Don’t work harder! Work on your inner self instead E76
January 10, 2023
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Have you tried before to make a change in your life? You tried it all but it still did not work? Then you might have missed the real place where you needed to make a change. And that’s what you will discover in today’s episode – what is means to work on your inner self.
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People want a different life. Or they want parts of their lives to be different. For example, they want a new job. They want more success in their business. Maybe they have both already, so they rather want to have more free time to spend with their loved ones. Or they are looking for a partner to share their life with. I think we can all agree that most people want something different in their life.
Not willing to work on the inner self
But what happens is that they are not willing to change themselves for it. Or that thought has never occurred to them that they have to change for something in their life to change. This might be even a thought that you have never thought about either. And that’s ok because now you have!
Sadly I have met people in my life who would not care about changing themselves – even if I pointed this out to them. They rather complain, pity themselves and wonder why nothing ever changes. So they ask themselves why their life situation does not change but at the same time, they always stay the same.
With your analytical and logical brain would you agree with me that it makes sense that if you want something in your life to change, you have to change? Maybe you do. Maybe you don’t because you think it is the other way around. First, something in your life changes and then you change. If that is your understanding of the world then tell me how has that paid out for you. Does it work?
Stop waiting to work on your inner self
While you are waiting and not changing anything about yourself, do things in your life magically change for the better? Or is it rather that you would like them to change but it never does because you are not taking action and not changing yourself?
To be honest, I always thought that if I change something in my environment like getting a new job then my life will change. And the result of that life change should be for me to feel good, lead a happier life and enjoy life much more than I did back then. But that never happened by changing jobs or companies. It distracted me for 6-12 months and got some excitement into my life. But that excitement wore off and then I felt exactly how I felt before.
Inner self work is the way to effectively and quickly change
We think we can change our lives by changing something in our environment. That this is the only way to make us feel better and live a more peaceful and harmonious life. But it is the exact opposite.
We need to change first. Well, it’s not a need. We want to change first and then our life will change. Why would we want to change? Once you understand that you can have the life that you dream of if you are willing to change into the person that leads that kind of life, you will say: Ok, let’s change then. If you have this understanding and you tell me that you still don’t want to change and rather wait, then you can’t really want it enough.
What would it be like to run a successful company?
Let me paint the picture with an example. Let’s say that you want to be your own boss and run a successful company. You have been talking about it for years. You even did some qualifications to get you ready to build your own business. And who knows maybe you are already working on it and took the brave step to quit your job.
Looking from the outside you have done everything you need to do to be ready to be your own boss and own a successful company. But have you changed internally? Why do you think that most new businesses fail so quickly? Let me ask you these questions:
Who would you need to be as a successful business owner? What would you need to change about yourself to be ready to run a successful business? How does a successful business owner think, act, and behave?
Inside you are still the scared employee not taking risks
If in this example you stay exactly the same person internally you will have trouble fulfilling your dream. Inside you are still the employee who is scared to risk it all because it could all go wrong and then you would need to return to your old job. That is likely to have been a thought you had before you left. Or maybe you have not even left and started your business and this is the exact thought that holds you back.
Can you reason with me that a successful business owner does not have the thought: I am scared to risk it all because it could all go wrong and then I need to return to my old job? I am sure you agree with me that this is not what is going on in their head while running a profitable business and enjoying life.
Don’t work harder on your outer world but turn inwards
We all have dreams. We all have wishes and we have goals. And to some degree, we are working on them and taking action towards them. But most of the time, we focus our actions just on the outer world. We ask and investigate what can we do outside of ourselves to get a step closer to our goal.
And yes, these steps are necessary but if you ignore the inner changes that you need to make you will have a hard time and might even fail at the end of all your efforts. And that would break my heart.
What would it be like to get the promotion?
Let’s say you want a big promotion in your company, a really big step up the career ladder. What are the things that you do and that I would have done in the past? If I think about myself when I was in that situation, I would network with the right people and work really hard to have a good year-end rating. I would let people know that I am interested in a bigger role. I might even look at the skill set that I need for that promotion and try to take some courses or talk to people who are already good at this skill.
But what I never thought about was changing my beliefs, habits, behaviours and emotional reactions. Let me share some of them with you that I know would for sure stand in my and your way of climbing up the career ladder.
Look closely at your inner self work and reflect
For example my beliefs on the inside, beliefs that I would not share with others. I could wish for the promotion and work really hard for it. But what if I don’t believe that I can do it? Maybe I have this inner belief that I am not worthy. Or I believe that others always get promoted and I never do.
All of my efforts in the outer world get sabotaged by the power the belief has on in my inner world. So I would be wasting a lot of time and energy working hard instead of working on my inner self.
Let’s look at habits that I had that would have tripped me up for potential promotions in the past. If I would receive recognition or somebody told me that I did a great job, I would diminish the recognition by saying things like, well, it was a team effort and I could not have done it without them. Or that I was just lucky that it worked out so well. Or that lots of people helped me on the way and thanks to them was I able to deliver this result.
What would it be like to be a great leader?
Do you think that somebody confident that thinks that they are a great leader talks like this and deflects any recognition they get? No, this is somebody who feels deep inside rather less confident, or not worthy of that recognition.
If I reflect on the behaviour I had many years ago that would not let me get to a high position was pleasing people and taking on other people’s responsibilities. For the success of the project or department, I would sometimes do other people’s jobs and take on their responsibility. And I was not told to do so by my boss or even the other person. I would just do it to please other people and to keep the peace.
Until my boss actually told me off for that and that was a huge wake-up call for me. I bend backwards to help and keep all the balls in the air and I get criticised for it? When that happened I knew that I misunderstood the world somehow.
And now looking back at it I know that this is not how a leader can behave. This is not somebody that I would promote into a senior leadership role myself.
A great leader, not just a leader by job title
And the last area to look at is the typical emotional reactions that you have. Let’s say you get flustered in an emergency instead of staying calm. Or you explode in front of your team when somebody has done something wrong – even if it was pretty bad. These are not emotional reactions that a great leader would have. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of leaders do have these emotional reactions but I am talking here about being a great leader and not just a leader by job title.
Through these examples I want you to wake up to the fact that there is a whole world that we quite often forget to change. Our inner world. If we don’t change our inner self which is made up of how we think, act and feel then it will keep tripping us up and holding us back when we try to change.
Neuroplasticity – we can change how we think, act and feel
But the good news is that we can change how we think. We have the possibility to change our actions, habits and behaviours. This is what I teach my clients. Together we work on the inner self. This is where the puzzle pieces suddenly all come together when we start to change internally into the person that is living our dream life. And you can do that, too. No one is too old, too big, too sick, or too unskilled to learn this and begin to work on the inner self. Every single person can learn how to change on the inside to finally make the changes on the outside that they want so much.
Check out the ENERGY ACADEMY on how you can learn how to change when you are ready. And you are ready when you tried it all and it did not work. I can promise you that this will finally work.
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