Join me tonight on my monthly E-Factor broadcast as I discusses the recession, the real impact it's having on us all, and what we can begin to do about immediately. This is a show that many of you have asked for – and that eveyone needs to hear!

Overcoming the Fear of Recession

Recession is the word that seems to be heard (and felt) everywhere. But what's really driving the recession? What else may be compounding the economic concerns? What else is becoming "recessed?" If you're ready to stop being at the effect of the economy, and be part of the cause of the "turnaround," then join this call.

You'll be able to submit questions throughout the show on this topic, and even other issues that you may be encountering and want to pose to me. If you want to submit questions early, send them to efactor@iPECcoaching.com.

Date: Monday, March 23, 2009
Time: 8:30 - 9:30 PM (EST)

To register and receive dial-in information, go to http://www.ipeccoaching.com/the-efactor/index.html

If you’re not achieving what you want to, it’s most likely one of the Big 4 energy blocks that’s keeping you stuck. My last few posts looked at limiting beliefs - things that you accept about life, about yourself, about your world, or about the people in it, that limit you in some way; assumptions – expectations that, because something has happened in the past, it will happen again; and interpretations – opinions and judgments that you create about an event, situation, person, or experience and believe to be true.   

It is now time to examine the last, but certainly not the least, of the big four energy blocks. The final block we’ll talk about - the gremlin - is the most difficult to overcome, because it’s the most personal and holds the most energy.  

This barrier is the gremlin within every one of us: the inner critic. You know that little voice in your head? That voice that tells you not to try, never to take a risk, always to take the safe road, and to compromise your life by playing small? That’s your gremlin, and the message from your gremlin’s warnings is that you’re just not good enough to reach the summit of success. 

Regardless of any evidence to the contrary, the gremlin’s annoying voice continues to whisper: “It ain’t gonna happen.” This debilitating message bubbles up in many forms: “I’m not smart enough, experienced enough, and attractive enough.” It all comes back to a simple and quite vicious block: “I’m just not good enough to cut it.” 

Your gremlin is highly personal. It is rooted deeply inside you and carries the most intense emotional charge of any of the blocks we’ve explored. Your gremlin thrives on fear. When you hear its whispers, your motivation to try withers. You dread failing, feeling pain, and being embarrassed. You can even be scared of succeeding if the gremlin convinces you that you’ll fail eventually. 

So what are some typical gremlin statements? Do you hear any of these statements from your own inner critic? 

I’m not effective.
Who am I kidding, here?
I’m not smart enough to really do this job right.
I don’t have enough experience.
I don’t deserve great success.
They are going to find out I am a phony. 

Being aware of your gremlin is the first step towards lessening its power. Once you realize that your gremlin exists, give it an identity. Name it – and then, if you’d like, make it even more real by drawing it, sculpting it, or seeing it in your mind – whatever works for you. In doing this, you discover that the gremlin is only a part of who you are, not your whole identity. By seeing it in objective terms, you sap some of its strength. Gremlin work can be quite involved and is most effective when you are guided by a certified coach.   

Information on coaching and the process we at iPEC use to help clients overcome energy blocks can be found on our website, www.iPECcoaching.com, as well as in my book, Energy Leadership (Wiley).

My last blog post explored limiting beliefs, the first of the “Big 4” energy blocks which prevent us from making conscious choices and reaching our potential.  Let’s take a look now at another one of those blocks – the assumptions we make.

An assumption is a belief that is based on the premise that because something happened in the past, it is automatically going to happen again.

When you make choices based on your assumptions, you are letting the past control the future. Assumptions hold you back, because when you already “know” that something won’t work, you probably won’t even consider doing it. Even if you do attempt it, you won’t have a lot of energy for, or be engaged in, what you’re doing, since you don’t really believe it can work. When you hold on to your assumptions, you miss out on many possibilities.

Imagine this scenario: A new financial advisor has done five presentations, and none of the prospective clients have decided to hire her. If she’s makes the assumption that she is not good at doing presentations, then it’s unlikely that she’ll put her all into soliciting them. And, even if she does end up doing one, the catabolic energy she brings with her to the presentation may actually repel her potential clients (and without her even realizing it, she has created more proof that her assumption was correct.)

Here are some typical assumptions:
If I don’t do it myself, it won’t be done right.
My kids are lazy and unproductive.
I’m no good at interviewing.
No one listens to what I’m saying.

Because assumptions are primarily based on personal experience, they are internalized and emotional, and somewhat difficult to let go of. Delving deep to remove the emotion of the past experience may be necessary before moving forward. 

