I recently read this really good training from Daegan Smith (who is a HUGE internet marketer that has helped MANY transform their business online) that I wanted to share this with you. I think at one point or another we all have either felt this way or will in the future. Take a few minutes and read what Daegan has to say on the subject of "What's Wrong With Me?"
I'd like to talk to you about something that might be effecting you and your business negatively to a far greater degree than you may give it credit for.
Before I go any further, let me say that nothing I have to share today was easy for me put together for you.
It took many hard hours to prepare. It's incredibly personal, and before I began to put one word on paper I felt sharp sting. Fear.
When that happened ...I knew I had to stop everything I was doing to work through this, because if it's this hard for me to bring up and speak to I know that this issue is
silently effecting many in an extremely negative way.
What is it?
It's the problem of self doubt. And how to overcome it.
If we can work through this together, right now ...If you and I can be honest for a few moments and really do some deep work together you'll come out of the experience far stronger for it.
I promise.
I don't ask that you trust me right now, rather I just ask that you please stretch yourself a bit ...Are you game? Good. Look ...
I don't care who you are. I don't care if you're Bill Gates, Howard Stern, President Obama, or Oprah, we ...All have those silent moments when the only thought we can hear or give focus to is ...
"What's wrong with me?"
What triggers it can be one of a million different things, but ...Typically it hits you at points in your life where your results don't match the expectations you have for effort you exerted to obtain certain results ...
You fall in love. Give your significant other your heart. They go and cheat on you or leave you for someone else. You're left with ...
"What's wrong with me?"
You exert your whole soul to your business building efforts and nothing quite seems to work. In fact, you end up digging yourself even deeper into a whole. The only you're left with is ...
"What's wrong with me?"
You're left feeling deflated, isolated, empty. You don't tell anyone, but ...You want to go hide under a rock and never come out, but instead you feign a smile, and carry on as if nothing is "effecting" you.
Neither way of "dealing" is good, in fact ...Left untreated this "thought" can not only kill your chances of building the business you want, but on a far deeper level it can destroy the quality of your life and the lives of those around you.
The problem with this thought is ...
When it hits you, the only way for your mind to react is to answer this question with all the "things" that "you think" are wrong with you. And then ...Deeper down the despair whole you go. I know because ...There have been times in my life where I've let this thought take me to those dark places. I've let it Rob me of results and achievements. I've let it strain or destroy important relationships in my life.
I've also seen this "thought pattern" destroy other businesses that I've worked with. But ...I know that the effects are not a permanent state of mind.
I've beaten it.
Every successful entrepreneur you and I admire has found in their own way a way to overcome it, and thus, so can you. I don't want this "pattern" to destroy your chances of success, because it shouldn't, and it only has the power to effect us if ...You or I let it.
The problem is, most of the time it starts small, and by the time it gets "out of control" we're too far gone to notice where we are mentally. So, the way we overcome the problem of self doubt is to ...Inoculate ourselves against it. Stop it before it can effect us any major way.
Before I go any further, let me say this first ...No matter how "bad" things may "seem" at times, there's no problem so big that you can't find happiness right now.
This I promise you.
In fact ...I believe, finding that happy place is exactly where that success that you may think is eluding you lies.
Let's get there because ... The only meaningful difference between those who you may aspire to "be like" and yourself at this current moment is the compounded results of the actions that they've taken when faced with self doubt to find their way back to their happy place again. The faster you can recover and remain in a place of joy the ...Faster and easier success will find it's way to you.
I say this, because the only way that I've been able to overcome these moments in my life has been through deliberate practice. Consistent effort to find and remain happy no matter what I'm faced with.
If you're willing to fight for your happiness today then it will bring your life more meaning and joy on not just a daily basis, but a moment to moment basis.
Just imagine always being happy. How would your life change? It's an exciting idea isn't it.
Now, let's see what we can do to make it a reality.
