Are your Beliefs Running Your Business

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Beliefs are held in the subconscious. And a lot of our beliefs are held so tightly and so deeply by the subconscious, that we don’t even realise we have them. And yet, they are absolutely fundamental to the way that we function in our businesses.

Your beliefs dictate the way you live, the way you think, feel and act. Your beliefs dictate your success.

Everything that’s showing up in your life, can be traced back to your beliefs. Where your business is – where it isn’t – is managed by your subconscious and what it believes is safe for you.

Which is why you have got to address this directly and work on reprogramming your subconscious beliefs. Then you will see real world shifts happening for you in your life and business. And I am NEVER talking superficial mindset stuff here. I’m never talking ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ and ‘just think positive’. I’m talking really, down and dirty deep work on your inner workings.

A New Way of Working

It’s a new year, you need a new way of working it. If your desire is to grow your business this year then you have to look at what your brain has been programmed to believe about yourself and your possibility for success.

Maybe you believe you don’t deserve money? Or you’re not worthy of success? Or that it’s not for people like you? Maybe you believe that you’re not good enough to make it big, or that making it happen can only come at the cost of fight and struggle?

We are programmed to believe that we have to be perfect, and that anything less than that is not good enough. We have been programmed to look at other people and compare ourselves with them. We believe that we are not good enough, and so we work to the point of breaking in trying to be better. We believe that there is not enough money or clients to go round, so we operate from fear and close down to collaboration and community. We forgot how to trust ourselves and instead learned to rely on others and now feel lost.

These are normal, totally unhelpful messages that sit beneath the consciousness of business owners, keeping them from becoming as successful as they could be.

Re-Write the Rule Book

To shift these beliefs, you have to get access to the rule book where they’ve been written – in the subconscious. You have to re-write the rules. Re-write them to say that you deserve abundance, that what you have to offer is valuable, that you can work at your own pace and comfort, that you can collaborate with others without losing business, that you are good enough. You are good enough for this.

When you’ve shifted that, when your subconscious has unlearned the old rules and taken on the new, everything in your life and your business can begin to change. Possibilities and opportunities will show up everywhere. You’ll experience greater ease, flow and abundance. You’ll feel like your work is less heavy, less frustrating. You’ll charge what you’re worth, and be comfortable with people saying no. You’ll get your services or your products out there, without feeling consumed by fear and anxiety.

And it’s going to feel fantastic.

Victoria is a Cognitive Hypnotherapist and Business Coach with more than a decade of experience working on changing subconscious patterns and programming. She works online and offers free consultations. Visit her hypnosis for business website for more information.

Flicking the Relaxation Switch

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Stress makes us feel out of control. It hijacks our ability to think clearly, to act calmly. And as your state of mind determines your results, being in a state of stress is detrimental to you and to your business.

But how would the quality of your life and the success of your business improve if you could learn how to switch from stressed to relaxed anytime, anywhere?

When you decided to run your own business, you signed up for levels of stress you probably weren’t quite prepared for. Or more correctly, levels of stress that your brain wasn’t prepared for. On top of that our personal lives get increasingly overloaded with responsibilities and commitments, not to mention our own goals and desires we want to make happen within our lifetimes. And so it all builds up.

It’s no surprise then, that we turn to the many different methods promising us an opportunity to chill out, as we look for the tools and techniques to help lower stress levels and increase the feeling of being in control. For some it’s the gym, or a yoga class, for others it might be the instant satisfaction of an addictive behaviour. What usually happens though, is that you try one and it gives you some relief, but nothing fundamentally changes. It helps for the duration of the class or purchase or whatever it is you chose, and maybe a few golden hours afterwards, but you wake up in the morning with all the same uncomfortable feelings.

Instead, what you really want to be able to do, is to find a way to experience that sensation of complete relaxation right where you are, right when you choose it. You need to learn how to achieve this state yourself, on your own, so that you can see that you have the power within you.

