One of my favourite all time quotes is this one by Henry Ford:

“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”

And I always say to the business owners I work with on their confidence in business, ‘what you say to yourself and believe is the single most powerful force we will have to work with’.

So yes I’m a big believer the power of self belief, and how damaging to your progress in life and business negative beliefs can be.

Of course, many of our negative beliefs about ourselves or our societal circumstances are ingrained from an early age. If someone tells you that you are stupid when you are young, you may grow up to believe this on some unconscious level, even when the evidence in front of you says otherwise.  Or if someone tells you that money is evil, you may find this belief is impacting on your perspective of how successful you will allow your business to be.

Right now, we are confronted with a very uncertain world ahead…

Covid19 and the enforced global lock down of our people, our borders and our economies will have a huge impact.  We can’t even say how this will play out for sure, but we are pretty certain that we will be heading into a time of recession and hardship for many of our citizens.

So now more than ever is the time to ensure you have a good relationship with your beliefs about yourself and your ability to lead you business, your family and your own well-being through whatever lies ahead.

Here’s an exercise that can really help ensure you have the confidence in business you need to succeed in the new landscape.

It’s called Creating a Positive Mantra and it goes like this…

Step 1. On a piece of paper draw a line down the middle so you have two columns.  On one side write the heading ‘Negative’ and on the other side write ‘Positive’.

Step 2. On the negative side list all of the current fears you have about yourself or your business. Just listen to whatever comes into your head and write it down without judgement. For example, you might write “I doubt myself and my ability to come through this” or “I’m scared my business won’t generate enough income” or “I’m scared I might get sick”.

Step 3. On the positive side, write down the exact opposite to the fears/negatives on the other side. For example, on the opposite side to “I doubt my ability to come through this” you could write “I have faith in my ability to come through this”.

Step 4. Now select the two or three most prominent fears and take their opposite positives to make a sentence. Eg. “I believe in myself and have total faith in my ability to generate income and keep myself healthy”.

Step 5. Shorten the sentence into your mantra – something that you can say to yourself easily and remember. For example, “I believe I will thrive and everything will be better than before”.

Step 6. Make it stick. This mantra needs to overcome any other thoughts and beliefs running round in your head. You have to ingrain it…

1. Write it out 100 times!
2. Write it on post its and leave where you can see it
3. Use it as a meditation mantra, or chant as you go to sleep at night

This exercise doesn’t take long but it is really powerful. It’s all about re-programming your fears and negative thoughts so that your confidence in business and in yourself are strong when you tackle challenges.

This and other exercises can be found the 3 module mini course, called Thriving through Crisis, which I created during lock down.  Click below to access it.

Thriving through Crisis Mini Course – find out more.

Let me know how you get on. Be strong!

Laura