What I'd like to do is walk you through the general thought process that I've found myself going down when I've been hit with the "What's wrong with me?" Thought pattern.
Generally it starts small. Something doesn't go quit the way you expect it to. Sometimes you can just shrug it off, but others, that feeling sticks around just a little while too long, and once that happens ...You start asking yourself questions like "what did I do wrong?" You start to explore the answers. If you could stop there and take positive action to validate those possible wrong "things" you'd be golden, but our minds don't work that way. Instead of telling us that we should go out into the real world and validate the possible causes it does this instead. It starts to compare your results with others, and typically, others who you think are doing better in that area of life than you that ...
You don't think are actually more worthy of whatever results you "thought" you should have than you are.
An example ...Let's say you work your butt of for a promotion at work.
You do all the right things. You make all the right moves, but ...When the times comes for the promotion you get passed up. Then you get passed up again. When your mind finds it way to that "What's wrong with me place" you start to ask yourself questions like ..."Why did Johnson get the promotion and not me?"
You run through the list of reasons why you're just as good as he or she is and you can't find a definable reason why they're "more" fit for the job than yourself. The only answer your mind can serve you up is ...Something must be wrong with me. Another example ...
I had a guy on my team when I started having some success in my network marketing business who was recruiting a LOT of people. I was happy for him, but they didn't duplicate as fast as he expected them to. Not long after he'd call me and say ..."Daegan, why aren't they duplicating? I'm starting to lose confidence here." Not long after I never hear from him again. He disappeared.
He reached a place where, whatever or whoever he was comparing himself to that his mind could only serve him the answer that it "must" be him at fault.
From there that most dangerous of questions must have sprung up ..."What's wrong with me?"
See ...In both situations when your mind can't find an answer, it logically moves to you as the root cause. And that's bad, because as soon as that happens and that ..."What's wrong with me?" Starts to repeat itself in your mind the only thing your mind can do is find answers.
"This is wrong with me. That is wrong with me. That other thing is wrong with me."
None of it true. All of it subjective, but to you, in that place it couldn't be any more true. Once your mind goes there it starts to generalize. If you're no good at X, then you're no good at Y, and if you're no good at Y, then you're no good at Z. Soon, you perceive yourself as without worth. Complete and total self doubt. And that is VERY dangerous place to be. The reason that I share all this is so you can see the process in it's full light.
Knowledge is the seed of action.
If we never know, that this process isn't "us" the only thing that you or I can do is take it as truth, when there's nothing further from the truth. Your mind must work, and if you let it work on it's own, it's like a computer, at times, it can crash, but your mind isn't you.
You control your mind.
You can either accept or reject what it wants to serve you.
Here's a personal example of what I mean, that we'll dig into deeper at a later date. I have what I have come to call "Instant Gratification Syndrome" which means ...My mind always wants to find ways to instantly gratify itself. For me, that means it constantly wants me to check my emails to see "what my daily income figures look like" I feel my mind finding "reasons" for me to check my email when I don't do so as often as it would like. My mind is sneaky, and if I don't do a reality check every now and then, there I go ...
I believe I need to do whatever it is urgently, and as result I check my email address and my mind wins. My mind isn't me. Your mind isn't you. You need to understand that.
One of the best ways for proving this to yourself is to, stop what you're doing and either write in a journal for 40 minutes uninterrupted or meditate for the same amount of time uninterrupted. What you'll find is your mind will constantly sway to certain things that it habitually sways to, these thoughts that come to your mind at those points in time are NOT you. They are the habits that keep your "lizard" mind in it's happy routine. Until you or I break out of those mental routines there is no growth, but ...I digress.
The point I wanted to stress is you are not your mind. When it goes to those places of self doubt understand that your mind is lying to you. It's creating meaning out of nothing, and by believing it you're bringing that meaning into reality.
Don't believe the hype.
So ...
How do you defeat self doubt?
The easiest way once you can get into the habit of doing so, is to notice those times when you feel let down by certain expectations and simply let them go. Here's how your mind works ...
