I Want To Let You In On A Secret: What's The Three-Lettered Word That Makes Me Want To Yell At You?

I know... Wanting to yell at people isn't what you'd expect from a long-time meditation and yoga teacher... Let's call it one of my 'little foibles' - but it's one that's brilliant for unblocking change.

So, we’re two weeks into 2017 and… some people won’t like what I’m about to say. But if it resonates with you, then I reckon you’ll thank me for it. It’s time for some Tough Love.

Have you taken massive, inspired action towards your dreams in 2017 yet?

As a Mentor to Entrepreneurs and Passionate World-Changers, I meet lots of people who tell me about their dreams for their future and the difference they are here to create in the world. It's fab! They seem pretty excited, when they answer my questions about it. But I can tell that most of them will never make it.

Why? It’s down to the one little word - three letters - that makes me want to scream at them and shake them by the shoulders, to wake them up:

But…

“I’d LOVE to run my own business, but…”

“I feel totally committed about growing my business to the next level, but…”

“It would be great to go full-time with my business idea, but…”

“One day I’d love to write my book, but…”

Here’s what I wish I could yell at budding entrepreneurs and passionate World-Changers, when they tell me they’re ‘nearly’ ready to take action on the difference they’re here to make in the world, “but…”

Would you stop defending your F'ING EXCUSES and put that energy into taking action on your dreams, instead? If you did, you would transform your life in the next six months.

Yes. I know I used a rude word. I'm being totally open with you here - I'm not sanitising this to make it more palatable. And that's how strong a response the word 'but' can provoke.

I know that this ‘yell’ isn’t mindful or zen or practising acceptance or polite… And, in fact, I have to confess I have never yet yelled it out loud at anyone - yet. That has taken some serious self-control.

That 'yell’ stems from the intense frustration I feel when I hear people defending their excuses as to why they can’t be the incredible being they truly are, and can't make the difference they are here to make in the world, when I can hear their heart calling them to step up to the next level. I have seen the lifelong damage that those subconscious choices can create. I have experienced it, myself. And I don’t want that for them - or for you.

Sometimes you need to get blunt and shake things up.

Those who have worked with me, who have achieved incredible results in a surprisingly short space of time, know this to be true.

Why?

Because when you stop defending your excuses, you clear the space for breakthroughs. You have more energy and you're more likely to spot inspiration, when it strikes. And you're MUCH more likely to act on it.

You no longer scream and fight about releasing hidden blocks, out-of-date beliefs and subconscious fears - you relish the fact that a newly-found block is ready to be shown the door.

You have said YES to your dreams - even if they secretly scare you - and you aren’t going to let those old shitty habits get in your way. Why 'shitty'? Because each of them acts like a layer of dung smothering the radiant beam of your Inner Diamond and your Big vision. And I won't apologise for calling that 'shit'.

You see, there’s more to changing the world than the outward actions you’re taking. It’s about your mindset, too. You need to believe in yourself, or your dream audience won’t hear your message.

But 'mindset' is not enough. You need to go deeper.

The bit of you that has the dream is stuck in an internal conflict - at war with the bit of you that is feeding the excuses, fighting for survival. You're never going to line up with the synchronicities, people, circumstances and inspiration that will turn your dreams into reality while your inner radio station is blaring the message of 'not ready' and 'but'.

Trying to 'fix' all of this at the 'mindset' level is like putting a sticky plaster (Band Aid for my friends across the Pond) on a broken leg and hoping to be able to walk again.

You need to dive in there and do the deeper clear-out. And it's time for my Inner Engineer to talk to you about 'root causes'.

Your mindset is about your thoughts and your conscious beliefs. But these are just the tip of the iceberg. They are at 'effect', not 'cause'. It's very hard to think empowering thoughts while your below-the-surface triggers are telling a different story.

