Sometimes you find yourself with a goal you think you should want to achieve, but you just don’t seem to be taking enough action to reach it. You aren’t really afraid of failure or rejection, the path to the goal seems clear enough and might even be an interesting challenge, and occasionally you’ll make some progress. But most of the time you can’t seem to get into that flow state, and you’re not sure why. This often happens with long-term goals that require intermittent action, like losing weight or transitioning to start a new business and eventually quit your job. One question I’ve found helpful to ask in these situations is this: What will happen if you succeed? Forget about what you hope will happen or what you fear might happen, but realistically consider what probably will happen. So you achieve your goal. Then what? What else will change? I’m not talking about giving a 5-second cursory answer, like “If I lose the weight, then I’ll be thin.” Set aside at least 15-30 minutes just to think about how your life will really change once you achieve your goal (with no TV, radio, or other distractions). There are often unexpected side effects that you may not be aware of consciously, but subconsciously they can be enough to prevent you from taking committed action. For example, if you lose a lot of weight, here are some possible side effects: people will notice and will comment about it, other people will ask you for diet advice, you may feel you need to continue with a permanent lifestyle change to maintain your new weight, you may need to buy new clothes, you may become more attractive to others and thereby attract more social encounters (wanted or unwanted), overweight friends might become jealous, your family may resist your changes, you may feel stressed about whether you can keep the weight off, you may worry about the loss of certain favorite foods from your diet, and so on. It’s rare that a goal is all roses. Success requires change, and change has both positive and negative consequences. Often while people claim to want to succeed at something, the reality is that the negatives outweigh the positives for them. But one way to overcome this problem is to consciously think about what those negatives are, and then uproot them one by one. Uprooting a negative side effect could mean figuring out how to eliminate it completely, or it could mean just accepting it and learning to live with it. It’s certainly helpful to focus on the positive side of a goal. But don’t forget to take an occasional survey of the dark side and accept that you’re going to have to deal with that too. Unlike fear of failure and fear of rejection, fear of success can be far more insidious because it’s almost always unconscious. But it’s not fear of success itself that is the problem but rather fear of the side effects of success, many of which may be genuinely unwanted. Fears that are never evaluated consciously have a tendency to grow stronger. The reason is simple behavioral conditioning — when you avoid something you fear (either consciously or subconsciously), you automatically reinforce the avoidance behavior. So when you (even unknowingly) avoid working on your goal because of a hidden fear of success, you actually reinforce the habit of procrastination, so as time goes by, it becomes harder and harder to get yourself to take action. Insidious!
Asking, “What will happen if I succeed?” can solve this problem because it focuses your conscious attention on those fears. Fear has a tendency to shrink under direct examination, making it easier for you to take action. When I say that fear shrinks, another way of stating this is that subconscious behavioral conditioning weakens under conscious scrutiny. I know some people dislike the word “fear” with respect to their own behavior — don’t get hung up on the exact wording; call it “avoidance behavior” if that’s more to your liking. But an additional benefit is that you can also devise intelligent work-arounds for those fears-made-conscious, some of which may indeed be valid signals of unsolved problems. For example, going back to the weight loss example, if you lose a lot of weight, you probably will need new clothes. And if you don’t have the money to buy new clothes, then that is a real problem you’ll need to address (unless you don’t mind wearing oversized outfits). Left unacknowledged, even a simple problem like this can be enough to subconsciously sabotage you from achieving your goal. But once you examine the situation consciously and figure out a way to deal with it in advance, you’re sending a message to your subconscious that you needn’t fear this problem because you have a practical way to solve it. Now let’s consider the opposite side. Suppose you ask, “What will happen if I succeed?” and upon considering all the side effects, you realize that you don’t actually want to achieve the goal at all. The negatives outweigh the positives. I encountered this when I made a plan to grow my games business but didn’t seem to make as much progress as I wanted. When I asked this magic question, I realized that I didn’t really want to achieve the goal with all its side effects — what I really wanted was to transition to writing and speaking full time, and further building my games business would actually take me farther from that more important goal. Growing my games business seemed like a goal I should want, but when I really thought about where I’d be if I achieved that goal, I realized it wouldn’t be the success I truly wanted. That was a difficult realization for me… to recognize that my original ladder of success was now leaning against the wrong building. So I actually had to “unset” that goal once I really understood the likely consequences of achieving it. Even now as I set goals in the direction of writing and speaking as my new career, I recognize that there are big side effects. I simply don’t have the mental bandwidth for two full-time careers. One of the hardest side effects for me was letting go of the goals and dreams I had for my games business. All those creative ideas for new games that will never be… and the would-be players who will never experience them…. But this is outweighed by what will happen as I succeed in my new career. To create a new game that challenges, entertains, and uplifts people is wonderful; however, being able to help people grow fulfills me even more. I found it a very enlightening process to review all these side effects and one by one to acknowledge that I accept them. What will happen if you succeed? If you lose the weight… get the date… earn the promotion… start the business… get pregnant… quit smoking… become a millionaire… stretch yourself?