The main question to ask when challenging an assumption is simply “Just because that happened in the past, why must it happen again?”

When you just “know” that something won’t work based on your past experience, recognize your assumption for what it is, question it, and consciously choose to let it go and to take positive action.

My last post discussed Self-Fate and how, because we are making choices based on our past experiences, we cannot change our future unless the control of the past is removed. We need to learn to make conscious choices, choices that are made in the present moment, without all the emotional “baggage” we carry around.

You can think of that baggage as being packed in four kinds of suitcases - the “Big 4” energy blocks that we carry around with us that dictate how we see the world and that hold us back reaching our unlimited potential.

The first suitcase contains your limiting beliefs. Beliefs can either help you or hinder you; limiting beliefs are those that hold you back from success. If you do not believe something is possible, you’re not likely to attempt it. Even if you do attempt it, you won’t devote much energy to achieving that goal.
 
Limiting beliefs are general beliefs about the world, your environment and situation, and the people around you that stand in your way. More often than not, you accept a limiting belief as true because you’ve learned it from someone else, or from an “authority,” such as the media, a book, or a movie. You assume that it’s “just the way it is.”

Here is a classic example of a limiting belief: Up until 1954, it was commonly held that running a mile in under four minutes was impossible. Moreover, physiologists believed it was extremely dangerous even to attempt it. Yet on May 6 of that year, Roger Bannister crossed the finish line in 3 minutes and 59.4 seconds, thereby disproving the myth forever.

It’s remarkable that Bannister accomplished his feat. It required that he completely ignore the prevailing, limiting belief and construct an entirely different belief system for himself. What others saw as a limitation, he perceived as opportunity. And once he disproved the presumed limits of the human body, less than two months later, another runner, John Landy, broke Bannister’s record with a mile dash of 3 minutes and 57.9 seconds. What’s more, within just a few years, dozens of runners were leaving the four-minute mark in the dust.

Here are a couple of common limiting beliefs that hold many of us back. How about you have to work really hard to achieve success? Or that successful people are lucky? Or that you have to have money to make money?

There are several ways to challenge limiting beliefs. You can explore the effect the belief has had on your life, look for proof of its truth (or lack of proof), or modify the belief or aspects of the belief to better serve you. Simply examining the belief with questions like “How true do I believe that is?” and the rhetorical “Where did I get that idea?” can also work remarkably well. Once you overcome limiting beliefs, they can no longer hold you back.

Think about examining the contents of your limiting beliefs suitcase. Unpack it, and see how much lighter you feel.

In my previous post on “Maximizing Your Potential to Create Your Future,” I discussed Self-Mastery and how by resonating at a high frequency of energy, we attract what we want into our lives with little or no effort.
 
What holds us back from living the lives we desire? Some people attribute the lack of having what they want to fate – that their lives are somehow “meant to be” the way they are. Many people don’t like the concept of fate, however, because it negates free will. But what if neither the traditional concept of fate, nor free will, really existed for most people? An unusual concept called self-fate helps explain why so many of us don’t have what we really want.

Self-fate is the idea that because our past is dominating our thought processes, and because most people are not consciously living in the moment, our past actually creates our future. Because we are making choices based on our past experiences, we cannot change our future unless the control of the past is removed, and we choose in the now. So self-fate really means that for most of us, fate does exist, and we do not have free will. It is us who creates our fate because we are imprisoned by the past. We have pre-determined choices that we are programmed to make, and our past does the programming.

Think about a financial advisor who is unhappy with her clients, saying that all they do is complain and expect unreasonable things from her. She says that she seems to get the same kind of client, over and over again, and fears that she’ll never be in the position of being a true partner and advisor to her clients.  It’s no wonder she feels this way, as she’s had many experiences that have created those beliefs. In fact, it’s quite normal that she believes what she does, which poses a real challenge - since she sees clients as demanding and complaining, she is putting out “victim” energy. She is being a victim to the beliefs she has. And what is the result of that? The vibration she emits is picked up by those whose energy matches those beliefs: clients who will complain to her. To them, she’s an easy target. And so, she actually creates her future relationships, and will continue to do so unless she changes her sense of self, or, who she is BEING, in relationships.

The traditional concept of fate proposes that our lives are pre-determined by an outside source. Self-fate, however, is something that we can control.  In the next post, I’ll begin to discuss how we can reprogram our futures so that we achieve our unlimited potential.