Your thoughts (as neuroscientists tell us) come from filters in your brain in the Reticular Activating System, which govern what you pay attention to - what you notice in the world - and what you ignore. It's a useful job because the chances are that you don't need to be consciously aware of the air pressure in your left nostril right now. Those filters are controlled by your beliefs and what’s important to you - your values. You see more of what you pay attention to, which is why thinking about buying a red car means suddenly half the cars on the road seem to be red. And those filters are reinforced by the stories we tell ourselves - and the excuses we defend.

So if your inner soundtrack is seeing evidence of why you’re not good enough / ready / clever enough / don’t have enough time / you’re too old / young / fat / thin, then those brain-filters obligingly present you with more evidence to support those excuses - and so the cycle continues.

Changing those patterns at the ‘thinking’ level requires huge self-awareness and massive amounts of willpower - and it rarely works, long-term.

If you don’t deal with those filters - those often-subconscious excuses - you will self-sabotage your dreams, pretty much every time success comes your way. But there is a way to do it.

This goes deeper than mindset, though mindset can be a great place to start.

Breakthroughs and transformation come from working at the level of 'who you really are' - or, more correctly, who you allow yourself to be.

It’s about your sense of identity; how you consciously choose to 'spend' your time and your energy; how you set your intentions' the 'inside work' you have done. It's way beyond the realms of your 'thinking mind'.

Are you feeding your fears or feeding your dreams?

The stories we tell ourselves hold a potent energy. In my NLP Training sessions, we do exercises where you can 'tell' whether someone is thinking of something happy or sad, even when you're sitting back-to-back, in silence. If someone else can 'read' that energy that easily, just imagine what your body and mind are doing with it?

If your habitual stories are about fear and stress and worry, then they kick off the chemical reactions in your body to deal with those triggers, because your body can’t tell the difference between a ‘story’ that’s actually happening and needs your super-fast fight / flight / freeze response, or one that is ‘just’ in your head. It gets you ready to run from that excuse-disguised-as-a-sabre-tooth-tiger, whether it's right there in front of you or just in your imagination. Those chemical reactions feed your thoughts and so the cycle continue.

You can’t solve a problem with the same level of thinking that created it. Einstein

That’s why it’s so hard to ‘think’ your way out of ‘negative thinking’. That’s why I love to get to work with passionate World-Changers at a level that’s so much deeper - and so much more effective - than ‘mindset’.

Biologists are finally agreeing that, when you create a change in your beliefs, at an identity level, and release old blocks, you change your biology at a cellular level.

In other words, if you let your mind-shit go, you clear out on a physical level, too, which supports your new thoughts and sense of identity. You don’t have to keep carrying that old baggage around with you.

As a Mentor, Author & Speaker, I’d be doing you a massive disservice (and should refund you your fee!) if I ‘let’ you carry on with the status quo, when your heart is calling you to get clarity on what you want, to clear out your hidden blocks and to take massive inspired action towards your dreams. N’est-ce pas?

My clients describe me as the person they come to when they can tell they have been playing ‘dodgems’ with their hidden blocks (know that feeling?) and need someone to ‘hold their head under water’, so they can make it through the fear and step into their Soul-Shoes - maybe even dancing in them.

I get to ask them the questions that create leaps in awareness and deep-acting, lifelong shifts. I get the excitement of being able to see the insights light up their faces, and we both know that change has 'happened'. Together, we get to do the practical NLP Trainer stuff ('user manual' for your brain) and the engineer-approved-woo-woo that makes the breakthrough-difference. It can be amazingly easy - and even fun. It doesn’t have to be big, scary or painful - that’s just another story we tell ourselves.

Want to try it on for size?

Want to uncover some of your secret excuses?

Here’s a simple exercise I would work through with you, if we were doing mentoring together.

1. Think about something you WISH you could do / achieve / become / create, if you knew you could ONLY succeed and felt no fear. What might that be? Jot down a quick sentence to clarify it.

2. Now jot down 3 actions you have taken towards this and approximately when those were.

3. Surprised? Are you REALLY committed to that dream, if that’s all you’re doing towards it? It’s ok - this isn’t about judging. But it IS about you giving yourself the wake-up call.

