BE x DO = HAVE

It took me quite a while to discover that pure work ethic and a lot of 'doing' wasn't the recipe for success. Sure, there are definitely advantages to outworking other people; it can help you get ahead, but for me, getting ahead wasn't my long-term end goal.

For a long time, I've wanted to have a lifestyle of freedom and ease, and I was doing a lot of things to try and set myself up for that. The trick I discovered in the past year was that I needed to 'be' an easy-going, free-thinking person to have that kind of lifestyle.

Here's an example of how this equation tends to work. If I want to have a successful business then I need to do a lot of things to build that business: Marketing, Sales, Operations, HR, Finance, etc. BUT If I am being a person who gets easily frustrated, doesn't want to learn or problem solve, can't ask for help, complains and blames, then I am going to have a damn hard time building that business.

Every task will seem hard and stressful because I am a person that gets frustrated and blames people and circumstances when they aren't in my favor. It will be a struggle. It will feel better to procrastinate or give up altogether.

On the flip side, if I look at it from the perspective of what type of person do I need to be to be successful in sales, marketing, finance, etc, then I do the things to become that person, it will be a hell of a lot easier to perform those functions from a place of being the type of person that does those tasks naturally than a person who fights against them.

I'll attempt the use of diagrams to better explain (thanks to David Dowdy for this original drawing in the first diagram!)

David blew my mind ?? with how simply he described this concept and how much it resonated with my experience.

The arc at the top demonstrates that, generally, most of us want to go from point A to point B as quickly as possible. I'll DO whatever the latest hack is to HAVE the thing I want. That instant gratification expectation leads a lot of people to give up after a short time because they don't get what they want right away.

The other challenge of getting from A to B simply by trying to DO more is that we may not have the skills or character traits to get us there, and it just feels like a stressful slog leading to procrastination, stagnation, or even burnout.

??The antidote. Now imagine you started to put the majority of attention and effort into A to C. You assess the skills, qualifications, and character traits of who you need to BE in order to effortlessly DO the activities that lead you to HAVING what you want.

This is the game changer. If I need to increase sales in my business but I'm a person who doesn't believe in myself and doesn't believe I'm good at sales or possess sales skills, then I'm likely going to avoid selling activities and make poor attempts at sales. (see my post on self-fulfilling prophecy...)

Now, if I put my efforts into BECOMING a great salesperson then the doing of sales becomes much easier. Imagine the diagram below is both you. The part of you that says 'I know I need to do more sales,' and the much larger, stronger part of you that's screaming OH HELL NO, that's not who we are.

This is where the smaller hops from A to B in David's diagram come in. If you're on path C and you work on becoming the person that does the activities from A to B then those activities become much more natural and seamless.

This way, the majority of the effort comes from becoming the person you want to be versus doing a lot of things that are in conflict with the person you actually are.

This internal conflict, this struggle of trying to DO things that are out of accordance with who we currently are, is where the majority of stress, frustration, and anxiety come from.

This is how the Mindworx, if we can resolve the conflict within us and become who we need to be in order to have the life we want, there is naturally less external struggle, and it begins to feel like the things we want to have start coming to us effortlessly.

I read a ton of posts like these and I find many of them helpful and beneficial to enhance my knowledge... at the same time, I often catch myself thinking - 'that's great - now I know I could work on being instead of doing', but the question remains - HOW!?!

If you're left with a curiosty about how you can apply this process for yourself, let's chat - clearly, I love talking about this stuff!