Years ago I learned a simple yet powerful marketing secret: You must become so convinced of the benefits of your product or service that you feel you’d be unjustly depriving people by not doing everything in your power to get the word out. I was infected by this attitude from Jay Abraham. Jay has an absolutely brilliant way of thinking about marketing. For example, if you’re an accountant, and you’re skilled at saving people money on their taxes, Jay might ask how much you save your average client. Say it’s $500 per year. And then Jay would ask how much you charge. Say it’s $200. Then Jay might take you through a conversation like this:
Jay: So it’s costing people a net $300 per year not to do business with you. You: Yes, that’s fair to say. Jay: How long does your typical client stay with you? You: About three years. Jay: So that’s a total of $900 then. People are effectively being charged $900 not to work with you, $900 they would have otherwise been able to keep. You: Alright. Jay: So if you meet someone and don’t tell them about your service, you’ve just cost them $900. You: Hmmm… Jay: You have a duty then to share this knowledge; to do otherwise would be irresponsible. You: That’s a strange way to think about it. Jay: What’s strange about it? If you have the ability to save people $900, then you’re costing everyone $900 they could have saved whenever you don’t tell someone about your service. Don’t you have a moral obligation to save people this $900 if you can do it? Wouldn’t it be unethical not to do it? You: How is it unethical? Jay: You’re cheating people out of $900 you could have saved them. All you had to do was speak up – or at least try. What might that $900 mean to certain people? You’d be costing people a great deal of additional enjoyment, education, retirement income, vacations, etc. I consider that kind of negligent behavior unethical. Don’t you? You: I just never thought about it that way before. Jay: Start thinking about it that way then.
In other words, if the product or service you provide is truly of benefit to others, then marketing becomes a duty. Not spreading the word is irresponsible and unethical. Of course, the opposite is also true. If you have a product or service with no real benefit, then to actively market it would be irresponsible as well. If deep down you have doubts as to whether what you’re providing is of real value, you’ll probably sabotage yourself in your marketing efforts. I see this all the time among small business owners — they often don’t believe enough in their products to aggressively market them. So they hold back and fill their days with non-marketing activities instead. Doing too much marketing makes them feel uncomfortable.
I’m not advocating trying to fool yourself into believing in your product/service when you don’t. I’m suggesting you consult your conscience to see what you already believe. If you run your own business and don’t market it very well (a common situation), is it possible you don’t really believe in the benefits you provide? Or if you feel you’re ready for a better job but don’t go out and apply for one, could it be that you secretly feel the potential employer would be better off hiring someone else? How well do you market yourself in other areas? Do you hold back from pursuing new friendships or relationships because you don’t believe enough in the benefits that others would experience from your companionship? What would happen if you truly believed in the benefits you can provide? When you find your conscience is holding you back from effective marketing, don’t try to squash that inner voice. Listen to it. Hear what it has to say. Are your products just wasting people’s time? Are your services pointless? Would an employer be better off hiring someone other than you? Would a friend be better off without you in their life? Your conscience can point you in the direction of greater internal congruence, allowing you to market yourself very naturally and eagerly. Sometimes this involves recognizing the genuine benefit that’s already there, such as with the accountant example at the beginning of this article. But other times it requires changing the offering to create a new benefit that really matters to you. When I started StevePavlina.com, I had to remember this powerful lesson: marketing must align with conscience. I can tell I’m congruent in this area when I’m eager to do marketing work instead of wanting to put it off. If I feel a desire to procrastinate on marketing, I know something is wrong. So I run through one of those imaginary Jay Abraham conversations in my mind to see where I stand. What is the real benefit I’m providing? How can I quantify it? What will I be costing people if I don’t market to them? Why do I have an ethical duty to market this information? Be careful not to confuse this with vanity, which is self-directed. This type of motivation is directed outward. It’s not about telling yourself how great you are. It’s recognizing what you can do for others that really, truly benefits them. If I think about myself being a great