4. Thinking about your dream, identify a key step towards it, which you haven’t yet achieved. Write down the end of the sentence below at least five times, letting your answers bubble up:

I haven’t done ‘X’ yet, because…

After the ‘because’ lie your excuses.

5. For each excuse, in turn, ask yourself, “Is this really true?” If not, draw a line through it. If you get a ‘yes’, ask yourself ‘Who says?”

It’s not about apportioning blame - it’s about looking for the trigger for that hidden block, because that gives you back your power to choose.

6. For one of the ‘yes’ excuses, what could you do about it? What message is it trying to give you? What’s REAL about it, rather than projection and assumption or habit? Pick one and commit to take positive action to start to let it go, in the next 24 hours. How does that feel?

What have you learned from this? Let me know, via the comments.

Fact: if you have a dream, you can do it. Awareness is the key to change. There's no need to beat yourself up over the past - your power lies here, in this moment. You CAN choose. And you have all the answers you need, inside of you. I’d love to help you find them.

"The second best time to plant an oak tree is today." Chinese proverb.

Do you REALLY want to hit 90 with those out-of-date excuses still running your life and deciding who you can be? Or is it time to step up and make the difference you’re here to make? The world doesn’t benefit by you playing small. 

Somewhere out there are people who are lying awake at night, wishing for the solution that only you can provide.

Do you REALLY think they’d be pleased to hear that you can’t help them because you feel scared / embarrassed / not ready / etc? Or do you think they WISH you would take that first brave step to live at the next level?

Yes, I know it can feel scary - even terrifying. And that’s why most people will never do it.

Believe me, I have had to get past those exact same fears and blocks myself. I know what it’s like. I have been there - and made it through. And I also know how incredible it feels to step up, to get past your excuses and to take life - and your dreams - to the next level. I would LOVE you to get to experience that. And it doesn’t have to take forever.

All it takes is a decision. One little word. YES.

You can whisper it to yourself, if that feels easier. Or you can put some energy behind it and shout it from the rooftops! But unless you get to the ‘YES!’ point, you’ll never tip the balance and those old excuses will still be your carefully-nurtured, dream-trashing best friends, for decades to come.

If you’re even a tiny bit ready to step up and take the risk to be bold and beautiful and create the breakthroughs your dream audience is WISHING you would create, so you can make the difference you’re here to make, I’ve got some options for you:

Just dipping your toe in the water, to feel how warm it is?

1. If you are feeling slightly curious about how to take the next steps on this, then you need to read Dare To Dream Bigger. It's the 'inside work' handbook for entrepreneurs and passionate world-changers. AND I'll give you access to my January 26th live online training about Why New Year Resolutions Don't Work - and what you can do about them - as my gift.

DONE with your old excuses and ready to commit to your future?

2. If your heart is even silently screaming ‘yes please!’, then come and work with me. Let’s do a VIP day package and get those old patterns sorted - and crank up your Big Vision and Inspired Action on your dreams.

3. If you’d rather work with a group, join me for my Stepping Up Mastermind, starting on January 19th, running for six months. It’s the only one I’m running this year (and possibly until 2019), so this is your last chance, and the earlybird rate ends THIS Thursday.

Are you in?

Is it time to stop defending your excuses and FINALLY take massive inspired action - to Dare To Dream Bigger?

There is no ‘ready’. You either do it, or you don’t. And the brilliant thing about living in our Western World is that you have the freedom to choose.

Are you going to say YES to your dreams today?

I would LOVE to get to share this journey with you.

And if you found this article useful, please share it far and wide, especially in any groups where passionate World-Changers might be hiding out. Thank you.

I would love to hear from you - which excuses are you going to ditch? Are you ready to say 'YES!' to your dreams? And what inspired action are you going to take towards your dreams, in the next 24 hours?

With love, Namaste,

x Clare

Clare Josa, Author, Speaker, Mentor to Entrepreneurs & Passionate World-Changers