Love really does have magical powers
How does LOVE relate to procrastination, mining for your unique gifts and talents, and “getting out there?”
Love is the theme of this month for me – and not just for me. As it’s the month of Valentine’s Day, I’m talking about loving yourself, loving your business, loving your vocation and really loving the people that you are around. When you do that, you fill your cup and then you then give of the overflow of love, and you become a vessel of love. That’s a lot of love and it works!
Love and Procrastination
Are you procrastinating on “that thing?” You want to do it, but for some reason it remains undone? That sticky note is still stuck on your computer; it’s never getting off your list. The answer to “why” it’s not happening may surprise you. Many times it’s perfectionism or kind of a false pride. I was working with a client who had a sticky note about going into a website portal to check on one of his loved ones. This person wanted to go in the portal, but he was unclear of the “how.” Behind that lack of clarity was this, ‘I don’t want to ask for help’ behind it, this false pride. The result was procrastination. So if you’ve ever experienced procrastination like this, please take heed. What we need to do is we want to trick our minds into recognizing that asking for help will help the person helping you, and help you to get traction along the way! Releasing any Should or Shame or Pride is an act of self-love.
Love and Becoming Visible
If you are an entrepreneur, you must “be visible” – it’s the first step in building authority. However, it’s easy to procrastinate, hide, and get distracted…so you don’t quite “get out there” the way you know you “should.”
TRY THIS EXERCISE: Think about one of your clients, or perhaps somebody that knows you really well, and ask yourself: what they would say about you? What makes your gifts so special- that they probably don’t get from almost anybody else? That is your superpower.
We often do not see these things in ourselves; not the way others see us. And because we don’t see it, because it’s our normal, we don’t pay any mind to it. The superpower just goes “unsaid”. And because it goes unsaid, we don’t pour more love into it and we don’t radiate it. When we don’t radiate our superpower, we sweep our gifts under the rug. We stay small, and underestimate ourselves. Then we wonder why we don’t succeed.
“What quality would your loved ones say that you have that’s unique and really special” is a really important question to answer. The answer will help you with other procrastination. For example, I have a client who is struggling with ‘getting out there’, getting out in front of an audience, even though she is incredibly talented at her craft. There’s a lot of negative voices that tend to stop her in her tracks. Her solution?
She said, “I’m going to go out there and I’m going to pretend that I’m going on this amazing date, this date that’s going to change the rest of my life. A date where potentially I meet my new love and we have the life of our dreams, and I’m going to take that kind of date energy, and I’m going to bring it into my business.”
Wow! What a mind flip!
That returns us to the theme of loving up your business, loving up yourself, loving up your vocation, giving to yourself, and recognizing your superpowers. From that energy that she would then take to be out in the world from there, she’s going to present her superpowers, which in her case is what she calls ‘drunk on beauty!’ She sees, she photographs and she sees beautiful things everywhere and that’s her superpower. She sees beauty in people, and she sees beauty in landscapes, and she’s drunk on beauty (probably why I like her so much, and probably why we get along so well).
Love, Procrastination, and Getting out there…the answer from me is, like so many times, is to really dig deep. One final tip…a script. Next time you’re talking to a client, just say,
“Hey, I know this sounds crazy, but what do you see in me that is of particular value? Because I follow Carol Williams, and she says I’m supposed to ask, I feel so silly asking, but would you mind just telling me?”
You’ll then learn something, and that exchange in and of itself helps the love flow. And when we have love flowing only good things come.
So thank you very much. Go forth, do good work.
In love, visibility, and awesomeness,
Coach Carol
PS: Comment below: What do you believe your superpower to be, and how are you going to use it this week?