BREAKING THOSE DEFEATING PATTERNS - FEELING COMFORTABLE OUTSIDE YOUR COMFORT ZONE

We all know the stories of those people who after winning big on a lottery, a few years down the line are right back to square one, having quite effectively managed to spend all their new-found wealth.
Their unexpected good fortune found them completely unprepared inside (their success mindset) to really feel comfortable living within the reality of being a financially rich person. Internally they were still exactly where they existed prior to this windfall, their deeply entrenched comfort zone was one of limited options financially. Their wealth incongruous with how they had always lived, led them (consciously unintentionally) to ensure they quickly lost their money to take them right back into their comfort zone.
Ian is a perfect example to illustrate our point and how it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way. Well, clearly for long-term wellbeing it is absolutely essential we do feel comfortable within expanding into our greater happiness, health and success. Anyway, back to Ian.
Out of the blue Ian found himself in possession of fifty thousand pounds as an inheritance he certainly hadn’t anticipated coming his way. For years he had struggled to get by financially, he would gain employment only to then find himself quite quickly out of a job once more, largely due to his lack of self-confidence. And this pattern had been going around in circles for years.
Ian loved gadgets and tech. Within six months of his unexpected windfall he had already blown forty five thousand of it on all the latest electronic gizmos - yet found his life no nearer to fulfilling him in any way. He saw the prospect of a bleak winter ahead of him, and the likelihood of needing to sell many of his new toys to pay for the essentials of day to day living. Making a reality-check helped turn things around for Ian. Still possessing five thousand pounds we went through ways he might invest this to instead add long-term value to his life.
Off he went to College for the next six months taking an intensive business management course, to add to his skills set. Costing slightly under two thousand pounds, this still left him three thousand over to live off while he studied. He didn’t need it all, familiar as he was for so long living a financially meagre existence meant his needs were simple, Ian found himself in the cool position for the first time of having some small savings in reserve. Armed with his brilliant new qualification and far more importantly a new found inner confidence, he commenced applying for jobs and quickly found permanent employment as part of the management team for a retail store. By realizing where he was heading (straight back into his old reality!) Ian invested some of his remaining cash into building his own financial freedom for his long-term future.
I have to share this other quick story with you! We had a family cat when I was growing-up, Fluffy she was called (because she really was very Fluffy). When not much more than a year old she hurt a front paw and for a short while limped. When sat she held her painful paw off the ground. I can’t begin to describe how cute she looked with one paw raised like that and such a sad look on her face. Oh, and did she ever get sympathy - treats and cuddles came her way all day! Fluffy lived a long time for a cat, and thankfully she recovered from her poorly paw within a week or so. However, for the rest of her nearly eighteen years, whenever she wanted a little extra attention or a treat she would raise one paw off the ground and look sad. And what’s more it worked every single time! Clever kitty.
Sadly, illness does also become the comfort zone of some people. Perhaps they subconsciously enjoyed all the extra attention coming their way when they were once unwell? We are what we focus on…
How many times do we come across someone who when we politely ask how they are, then proceed to tell us every single detail of every single ailment they are convinced they are burdened with?
Although we all experience those temporary moments where we are not functioning at 100%, we vitally need to focus our attention on ways to quickly recover.
Sure makes sense to me and I hope for you as well. Focussing on holistic wellbeing absolutely ensured my own recovery from a rather inconvenient health issue, I constantly pushed back the boundaries on what I might achieve by adopting different mindsets or refining my diet.
You or I need to apply our complete focus into being happier, heathier and more successful; and leave others to concentrate on limitation.
There are outrageously simple tricks we can all use to empower us to continually maintain a success mindset. Invest in you and watch your life change!

INVEST IN YOU
To get taken seriously by others we must take our own image seriously…
I was originally going to use the sub-heading Dress The Part here, but really that would be imparting only a partial truth. INVEST IN YOU is more accurate as it includes wider ranging implications, rather than simply putting on a cool dress or suit expecting that to do the work for us. As usual there is a bit more to it than that, what matters here is our whole mindset and those new neural pathways we are creating to hardwire our subconscious.
Feeling good about ourselves is crucially important and for sure an important part of this process is investing in how we present ourselves to the world and more crucially how that makes us feel…
Bottom line, if you are starting out and want to get taken seriously in practically any kind of area of business it for sure pays to look successful!
Wear clothes which suit the dream you are pursuing. When I first ventured out many years ago touring my Positive Living Talks, I decided beforehand that by wearing panama hats and positively psychedelic shirts I would stand out to get noticed - this certainly worked, gaining me much appreciated free press coverage at the time and beginning to put me on the map. Thankfully for everyone else I have moderated this with experience and now favour either a suit or a simple white shirt with smart trousers when delivering talks.
If we project successful, we are going to get taken seriously and actually become successful…isn’t this a rather awesome self-fulfilling prophecy?
Dress to impress YOU first and foremost. Feel good about your clothes, hair and style, then you are projecting that the whole time and everyone you meet happily reinforces the feel-good factor for you. Buy the best you are currently able to afford, and you will soon have more spending power as your success increases.
Decide how a successful person in your chosen career dresses and take that purely as a starting point for inspiration, then develop your own style within this framework into one which is now shouting out 100% you.
If you are on a limited budget, you might like to consider how you allocate your spending. After you have seen to firm commitments, how can you make the rest of your money best work for you?
Invest any of your surplus cash into things which will add value to your life. This can take many forms including:
• Courses and further education
• Books
• Downloads
• Clothes for the feel-good factor
• Trips to hear motivating talks
• Conferences for networking
Anything at all, however abstract, which adds value to your life and brings those precious dreams so much closer to really being your life is what we need to buy-into.