What Is Your Why?

Knowing your why will make all the difference. So what is this ‘why’ that we’re talking about? 

It’s your reason for doing what you do and make no mistake about this - Your why will always have an emotional reason. 

You need to dig deep to discover why you want what you want.

If you want to get lean and fit, ask yourself why you want to do it. Be honest. Most people do not want to get in shape for health reasons. That’s so boring. Oh no no no! There’s always something else. If men want to get muscular, they probably want to turn women’s heads. They want to feel desirable. The same applies for women who want to shed the excess pounds. Maybe they want their spouse or partner to look at them in a whole new way.

There’s nothing wrong with a little vanity. What matters is that you know why you want what you want. Some people do it for bragging rights. Others want to prove their naysayers wrong. Then there are people who just want to achieve something worthy in their life so that they can have the confidence to say that they did at least one thing right.

Even a person who has had a heart attack and recovers will change his eating habits and be more active for an emotional reason. They may fear dying or they want to live so that they can see their kids grow up. This is the REAL REASON. They’re not doing it for the sake of being healthy. You must dig deep and self-reflect until you find your underlying reason.

Why do you want to make money online? It’s probably not the numbers that excite you.Saying that you don’t have your own boss is cool. Being able to brag that nobody controls you anymore and that you live according to your own rules is really fun. Being able to buy expensive things without worrying about your finances is beyond fantastic.
These are the emotions that drive you. Your job is to find out what it is… and once you do, WRITE IT DOWN!

This is your Warrior Purpose

If you want, you can even make a video where you record yourself on your mobile phone explaining why your goal is so important to you. It has to be heartfelt. You must be brutally honest with yourself. Save the video and keep the paper that you’ve written your why on. Always keep them handy.There will come a point when you’re tempted to give up on your goals and dreams.

This is inevitable. The universe is challenging you. It may seem all hokey but you can definitely expect struggles and obstacles to pop-up. At times like these, you MUST look at the why that you’ve written down or recorded. Rewrite it if you have to just so you remember and feel what it is you truly wanted.

This will prevent you from throwing in the towel. It will force you to choose between what you want now and what you want most. If you’re tired of starting over, then stop giving up. A warrior fights to his last. That’s his purpose. Your why is your purpose. Remember it at all times and keep refreshing your memory when the initial excitement of taking the first step starts to wane.

Written by Yola Bastos Co-Founder of Women Flix and Founder of Beautifly Digital https://msha.ke/yolabastos/  

Women Flix Limited, is a company limited by guarantee, was incorporated in England and Wales (company no. 13047578 ).

Clear The Mind

Our entire experience and quality of life hinges on our ability to clear and control the mind. Many of us believe that our happiness is dependent on outside factors and on what happens to us. This however is not true. Rather, our happiness depends on the way we react to what happens to us. And the same goes for every other aspect of our experience too: your stress levels are a result of the way you react to events, and your ability to be productive depend on your reactions too.

Don’t believe me? 

To prove it, let’s imagine that you’re in a caravan and it’s hanging over the edge of a cliff. If you move too much then it’s going to topple over the edge into a ravine. If you are aware of this situation, then in all likelihood you will be riddled with fear. Your heart rate will increase, your blood vessels will dilate, your muscles will contract and you will start breathing quickly. You’ll sweat and your mind will be all over the place.

But now let’s imagine that you’re in the very same situation but you believe that you can fly. In that case, you’ll probably sit happily reading and not worry all too much about your precarious position! As you can see here, your belief about the situation and about the events is what is in control of not just your mood – but your very physiology. And guess which person is more likely to survive this situation without letting the caravan fall?

Now don’t get this twisted: I am not here to tell you that holding completely deluded beliefs is the way forward! And nor should you convince yourself you can fly. But this is merely a demonstration of the power of the mind and of your beliefs. 

Now if you imagine yourself in another more realistic setting you can see how your beliefs can change the way you react. Let’s say you’re standing up on stage and you’re about to give a speech in front of lots of people.

