By Stella Olivia Kikoyo
Creating Clarity, Focus, Courage and Confidence
Key Tool Using Five fingers
Thumb =Emotional state
Index Finger = Focus
Middle Finger = Meaning
Ring Finger = Relationship
Small finger or pinky = Strategy
Emotional State
What is your emotional state?
Emotions affect our feelings which feelings affect our actions or behaviours and results. Think about this before taking decisions. What emotional state are you in right now? This is of course as a result of your thoughts.
This can be changed by:
· Your physiology and posture.
· Naming that feeling that you’re experiencing. What it is? Understanding where it is coming from and why you’re experiencing it.
· Reason with it, if it is fear. Fear is there to protect you.
👉👉 Go to question 1, 2, 3 at the end of the notes
Focus
What are you focusing on?
“Where Focus goes Energy flows.” Tony Robbins
Remember fear resides at the opposite side of bliss.
Change your focus – Let your desires, needs and purpose be the center of your focus when making decisions.
What do you want to achieve? Is it the obstacle or the opportunity in front of you?
For those who are drivers, imagine seeing an obstacle in front of you. What do you focus on? Do you realise that most of the time you get to where you’re going no matter what. This is because you focus on where you’re going.
What you focus on you achieve. This is related to the “law of attraction.”
What are you going to focus on then – fear or opportunity? This will change your emotional state and results.
Make a choice to focus on what you want to achieve and ask yourself two questions below:
1. Who will I become if I overcome this fear?
2. Who will I be if I continue to leave with this fear?
Tony Robbins uses the “rocking chair.” Asking yourself, what you will be thinking as an 80 year old. Regret or joy?
Watch:
WILL SMITH jumping from a helicopter.
The Greatest showman with Keale Settle
👉👉 Go to question 4 at the end of the notes
Meaning and beliefs we attach to things
What meaning and beliefs do you attach to things?
What is failure? – Failure is seen as falling short of expectation either of our own or others.
It seems that our survival is at threat as a result of failure. However failure isn’t life threatening but we consider it so.
WHAT MEANING DO YOU ATTACH TO FAILURE?
This is related to the voice of the inner critic in you.
Does failure mean the end or temporary defeat or teacher to you?
WHY IS THIS THE CASE?
This comes from the belief systems and the meanings we attach to things.
Ask yourself:
1. What is the worst-case scenario if it doesn’t work?
2. Is taking this opportunity life threatening?
It could be that failure or success defines who you are? Where does this come from? It might be conditioning picked up along the way from childhood – a learned behaviour.
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
You need to be clear with yourself and understand what is beneath that fear?
What emotion is actually there? Is it disappointment or loss of credibility that you’re afraid of? If you continue to live like this you damage your well being.
Failure is only temporary defeat. Let us see if that which is so often looked upon, as failure is not actually “temporary defeat”. Thomas Edison said when he was interrogated about his 10,000 failed attempts to make the light bulb, “I haven’t failed – I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” According to Napoleon Hill failure brings us up with a jerk and redirects our energies along different and more desirable lines.
Your strengths grow from resilience of the reverses and setbacks, which are just temporary defeat that the majority call failure. We can learn and profit from the lessons temporary defeat brings but only if we have the right mindset.
“Yes, he succeeded-but-he almost failed!” So did Robert Fulton and Abraham Lincoln and nearly all the others whom we call successful. No man ever achieved worth-while success who did not, at one time or other, find himself with at least one foot hanging well over the brink of failure.” Napoleon Hill in Laws of Success.
👉👉 Go to question 5 at the end of the notes
Relationships
Why are you doing what you’re doing?
Love is the strongest force. So hold on to it and let it be your guide. Focusing on why you’re doing what you’re doing should be a big guide to your decision-making process. The bigger WHY is important and is normally aligned with our higher selves as it goes beyond serving oneself.
It caters to needs like love and contribution to others. It allows one to go beyond the immediate challenges and push through no matter what.
