I want to share something with you. It’s more than relevant for your salon.
Many years ago before I wrote my first book I realised the first thing I had to conquer was my mind. I didn’t realise right away it took years of wanting to write before I really began writing and then finally writing a book.
I always said to myself I can’t do that, how can I and how do I write a book?
The interesting thing was I was already doing tons of writing but still hadn’t created a book.
19-books later, I am a well-published author.
Here’s what I realised.
Our mind consists of two parts.
The first is the sub-conscious. This is the part that life has embedded the things we do without thinking. The things we feel comfortable about. The things we don’t think about we just do.
If we have been raised a certain way in life we tend to do what we have been raised to do without thinking. We accept it as the way things get done. To do things any other way actually invites opposition and resistance from our sub-conscious mind. This, in turn, creates a resistance even if it is better for us.
Why?
Because it goes against what we know. If it goes against what we know it also goes against what we trust. If it goes against what we trust it can eventually reveal those that taught us those things taught us things that they thought were good but really don’t serve us that well.
History is full of lessons like this and change has to take place otherwise we simply don’t progress even if it is uncomfortable.
The change can only arrive through 5% of our brain that is conscious. This is the part that makes a decision to make a change, to fight the resistance and to take a new direction.
Business is exactly the same.
The comfortable part says do what everyone does – the quick fixes and the hope and pray approach. The uncomfortable part that raises real fear is the results-driven part.
It is a state of mind that can only be changed by tapping into 5% of the mind that is usually dormant but far more powerful than the other 95% of the sub-conscious mind.
I am always and continually fascinated by the state of mind especially in business. Business really isn’t that hard if you have buyers. If you have buyers you just have to let people know you are there and they will buy.
Yet from what I have seen the past couple of decades is this.
Businesses running on what really doesn’t and will rarely work. The reason they do that is they rely heavily on their subconscious rather than the conscious mind and it is the conscious 5% that can only make the changes that are needed.
For example, I meet business owners that have and are still doing what they’ve always done for years upon years. Yet they don’t like their results, they want more and they need to have more. The more they do the happier they are. The less they do the less happiness they have in their lives.
But their 95% of their mind is comfortable, it is easier, it is less pressure and it requires no change. The 5% is pressure, its new, it is resistance and its tougher until the change comes through.
It is a state of mind. Business is a state of mind. Life is a state of mind. Your success is a state of mind.
Unless you tap into that 5% and create something new that you might not like doing you will never have the change you want and really need.
In other words, you have to ask yourself questions.
If it isn’t working why the hell am I still doing it?
Am I over-relying on the past to create my future?
Am I being run and controlled by the 95% of habitual ways?
Have I awakened my 5% and fighting my inner resistance to making real lasting change?
Everything is a state of mind.
In life.
In relationships.
In reality.
And in business.
Back to the start for me as a writer.
To change my state of mind I actually went to California and locked myself away in a mountain cabin for just under three months. This gave me silence and freedom to think. This also removed distractions and gave me what I need to write. I went to bed thinking about writing and I woke up and wrote. This resulted in my first book Escape from Zoomanity. This also included me finding someone that could help me do this. I found the right person and the change began.
I do fall back into old ways now and then but here is what I do know.
When I tap into my 5% my life changes despite what is facing me. If it is the wall I walk through it. If I can’t walk through it I will work like a dog until I find a way around. That is 5% on the conscious mind. That is the state of mind.
How about you?
Is it time you changed your state of mind?
Peace.
Alan Forrest Smith.