goals as your brain will tire more easily than when doing things you enjoy more. 

Change the signpost in your brain from “Rejection” to “Rejoicing” 

ACTION: Write down everything you have ever sold. Make a big long list. Even if it was when you worked as a casual at McDonalds.  Actually think about any job you have had. You sold your services for regular pay cheques. Reality is you’ve been selling for years! Notice how you have managed to receive money for services in many ways! 

Next…write down how you would like to be feeling about sales. Focus on the emotions you want to have rather than those you don’t. Your brain has just been going into freak out mode because it’s not conditioned to feeling good when you receive money. 

 STEP 2: What do you do that people ALREADY value? 

 Let’s face it... you are a ‘go to’ person. You may have had a great corporate role and have the capacity to earn great money or you’re running a business but running yourself ragged helping people without the return that you deserve. People trust and respect you because you are an expert in your field. You are passionate about what you do and you love to help others. However, there are a lot more people who need your help and you are not as far down the road as you would love to be.  See which of the following apply to you… 

1. I often come up with solutions for people during casual conversations 
2. I tend to lead with my heart rather than my head when giving my time 
3. I second guess the pricing of my products 
4. I know exactly what my pricing is, what my intentions are and how to sell my products 

ACTION: Make a list of everything you already help people with – these are probably money making skills and passions that you have and that you could be selling because people see value in them. Recognising what people value is the first step towards pricing yourself and making the money that you deserve.  

Managing your emotions around the painful parts of your business is key to enable you to earn more income. 

STEP 3: What money emotions are hurting your income? 

 I remember a time when my husband had been made redundant the day before our first child was born – with 18% interest rates on our mortgage, I was devastated! It was a shock and trauma that we didn’t expect. We had a new house and bills to pay. So, my brain went straight into fear mode. For the following few years, every time something looked like it would go wrong financially – I would catastrophise every potential negative scenario in my mind leading me into panic state! Sound familiar? 

 We all have internal unconscious strategies that automatically lead us to feeling sad, anxious, panicky, happy, strong, proud, confident. Our mind creates strategies about money, love, friendship, goals…everything! These patterns of thinking impact the way we behave every day and are also affected by the environment around us. 

Our brain goes into fight or flight mode when it sees, hears or feels something that looks like danger. 

 Start to be aware of the following patterns. What do you relate to? 

1. My home or office environment empowers me and makes me feel energised 
2. I am aware of certain negative feelings that come when I think about money or past experiences with money
3. I struggle with doubt sometimes when I think about selling or making money
4. Sometimes I’m super confident and other times I feel like I just can’t do it all

These patterns of thinking can be changed very quickly. The problem is – we often don’t realise what part of our brain is switching on and creating these emotions. Getting money is often linked to feelings we have had as a child and beliefs around our self-worth. Or possibly an unexpected disappointment set us back and makes us doubt our ability.    Our brain works in visual, auditory and kinesthetic patterns – which cause us to feel angry or sad or helpless... But all that they are are conditioned patterns that we have become used to – like that muscle that has been used a lot. 

ACTION: 

Write a list of every emotion you feel when you think about sales! This creates awareness. As you do this, tell yourself to be calm. Recognise It’s just your fight or flight response kicking in. All this is is a pattern of thinking that can be changed. 

Close your eyes and picture a time when you were succeeding, calm and happy. Then write down the amount of money you want to make this month in your business. The key is to continually connect with the picture, emotion and energy of when you successfully made a lot of money and link it to your goals. 

Write a list of how you want to feel when it comes to sales or money. 

Start to hang around people who have a positive energy and focus related to money. The negative people in your life will reinforce staying put. 

Action creates results...so don’t just think….DO!