Stopping and reminding yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing will enable you to move. Then thinking about the values that you align and satisfy each day in your business. Is it commitment, trust, hope, equality, service, sustainability or fun? Values provide a deeper meaning beyond profit and enable business to continue.
Embedding your why and your values into your mission and vision and bringing them to focus when making decisions will allow you to continue going forward amidst fears and challenges. Listen to your heart before making decisions.
👉👉 Go to question 6 at the end of the notes
Strategy – Know Thyself and Take Action
What approach suits you?
Before taking on a strategy, start by identifying who you really are and mainly what your strengths are.
WHAT ARE YOUR STRENGTHS OR SUPERPOWERS?
Identify your strength as these create your superpowers and are a great way to developing strategies that enable you to be unstoppable no matter what. What makes you different or stand out from anyone else?
To find out these, visualise the last time you took action and made a change in your life or another person’s life amidst a challenge. What happened then?
What made you do what you did? That’s your super power
TAKE ACTION OR LAUNCH
LAUNCH – USING THE KAIZEN APPROACH OR MASSIVE ACTION INSPITE OF FEAR
Whether you use the Kaizen approach, which is taking small steps towards your goals or taking massive actions. The key decision here is ACTION.
Step into the “corridor of opportunity” even if it is scary using the approach or strategy that suits you. Some people are “Earth” and require feeling grounded and others are “Fire” and always ready to take off. No matter what, step into the new zone and seize the opportunity.
This is supported by the “corridor principle” which is a research from Babson College (www. BrianTracy.com) in a 12 – year study into reasons for success. Here success was linked to proceeding down a corridor in life. The difference between “success” and “failure” in their study was one-word “launch.” No matter whether you use massive action or Kaizen approach just take action or launch.
They noted that successful people are willing to launch themselves down the corridor of opportunity without any guarantee of what would occur. Successful people are willing to risk uncertainty and overcome the normal fears and doubts that hold the great majority of entrepreneurs in place (www.BrianTracy.com).
The researchers confirmed that as you move down the corridor of life, new doors of opportunity open up on both sides of you. What comes out of it all is that you would not have seen those doors if you had not moved down the corridor.
These opportunities would not have opened up if you hadn’t stepped up in faith and taken that first step.
Confucius “A journey of a thousand leagues begins with a single step” this means that great accomplishments begin with your willingness to face the inevitable uncertainty of any new enterprise and step out bodily in the direction of your goal.
If you’re entering a new market, you may use Michael Porter’s ’s Generic strategies and decide how to serve your target audience. You need to make a choice of which one otherwise you get lost in the middle. See diagram below.
MARKETING STRATEGIES – FOCUSING YOUR APPROACH
“There is no security in life only opportunity.” General Douglas MacArthur. He noted that if you seek opportunity, you will end up with all the security you need. However if you seek for security, you’ll end up with neither opportunity nor security. Notice what happens every time the economic situation changes – it is downsizing and financial restructuring where we all find ourselves unemployed and in uncertain times.
If you notice an opportunity – seize it. That’s exactly what it is before your mind starts working against you.
👉👉 Go to question 7, 8, 9 at the end of the notes
WITH THE ABOVE STEPS YOU WILL NEVER MISS AN OPPORTUNITY AGAIN.
QUESTIONS TO ACCOMPANY THE SESSION
1. Write down any opportunity you have missed in the last few months or one that you’re yet to take.
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2. Why was this so if you missed it or why haven’t you taken it yet?
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3. Do you remember how you were feeling then before you decided to let the opportunity go?
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4. Where was your focus? Was it on fear or on the opportunity?
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5. What meaning do you attach to failure? Is failure temporary defeat or an end?
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6. If you had to take action towards the opportunity in question1, WHY would you do so?
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7. What strategy are you comfortable with – Kaizen or Massive action?
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8. Close your eyes and think of any time you were able to create change in your life amidst challenges. What did you do?
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9. What enabled you to take that action?
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10. What action/s will you be taking today that will enable you to move towards the same opportunity?
I. ………………………………………….
II. ………………………………………….
See you at the TOP!
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