RELAXATION IS A RESOURCE

What if I told you that you already have a well full of relaxation within you, and the only problem is that you don’t know how to draw from it?

Relaxation is a natural resource state that we are born with, just as are happiness, inner peace, confidence, optimism. Unfortunately, we often forget how to access them and with lack of practice we then lose the ability. And because we spend far too much time accessing other resource states such as stress, rejection, and fear, it becomes harder and harder to tap into our positive resource states.

Harder, but not impossible. And you can start right now.

I’m going to assume that you have had at least one experience in your life where you have felt completely relaxed? One moment that you could think about where you remember that you felt peaceful and content. Think about that now, a time when you’ve felt truly relaxed. You might need to close your eyes and let your memory search through some different experiences you’ve had to find the right one. Maybe a particularly peaceful holiday, or perhaps you feel that when you do your hobby, or that moment when you sit down in your comfiest chair at the end of the day and let out a deep sigh.

There. That feeling.

If you played along with me there, you got it. Just by thinking about it. It might be just a little feeling, but it’s there. You weren’t actually back on that beach in Bermuda, or snuggled up on your sofa at home, but for a moment it felt like it.

You generated that feeling for yourself, from within. You accessed your innate resource of feeling relaxed.

And what’s brilliant about having just that little experience there, is that you have learned that you can enter that state by choice. And from that little experience of it, you can begin to train your brain to spend longer and longer there, by choice.

Because, you see, you could spend years going to yoga classes, treating yourself to spa days, going on expensive holidays to beautiful locations, but the truth is, you already have it within you.

If you want to work on this yourself, then it’s that simple. Spend a few seconds at first, then build up to a few minutes, or fully reliving that relaxing moment. Experience it again with all your senses of sight, sound, touch and even taste.

Or you can let me help you to develop that shortcut access to your inner resource states so that you can and maintain it for longer and make it even easier to access whenever and wherever you need it.

Victoria Ward has successfully developed and offered professional training to her clients to access their own inner potential. Teaching tools and techniques and working with the subconscious to reach a state of relaxation regardless of the situation.

The sun rises over a calm sea

What is hypnosis like? (part 1)

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While I use an intuitive blend of therapies and methods designed to bring about neurological changes, hypnosis is usually the one that draws most people’s curiosity.

Hypnotic work can be done eyes open or closed. It can take the form of what seems to be a normal conversation, or it might be a technique that is conducted in a deeper, more trance-like way. There are rarely any swinging watches though!

Among other more conscious interventions that I might use, we will often do what would be considered traditional hypnosis.

A traditional hypnosis session – which is like a guided meditation – involves three parts. These are the induction, suggestion, and re-orientation.

During the induction, which can last from a few seconds up to ten minutes or more, your mind and body are encouraged to relax and your focus and attention becomes directed inwards. The aim is to quieten the conscious mind and draw the subconscious attention to my voice and the meaning contained within the words I am saying. There are different induction techniques, and different people will respond better to different ones. It might be that you suit a progressive relaxation of all your body parts, or for the more resistant an abstract induction designed to confuse the conscious mind into trance can be more effective.

Once in a suitably receptive state, in which you may feel anywhere from lightly to deeply relaxed, I speak directly to your subconscious mind, using the language and structure that it understands. This may mean me taking you through events and scenarios intended to help you address any emotions or behaviours that have been troubling you. Sometimes you may experience these situations as if you are watching them, and sometimes you will experience them as if you are within them. I will also make suggestions to your brain that we have agreed beforehand will be beneficial to you. These will be unique to your needs.

In the re-orientation phase, I will guide you back to being fully alert and awake, making further suggestions for noticing the changes in the time between sessions.

9 Reasons Why You Need a Hypnosis Expert on your Team

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9 Reasons Why You Need a Hypnosis Expert on your Team

Most business owners understand the importance of a strong support team. But do you know the benefits that a hypnotist could bring to you and your organization?