writer or speaker, that isn’t going to help my marketing. In fact, it will likely hurt me by injecting too much ego into the message. But if I think about what real benefit I can offer someone, that is very motivating. My understanding of this benefit must be rooted in the facts, not on a fictionalized exaggeration. Recognize and acknowledge the real, down-to-earth benefits and what they can actually do for people. And if the benefits are too weak to give you the feeling that marketing is an ethical duty, then stop your practice of junk marketing, and listen to what your conscience has been trying to tell you all along. What kind of product or service do you feel you really should be marketing and selling? What skills do you need to develop that would make you an intelligent choice for your preferred employer to hire? What do you need to change in yourself to make it genuinely beneficial for others to befriend you? By creating and acknowledging the real benefit that you actually believe in, you accomplish two things. First, your feeling of certainty will move you to action. You’ll become driven to market yourself, your product, or your service because that’s the right thing to do. Secondly, you’ll actually be providing something of value that genuinely helps others. And together these two results will create a positive feedback loop where the more aggressively you market and sell, the more people you help, and the more certain you become that you’re doing the right thing. Acknowledge the real benefit you provide. Don’t fall into the ego trap by exaggerating your impact, but don’t minimize or deny the positive benefits either. Find the truth of the situation. Is your conscience congruently committed to the belief that you’re marketing something of real value, or have you been lying to yourself? And if it’s the latter, how can you correct it? When your marketing message is congruent with your conscience, your motivation for promotion won’t be restrained by hesitation. When you believe that marketing is simply the right thing to do, you’ll do it eagerly, not for your own gratification but because you know you’re genuinely helping people. Source
This article is designed to get you thinking about your life from a new perspective. For the sake of clarity, we’ll focus primarily on your career, but by the time you’re done reading, you should be able to apply these ideas to other areas of your life as well. Consider a physical recording medium like a CD or DVD. By itself it’s an empty vessel. The “message” is the information contained within that medium, whether it be music, a film, software, or some other information. The message is what provides the value — the actual recording medium is often inconsequential. You may pay $20 for a CD that contains music, or you may pay $300 for a CD that contains certain software. But the physical CDs are essentially identical except for the information they contain. This price difference isn’t due to a difference in the medium but rather due to a difference in the message. Now let’s extend this concept of the medium vs. the message and apply it to your career (or any other part of your life for that matter). For example, in most cases your job title represents the medium of your career. Career media include being an attorney, a salesperson, or a computer programmer. Think of your career medium as the vessel through which you work. Much like a recordable CD, your career medium is an empty container waiting to be filled. If you identify yourself as an attorney or a salesperson or a computer programmer, that doesn’t give you any sense of the value your work provides. Those professions are conduits for providing value, but they contain very little value in and of themselves. Some attorneys earn $300/hour while others charge $3000/hour. And you’ll find tremendous pay differences in other fields as well, even among people who appear to have the same job title, whether it be secretary or CEO. The medium of the career (i.e. the job title) cannot account for these differences. It isn’t hard to recognize that the primary value comes not from the medium of your career (i.e. your particular job) but rather from the message of your career. The message is what you bring to your career. It’s what fills the otherwise empty container. For example, I can identify my career as being a writer, blogger, speaker, web developer, entrepreneur, computer programmer, etc. Or I can more broadly say that I’m a communicator. But that would mean defining my career as a medium — an empty container. It’s like saying that I’m a microphone. The message, as opposed to the medium, is what specific information I communicate through these various vessels. What am I saying? What information is traveling through the microphone? In my case the message is that I’m here to grow and to help other people to grow. The media I use to convey this message will change and evolve over time, but the message is a constant. And the message is a much better description of my true career than the media that I currently use to express it.