If you've watch TV shows like "LOST" and got hooked after watching a few episodes it's because they use what are called "open loops" to keep your attention. What loops are are situations that go unresolved by the time the episode ends. You want, no, you NEED to know what happens, so you've got to toon in next week and so you become "hooked" These TV shows use a series of these loops to keep us tuning in. Not long ago I realize how powerful this force is at keeping our attention, but had a profound epiphany one day journaling on the subject when I realized ..."If that's how our minds work when watching TV, what about with our own thoughts?" Wow!
It hit me like a bolt of lightning when I realized that all of the things that I felt stress over were essentially open loops. Unresolvable thoughts in my mind that stayed there exactly because they were unresolvable. From there I quickly realized that if I want to live a stress free happy life that the thing I've got to do is let go of those things that are unresolvable, otherwise ... I'd be doomed to stress, and potentially extreme self doubt and depression.
Do you see how I got there?
Your mind creates a small "Open Loop" whenever it can't figure something out, so what does it do? It digs in until that little "open loop" turns into a grand canyon sized unresolvable problem like ...
"What's wrong with me"
The best way to NOT get there is to let go of any thought that you can't resolve yourself. If you can make this a habit your life will change drastically. I promise.
But how do you let go?
It's one of those things that's easier said than done. For me ...The best tool I've found is my journal. If I have a problem I go and journal about it. I look at it from all angles, I try to find new things I can test on myself to see if it brings me different results. If I either find things to test, and they prove unsuccessful, or I can't find anything to test the validity of the "supposed" problem, then I make the decision that I've got to let it go.Sometimes it doesn't go easy. I'll find myself journaling about it more, and it will find it's way into my thoughts over and over again, but ...When I put my thoughts to paper it becomes extremely apparent what the issue or problem is and becoming hyper aware of how that "problem" thought manifests itself gives me the tools I need to let it go whenever I find it trying to sneak back in.
What do I mean by letting go?
Exactly that.
Letting it go.
Dropping it like a bad habit.
Ok ..."So what if I'm passed the first stage of a unmet expectation and I've found myself smack dap in the middle of comparing myself with the Jones's?"
Simple.
Notice you're making comparisons that aren't fair. Unless you know everything about that other person or their circumstance and how they think how can you ever accurately compare yourself to them? You can't. So why would you try? Because I haven't allowed my mind to let go of something that should have been let go of a long time ago. What is it? There you go. That's the thought process. Find that initial "thing" that started the process and from there work on getting rid of it as described above.
The other thing that I've found that's helped me a LOT is to really define for myself within myself what makes me happy. And sometimes it's not that easy, but I'll tell you what makes me happy as it relates to my business.
"Figuring out the puzzle"
"Getting better"
"Testing and trying new things"
If I'm thinking about and doing those things as it relates to my business I'm happy. If I take myself there and immerse myself a week could pass and I wouldn't know it. That's just what I love to do. It's not the money even though ...For a while I thought it it was. But it ain't. Now, I'll take the money as the late Jim Rohn once said. But ain't the money that fuels me. If I go to that place and do those things, and think those thoughts that put me in a happy place, there's no room for bad, negative, or self doubt feelings.
I'm too busy having fun. You should take some time to really define that place in your business for you as well.
The best way to do this is ...
Take note of what excites you, notice the action verb "excites" ...What excites you when you're doing it. That is where you will find your joy and your unique genius. That's where you'll have the biggest impact on the world. You find that place and no secret, no new trick, no nothing can hold you back.
I've shared several ideas with you today that have helped me a lot.
I'll stop here, but I WILL say this ...You're not your thoughts.
you're amazing if you let yourself be.
If this has helped you at all, let me know, join our community and let me know what you think: http://www.facebook.com/groups/daegansmith
To the top,
Daegan "reaching out" Smith
P.S. When you're ready, this will transform your business as it's done for many others: CLICK HERE