While hypnosis has been widely used to support sporting success for decades, big names in business are increasingly leveraging the power of hypnosis to enhance and transform their personal and professional lives.

Here are 9 reasons why you need a hypnotherapist on your team.

Self-Belief

A strong sense of self is essential to lead powerfully. You need to not only know your worth and invest in it, but to also trust others to value the service that you provide. When you present yourself to the world with a strong sense of belief in who you are and what you are worth, you become a better motivator, deliver more convincing presentations, and become more capable of judging decisions.

Through hypnosis you can directly access the source of your self-belief: your subconscious. There you can investigate where the weakness originates, resolve it, and build a stronger sense of what you are capable of.

Confidence

Confidence allows you to be proactive, assertive and focused. Confidence allows you to ask for what you are worth and say no if something doesn’t fit. Confidence is at the root of influence and allows you to close deals, charge higher rates and create clients who value and respect you. Where safety is the enemy of success, confidence to take action is the shortcut.

Hypnosis can be used to increase confidence overall, or in specific situations such as public speaking. Mental rehearsal of your new confident self while in a state of hypnosis becomes reality to the brain. And if there are past experiences that have knocked your confidence, hypnotherapy can process them so that they can be let go of.

Overcome self-sabotage

Humans are fantastic at sabotaging their own success. Procrastination and perfectionism for instance! The root of self-sabotaging behaviour lies within the programming of the subconscious mind.

And as all behavior has a purpose, hypnosis can uncover the unconscious thinking behind it and encourage the brain to let go of old ways of doing things, and take on new, more helpful habits.

Strategy

Knowing where you are going is essential in business. How often have you heard people say their best ideas come to them in the shower or while driving? That’s because those are two times when we are usually in a trance state, letting the subconscious take charge.

Hypnosis can help you to see the bigger picture from different perspectives. While in hypnosis, you can see your goals playing out before they happen, and thoughts and ideas will often come to you for steps that you can take and ways of doing things that you hadn’t considered before.

Creativity

Creativity and creative thinking is crucial in business. However, stress and anxiety stifles creativity, and an overwhelmed overworked mind will struggle to think creatively.

Hypnosis is the ultimate creative state, where you mind becomes free from the usual constraints of ordinary reality, and instead is given permission to wander and wonder. In deep, hypnotic relaxation your brain is at its most creative. Unstifled by worrying about other people’s opinions you are free to access the mind’s limitless well of creativity.

Resilience

You can’t be successful in business if you’re afraid to fail. Resilience is your ability to adapt to change, to bounce back from setbacks and to keep going in the face of adversity. Being resilient helps you to deal with difficult staff members or customers, to withstand personal criticism, to manage stress from overwork, and to step fearlessly beyond your comfort zone.

Hypnosis can help you to bounce back after setbacks so that you don’t learn helplessness and become ineffective as a leader. Through hypnosis you can learn how to foster a Stoic mindset to accept reality as it is and develop the ability to improvise and be flexible.

Calm

The number one reason most people turn to hypnosis is for relaxation. And most business owners admit that they don’t prioritize time to chill out. But when you learn that chronic stress can harm your immune system and even cause death, you might rethink things.

Hypnosis can be used to simply lead you into the kind of deeply relaxing state that you should be making time for each day. People often say that they have never felt so relaxed as they do in hypnosis. And this leads to a happier you, happier business, happier family and happier relationships.

Intuition

Thriving entrepreneurs will often cite intuition as integral to their success. Intuition is your internal compass for decision making, allowing you to make faster decisions effectively. A keenly-tuned intuition allows you to see your own blind spots and shortcomings, as well as your strengths. You need a strong sense of intuition in business to make sense of complex and changing environments.

Hypnosis taps into your subconscious mind giving you the courage to follow your heart and intuition, to access it directly for advice.

Problem-solving

Lateral thinking and thinking outside the box are two highly sought after skills in business. They allow you to see beyond the obvious answer and explore alternatives that might not at first be apparent. This kind of problem-solving is a right-brain skill that can developed through hypnotic guidance.