Some of us don’t believe we can fly. Some of us think that we’re going to say the wrong thing, that we’re going to stutter and that people are going to laugh at us! We thus begin to panic and guess what? Our blood vessels dilate, our muscles contract and our heart rate goes up. Our mind begins to race which makes us more likely to make mistakes and our throat becomes dry and hoarse.The irony is that the speech is much more likely to go wrong simply because we’re worried that it might! 

And now imagine the same scenario but where you believe it’s going to go well, or where you just aren’t bothered about what other people might think. This kind of calm mindfulness is going to help you to act as though there isn’t even an audience there!
Again, it is your reaction to the event that is going to keep stress at bay. And it’s not just these acutely stressful situations that can benefit from mindfulness and calmness either.

Imagine for example that you come home from work and you can’t stop thinking about the last thing your boss/client/colleague said to you.

Then you wonder if you sent that important last email… 

How present are you going to be when you get home? How much are your family likely to enjoy spending time with you?

Imagine that you are on a great holiday but all you can think about is whether or not you left the oven on at home. How much do you think you’ll enjoy the incredible views of mountains going past your window?

Imagine that you’re in the gym and your mind is thinking about the computer game you were playing last night, or X Factor. Do you really think that you’re going to be capable of exerting maximum force in that workout?

My aim is to help you to take back control over your mind and in doing this, you’re also going to be taking back control over your emotions and your feelings. The end result is that you’re going to be able to become completely present in any given moment and completely ‘mindful’, thereby abandoning unhelpful concerns, stressors and emotions. 

Mindfulness meditation means that you are meditating in such a way as to become more aware of your own thoughts and feelings. In other forms of meditation – such as transcendental meditation – ask the person to try and completely clear their mind, often by focussing on a single point in space, or perhaps a sound or a word (this is called a ‘mantra’ and it is why we imagine Buddhist monks to hum as they meditate!).

The difference with mindfulness is that you aren’t trying to eradicate your thoughts but rather you are trying to simply ‘watch them’ as they float past you. The idea is that you are becoming aware of the kinds of things you normally think but you aren’t engaging with them and you aren’t letting them affect you. The description is often that you should watch them pass by ‘like clouds in the sky’. Do this for a while and then write down the content of some of those thoughts. Look at the things you stress about and worry about on a regular basis and reflect on them in an objective, disconnected manner – nonjudgmentally.

Some of these will be things that you are going to worrying about and stressing about and which are going to stop you from enjoying yourself in the moment. You’re going to practice dismissing them but to help, you’re also going to disassemble them using restructuring techniques. One example of this is called ‘thought challenging’ which is going to teach you to challenge the validity of your worries or your distractions.

For example, let’s say that you’re worried you didn’t send an email at work. Thought challenging is going to help you overcome this.

First, you ask yourself if there’s anything you can do about it. If not, then what is the good in worrying? In fact, it is more important that you relax and enjoy yourself so that you can be fresh and well to handle the challenges tomorrow. Next, you ask how much it really matters. What is the worst case scenario? Everyone makes mistakes and in all likelihood, your boss isn’t going to be furious – they’ll be understanding.

Does some small part of you think that you’re going to get fired? Then just remind yourself that this is incredibly hard for any business to do legally and it would be worse for them than it would be for you. And after all, if your workplace would fire you so readily, would you really want to be there anyway? Are you worried that people will be mad at you? You made a mistake! So what? And since when do you need to be best friends with your work colleagues?

This is the logical and reasonable reaction to this concern and once you can learn to deconstruct your worries this way, it will allow you to simply forget them and go back to enjoying whatever you’re doing – or remaining calm when you’re under pressure.

Use the Body Scan Meditation

Generally meditating is one of the most important ways to promote mindfulness, calm and self-control.
In his book Tools of Titans, Tim Ferriss looks at the habits and routines of the world’s most successful people. What he finds is that they have a lot of things in common and one of the most prevalent of these commonalities is that they all meditate!

Everyone from Arnold Schwarzenegger, to Tony Robbins, to Elon Musk describe meditation as being a key tool that helped them achieve everything they did. When you meditate, you learn a method to forget your worries and to simply let your mind ‘be’. More importantly though, you develop greater concentration and greater focus which prevents your mind from getting into an anxious mess to begin with!

So how do you begin meditation?