Changing Perspectives
Chances are that you currently think of your career primarily in terms of the medium (i.e. your particular job) rather than the message (i.e. the unique value you bring to your work). I want to dive a little deeper into this distinction with you and show you some perhaps unexpected benefits that may arise when you shift your focus and begin thinking of your career primarily in terms of the message. There are two significant risks that come from defining your career in terms of your primary medium (i.e. “I’m an attorney” or “I’m a programmer”). The first risk is that you’ll unnecessarily limit yourself. You will only recognize opportunities that present themselves in the form of a nail because you’ve defined yourself as a hammer and nothing more. You’ll fall into the trap of thinking, “Dammit, Jim! I’m a doctor, not a bricklayer!” As a human being, there are many ways for you to express and deliver value to others. The current medium of your career is only one of them. When you think of your career as being greater than any single medium, you’ll open yourself to new opportunities that lie outside your current primary medium. The second risk is that by focusing too heavily on a single medium, you’re likely to lose sight of your message. Your message is far more important than any one medium, so by putting the medium first, you’re likely to suffer from a gradual decline in motivation regarding your work. You begin a new job, and it’s very exciting at first, but the longer you work at it, the less enthusiastic you become. Does this seem familiar at all? For example, today you’ll find people who define their careers as professional bloggers (the medium), and so they blog about anything and everything. But after several months or perhaps a year of this type of work, it isn’t uncommon to see them becoming apathetic and even depressed about their work. Why? Because the medium (in this case, a blog) is hollow by its very nature, and something hollow cannot provide lasting motivation. Defining your career in terms of some arbitrary medium, like being a professional blogger, is like a garage band saying, “Yeah, man, it’s all about the CDs.” So what happens when you put the medium before the message? You define your life in terms of the container instead of what fills that container. You put emptiness before fullness. And this can lead to procrastination, lack of motivation, and low energy. How motivating is it to define your career as being a professional blogger (or any other arbitrary job title)? On a scale of 1-10, maybe it would start at around an 8-9 the first few weeks, but where will it be after five years? Probably a 4 or 5 at best. But by defining your career as the message instead of the medium, you’re probably in the range of 8-10, and five years later you can still be up there. In my case the message of personal development is indeed a 10 for me. My level of enthusiasm for writing, speaking, blogging, or programming waxes and wanes over time, but my interest in personal development remains perpetually high. The feeling of being driven comes from the message of your work, not the medium. When you wake up each morning, how do think about your work? Do you say to yourself, “Today I’m going to write something (medium)?” Or are you thinking, “Today I’m going to improve the human condition in some small way (message)?” Which perspective do you think is more intrinsically motivating? Certainly both the message and the medium are each an important part of your career, but with the rapid pace of technological advancement, your medium is likely to be far less permanent than your message. Notice that medium-based work is highly subject to automation. A salesperson is replaced by a web site. A secretary is replaced by a PDA. A PR firm is replaced by a blog. But automating the message that’s provided by a conscious human being, now that’s a lot tougher. How would you automate the message of personal development, for example?
Finding Your Message
Now how do you identify your message? Your message is essentially your purpose, which I’ve addressed many times in various blog entries. But here’s yet another way to discover your message: Think about what you bring to your job or career (or even to any random task or project) that’s different than how the “average” person would do it. What’s different about your approach to your work vs. how other people would do the same job? For example, when I primarily worked as a computer programmer, I was extremely aggressive about improving my skills, and I’d enthusiastically share what I learned with other people. In building my games business, I did the same thing. You can put me in virtually any job, and I’ll bring these same qualities to it. I’ll aggressively strive to get better and better, and I’ll share with others what I learn along the way. That’s the “message” that’s uniquely me. Imagine yourself working at different jobs and in different fields. What qualities would you bring to your work that are uniquely you? Do you spread good humor, harmony, or passion? Do you provide analytic depth, intuitive insight, or a rational outlook? Do you bring loyalty, teamwork, or honesty to your workplace? You may find it helpful to try to define yourself in terms of a metaphor. Are you a rock? An eagle? A storm? If you have trouble figuring this out for yourself, ask people you know for their opinions. (You may want to have them read this article first, so they know what the heck you’re talking about.) Often other people can see us more clearly than we see ourselves.