In hypnosis, your conscious mind is less interfering, allowing your subconscious mind to be free to develop solutions to problems. With over-analytical barriers out of the way, your subconscious mind will fill your conscious mind with ideas and inspiration.

Find more from Victoria at http://www.victoria-ward.com

Blog article How to Make a Habit That Sticks image

How to make a new habit (that sticks!)

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Habits are key to success. Bad habits can be your downfall while good habits can make the difference between a productive day and a lazy one wasted watching Netflix.

In the video below I take you through four research-backed steps that will help you to replace poor habits with healthier ones – and make sure they stick.

If you like the video, please visit my new YouTube channel and subscribe to be alerted when I upload new content.

With love

V x

ps. The habit tracking sheet and pledge I mention in the video can be found here.

Woman with her eyes closed

Whose Life Are You Living?

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𝕎𝕙𝕠𝕤𝕖 𝕃𝕚𝕗𝕖 𝔸𝕣𝕖 𝕐𝕠𝕦 𝕃𝕚𝕧𝕚𝕟𝕘?

𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧 𝐨𝐧 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐫𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐛𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐬, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲’𝐫𝐞 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠.

Do you feel like you’re on autopilot as you try to get through the day?

Maybe you think it’s because you’re too tired, or too stressed. But the truth is, it goes so much deeper than that.

Maybe you sometimes find yourself asking… how did I get here? This wasn’t how I had it planned.

Maybe this business and this life that you’ve built for yourself just doesn’t really feel like… well… you.

And that’s because you’re not really even living your life. You are living the life that your culture told you to live. The life that you’ve been conditioned to believe that you should be living in order to fit in and be like everyone else.

That’s the same culture (fueled by the media) that told you that you’re not good enough just the way you are.

So you’re working yourself into the ground, trying to do everything, be everything, have everything, but still feeling like there has to be more to life than this.

And to be honest, you can read all the mindset books and say all the positive affirmations, do all the restorative yoga and sit in meditation for as long as you want, but until you peel all the layers back and let the real you out, the best you’re going to be doing is surviving. Just getting through each day, instead of actually enjoying your life.

Let’s make a decision now. To do things differently. To try something you’ve never tried before.

Let’s find the real you, the person you were born to be. Not the person you thought you had to be.

Then you can start to thrive in your business and in your life.

A woman dances joyfully infront of a rainbow

What are you prioritising?

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What are you prioritising?

So many of us put our mental and physical health at the bottom of the list of priorities, without realising they are the foundations upon which success is built.
We plough hours and hours into work at the expense of quality sleep, or eat cheap convenience food at the expense of fueling our bodies with good nutrition. Clients often say how they’ll ‘sort it out’ later, and then later I hear how they wish they’d sorted it out earlier.
If your mental health hits rock bottom, and your physical health reaches breaking point from a lack of adequate self care, then everything else that you’ve built upon it while ignoring the signs of weakening from below, will tumble.
Don’t put it off. Find some small action each day that is a little more than the day before. Walk a little further. Learn a little more about what foods serve your body and which foods harm it.
Anything more than nothing is success.
And don’t forget to have some fun while you’re at it!
What do you enjoy doing that you’re not making time for? What did you used to love, but no longer give yourself permission to indulge in? Did you put old hobbies aside because you thought you were ‘too old’ for them or worried what other people might think?
I recently received the message in several forms (In meditation, in a particularly amusing dream, in a helpful conversation with a friend) that I should dance more. While I used to get my dancing needs sated at night clubs in my younger days, those days of dancing until the sun comes up are way behind me.
But I miss it! I really do. So I’ve been putting music on in the morning, and dancing like, as the saying goes, there’s nobody watching. Except my cat and my dog are. And my son, who refuses to join in. It sets me up for the day, it gets me moving. It makes me laugh.
Seek out something that brings you joy, even if just for a moment.
A woman with curly brown hair watches the sun set over the ocean

If Only…

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𝐈𝐟 𝐎𝐧𝐥𝐲…
 
Have you ever said “If only…”
 
If only I was smarter…
If only I was prettier…
If only I’d gone to university…
If only I’d saved more…
If only I had worked harder…
If only I had more friends…
If only I had a partner…
If only I’d had children…
If only I had said yes that time…
If only I’d been braver…
If only I’d got out sooner…
If only I… (whatever)
 
…THEN I’d be more successful.
 