One useful strategy is to start with the body scan technique. To get started, sit somewhere comfortable with your legs crossed and your hands on your knees. Keep your back straight, your chin up and forward and your eyes closed – but make sure you aren’t in a position where you can fall asleep!
Now you’re going to simply ‘scan’ your body by focussing on each part one at a time and then making a note of how it feels and relaxing it. Before that though, you begin with your senses. Listen carefully to the world around you. You’ll find that there are sounds that you have completely blocked out until now and you’ll notice birds tweeting, cars honking, children playing and wind howling.

Feel the temperature of your skin, notice if you’re on a slight gradient and even look at the light as it dances through your eyelids.
Okay, now focus on the top of your head and start to take your attention downward to your cheeks, jaw and then neck and shoulders. Stop at each point and make a note of how it feels: are you carrying any tension? Are you feeling any pain? Release tension in the muscle and then keep moving.

Eventually, you’ll reach the very bottom of your body. At which point you can begin to concentrate on your breathing for a while. Breathing should be ‘belly breathing’, which begins with the gut expanding and then fills the lungs all the way up. Breathing steadily and rhythmically will slow the heart rate via the parasympathetic nervous system and put you in an even calmer state. Finally, bring your attention to just below the navel and hold it there.

This is your center of gravity and concentrating here will ground you.Throughout this process, you might notice your thoughts start to drift from time to time. If this happens, don’t let it concern you. It is normal and not the end of the world – just quietly dismiss those thoughts and then return to the focus.

Finally, repeat the steps in reverse order and bring yourself back around. That was a body scan meditation! This is a powerful tool because it is forcing you to direct your attention and to ignore the outside thoughts. More importantly, it is engaging you with your own body, physicality and surroundings. And when you do this, your sensations become richer and more vivid. Eventually, if you keep practicing this skill, you should get to the point where you can begin to become more mindful and more present at will – even while moving and engaging in other tasks.

That means just taking a moment to actually look at the world around you. Pausing to see what you can hear. And fixing your posture. It means not getting so caught up in your own thoughts that you let life pass you by, or that you live in a constant state of stress and anxiety. Once you can do this, then you will find that nothing can stir you in quiet the same way unless you want it to. You can always just enjoy being in the moment and forget the past and the future for a time.

You can enjoy living and taste the amazing taste of that chocolate biscuit while that email sits there in your outbox completely unsent.

This is the key to happiness: you can choose to react positively instead of negatively. You can choose to view things as a challenge or an amusing hiccup instead of a serious threat. But it is also the key to unlocking your full potential so you perform better and achieve more!

Written by Yola Bastos Co-Founder of Women Flix and Founder of Beautifly Digital https://msha.ke/yolabastos/ 

Women Flix Limited, is a company limited by guarantee, was incorporated in England and Wales (company no. 13047578 ).

Marketing Tips for Women Entrepreneurs

Are you a female entrepreneur searching for new ways to market your new business? If so, there are many great ways to do so. Even better, the suggestions mentioned here are very affordable. Remember, unless you're lucky enough to have an unlimited supply of capital, it's always best to go easy on your finances in the beginning.

Always Have a Plan

No matter what kind of small business you're in charge of, it's always best to have a plan before you put things into action. This is true of every aspect of running your business. You may want to keep an audio recorder or small notebook with you, or find a note keeping app for your smartphone. Once you have a plan laid out, stick to it to the best of your abilities.

Set Optimistic Goals

In order to get work done effectively, it’s best to establish goals that you can work to achieve throughout the day, week, or month. These goals should be things that are attainable. Otherwise you're just setting yourself up for failure. However, they should also be optimistic and challenging goals that will encourage you to push yourself in order to be as effective as possible.

Know Your Target Market

Research into your target market, before you even open your doors to the public, is crucial to your marketing plan. The more specific you can get, by drilling down categories, the better. Not only do you need to know things like age, gender and income bracket, you also need to know what motivates your ideal client or customer to buy.

Build a Strong Portfolio

As the owner of the business, the way that you present yourself is often the first impression that potential clients or customers get of your organization. Make sure to always have a resume or portfolio available so that your future business associates can see all the hard work that you've done in the past. If they're impressed with how you represent yourself as a person, it's much more likely that they’ll want to do business with you.