Embracing Your Message
Once you develop an understanding of your own message (and your understanding will surely evolve over time), you can begin to express that message more consciously. You can redefine your career in terms of that message. Believe me — this is likely to feel very awkward at first. But over time if you can overcome the social conditioning that tries to pigeonhole you into a single medium instead of embracing your message, I think you’ll find it a much more fulfilling way to think about your career. In school we mostly learn a medium. In high school I learned the medium of writing. In college I learned the medium of computer programming. In Toastmasters I learned the medium of speaking. And from other bloggers I learned the medium of blogging. But the message that I bring to these multi-media isn’t something I learned in school. The message is something that’s been a part of me since childhood, although my awareness of it has certainly increased as I’ve grown up. When I switched careers from game publishing to working in personal development, it was more than just a job change. It was a shift from medium-based thinking to message-based thinking. Writing and speaking and blogging are better media for my message than developing computer games. And as technology continues to evolve, I have the flexibility to embrace any new media that arise. The media are just empty containers. The message is what fills those containers. Once I began defining my career in terms of the message instead of the medium, I felt much more in tune with my work. Sometimes I tell people I’m a writer or a blogger or a speaker — all of those are true for now. But internally I feel that any one of those containers is too small a description of the real work I do. Have you ever felt the same way… that your job title is too small for you? How do you feel when you say, “I’m a _____” (fill in your current job title)? Say it right now, and notice how it makes you feel. Does it really describe the totality of the work you do? How could you give yourself a more expansive message-based career name? Instead of thinking of yourself as an attorney, for instance, how about giving yourself the job title of “Peacebringer” (someone who resolves conflicts and restores peace)? Or instead of being a salesperson or a computer programmer, try adopting the job title of “Problem Solver.” Wouldn’t that be more accurate? How would you react if someone handed you a business card that said, “Jane Smith, Peacebringer?” I’m sure some people would give more credibility to a card that says “Attorney at Law,” but I’d rather hire the Peacebringer, since that title tells me this person understands that the value of their work extends beyond any single medium. What does your business card say? Does it only list the medium of your work, or does it convey the message? What would be a more appropriate job title for you?
Beyond Career
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, you can apply this concept of the medium vs. the message to other parts of your life beyond your career. I’ll leave it up to you to think about how you might differentiate between the medium and the message in terms of your health, your relationships, your spiritual beliefs, and so on. And for another perspective that overlaps this one, you may enjoy reading this blog post: End Goals vs. Means Goals. Source
When I tell people I’m in the field of sound healing, most of them look at me in surprise and say something like: “Yes, music can sooth the savage beast”. And that’s correct. But while music is part of the world of sound healing, the truth is it’s merely one small part. Usually people think when I’m talking about sound healing, that they need to be a musician or a classically trained singer. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m talking about sound healing and the fact that we are all sound healers. Yes, you are a sound healer. Simple, self-created vocal sounds such as elongated vowels like “ah”, “oh” or an even a “mmm” humming sound can have profound and positive effects on our physical, mental and emotional states.
Here are just a few of benefits that occur from making such sounds:
1. Lowers blood pressure and heart rate—there’s little need to tell you that stress is probably the single factor that contributes most to illness. Self-created sounds can lower our BP, heart rate and reduce levels of stress-related hormones such as cortisol. 2. Increases melatonin, a hormone which. helps us sleep at night, and is being researched as a treatment for depression and cancer. 3. Releases endorphins—those self-created opiates that work as "natural pain relievers". By making elongated vowel sounds, you can reduce stress and pain. Think about it—when we like something, we naturally make an “ah” sound. You don’t have to sing opera to experience the healing power of sound. 4. Increases levels of nitric oxide, (NO), a molecule associated with promotion of healing. Nitric oxide was voted as the “molecule of the year”—it helps with vascular dilation and allows our blood to run smoothly throughout our body. The importance of this cannot be overstated.
These are just a few of the many benefits that occur from our own self-created sound. There are many more positive results. Additional healing effects of sound are found in the new edition of my book The 7 Secrets Of Sound Healing, which has been re-released by Hay House. I’ve been in the field of studying the power of sound to heal and transform for over 35 years and have taught this work throughout the world. My greatest difficulty has been that people confuse sound with music. But to experience the effects stated above, you simply have to hum or make a gentle tone. Feeling stressed out? Take a nice deep breath and sound forth with an “ah” a few times. Need to calm yourself down while waiting for an important meeting? Just hum for a minute or two. No one will hear you but you’ll feel a lot more relaxed almost instantly. Believe it or not, YOU are a sound healer. You can heal yourself with sound and you don’t need to be a musician or a singer. Sound goes into our ears and into our brain, affecting our heart rate and nervous system. This process, of course includes listening. In fact, there’s a half-hour long musical sequence that’s included as a download with The 7 Secrets Of Sound Healing. I encourage you to utilize the power of listening to slow, gentle music, to release your stress and enhance relaxation. But most of all, I encourage you to experience and explore the powerful ability of your own self-created sounds to heal and transform. It’s an extraordinary gift that we can all reawaken in ourselves and in others as well. What a blessing! Let me know what you think below! Source
Ask and it is given. This 9 minute video explains how the vortex works, how the law of attraction works. Source Try it out and let us know how you get it on!