Do you know, though, that these are just excuses? Deep down, do you know these are just convenient beliefs that you cling to so that you can avoid taking responsibility for what you have (or don’t have) in your life?
 
“If only” keeps you in a place of dissatisfaction.
 
“If only” keeps you seeing yourself as a failure.
 
“If only” stops you from seeing that you are the author of your own story.
 
When you are willing to give up your “If onlys” and swap them for “What’s next?” – then you can start to create your success.
 
Xx love xX
A hand holds a pen ready to write

Stories of Confidence

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Confidence

I get a lot of calls from women who want to work on their confidence.

I looked this word up in the dictionary (google) just now. It says: “The feeling or belief that one can have faith in or rely on someone or something.”

In this case, ourselves. The belief that you can rely on yourself.

That you can have faith that you will do, or say, or behave in the way you want to. That your powers will be there for you when you need to call on them.

So why is it that so many of the women who call me don’t have that belief in themselves? Why aren’t they conscious of all that they are capable of?

It comes down to the stories that you are telling yourself about what is or isn’t possible for you.

Those stories are the ones that can shape your attitudes, how you show up in the world, the relationships that you create for yourself within it. With others and with yourself.

The stories that exist under the surface have the power to bless your life, or to curse it. They can bring joy, or they can bring destruction.

As women, the seeds of our stories are watered by the fully-grown narratives that are told to us by the world around us that we grow up in. The cultural messages about our worth, our position, our value, our potential.

Why is it that women frequently express that they don’t deserve their job, that they feel like impostors as they climb higher on their professional ladders? Why will men apply for jobs when they meet only 60% of the criteria, but women apply only if they meet 100%? Why do women underestimate their abilities and performance, while men overestimate both?

This story of inequality is being re-written every day, and the women I work with are taking steps to become the authors of their own new narratives.

To be a part of this, you must enquire deeply into your own personal mythology. What are the ideas that you have about who you are and what you are here for?

What is the story that you are telling yourself, and how is that impacting on your life?

Where are you acting from beliefs that were given to you long ago about your worth? Where are those beliefs trapping you in a life you want to grow beyond?

When you make decisions based on the values and stories that other people gave to you, that were never yours in the first place, you’re letting others be the authors of your life story. You have given your power away.

Its time to create a new story.

Take it all the way back. Reconnect with your imagination. Dare to dream.

Ask yourself: What story are you telling yourself that you want to change the ending to? What new story will you start to write, through the choices you make today.

Love xx

A frog swims through the water

Dreading is Worse that Doing

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𝐃𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐃𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠

I had something that I needed to do today. Well, really I needed to do it a week ago. But I put it off, and put it off.

And then today arrived, and I had to do it.

And once I had, it was fine.

Only it would have been so much better if I’d just done it a week ago, instead of spending all week trying to avoid thinking about it. Ignoring it tapping me on the shoulder. Pretending it wasn’t hovering around waiting for me to attend to it.

Letting the dread build up, for the inevitable moment of “doing the thing”.

And like I said. I did it. It was fine.

There’s a brilliant book by Brian Tracy, called “Eat that Frog”.

It’s a simple concept. Do the things that you don’t want to do first. Just get them done.

If you’ve got to eat a frog by the end of the day, no matter what happens, you can either spend all day thinking about it, dreading it, worrying about, and then do it. Or you can get it over with and get on with your day.

Got some frogs to eat? Go do it.