Form a Network

It can be difficult to market your product or business on your own. Fortunately, social networking makes it easy for just about anybody to reach out to potential clients. Make sure that your business has a strong web presence, and establish pages for it on social media sites.

But, social media isn't the only way to establish a network of clients and business associates. Whenever your business works with another company, be sure to establish a relationship between the two of you.

Keep Searching for New Opportunities

Never pass up an opportunity to market yourself or your business to others. Make sure that you always have your business card with you in case you run across someone in your personal life that you want to form a connection with in your professional life. You never know where you might meet your next customer.

These are just a few marketing tips for women entrepreneurs. Realistically, this is just the beginning. Obviously, you don't have to try all these things at once. Trying one or two at a time is usually the better way to go.

Written by Yola Bastos Co-Founder of Women Flix  and Founder of Beautifly Digital

https://msha.ke/yolabastos/

Women Flix empowers financial freedom for women worldwide. 

Women Flix Limited, is a company limited by guarantee, was incorporated in England and Wales (company no. 13047578 ).

Real talk on emotional intelligence and strategy with Faris Aranki

Faris is the founder & CEO of Shiageto Consulting, an innovative consulting firm that specialises in strategy and emotional intelligence.
He started as a school teacher then moved into the corporate world before starting Shiageto 3 years ago.
He has lived and worked around the globe helping 100s of companies achieve strategic success across a range of industries.
On top of that Faris is an accomplished speaker and contributor to various outlets 
Social Media
https://www.linkedin.com/in/farisaranki/
https://www.instagram.com/farisaranki/
Website
www.shiageto.com 
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Women Flix empowers financial freedom for women worldwide. Our mission is to change the mindset of women to have a better relationship with money, through educational courses and coaching.

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Methods For Maintaining Concentration

No matter what your job entails though, there are going to be times when you’re not feeling particularly motivated or when you’re not feeling supercharged. One tip then is to try thinking about what it is about your job that is exciting or at least motivating. If you are currently working in a job that you find dull for instance, then remind yourself why it is that you’re doing that work and how it can eventually lead to a better lifestyle.

Perhaps you’re working here in order to earn enough money to launch your dream business? Maybe you’re working here to support your family. Focus on that fact and this will remind you why your job matters and why it’s worth your full attention. Creating a longer-term goal is a great way to do this. Even if your current career/lifestyle doesn’t excite you, then think about what your long term goals are and find something to feel excited and passionate about.

CBT for Concentration

Those of you who have studied any psychology might recognize this as a form of ‘cognitive restructuring’.
Cognitive restructuring is a technique from CBT, or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. CBT meanwhile is a psychotherapeutic technique used to treat a range of conditions ranging from social anxiety, to phobias, to OCD.

Essentially, CBT works in two stages:

1. Identifying the negative thoughts that are leading to stress/maladaptive behavior (mindfulness, thought reporting)

2. Changing those thought processes using a range of techniques (cognitive restructuring).

So if you were afraid of speaking in public for instance, you would first use mindfulness meditation (listening to your own thoughts) and thought reporting (writing a journal of what you think just before speaking) and then see what negative thoughts were causing that anxiety. It might be that you find yourself thinking things like ‘what if everyone laughs at me?’ or ‘I might stutter’ which of course is what then causes you to freeze and to perform badly.

Thus you use two tools called ‘thought challenging’ and ‘hypothesis testing’. Thought challenging means that you challenge your beliefs and break them down to see if they’re accurate. Are people really likely to laugh at you? Or will they be more likely to be sympathetic and polite and continue listening? Likewise, does it really matter if you stutter? Ultimately, you’ll never see these people again and you never claimed to be an amazing speaker? Who cares!

This should hopefully help you to relax and thus avoid the stressful ‘fight or flight response’. At the same time, you can also use hypothesis testing to actually test the theory. This might mean standing up to speak in front of a crowd and then purposefully stuttering. It’s terrifying, but very quickly you’ll learn that it really doesn’t matter what happens – people are kind and you’ll survive!

But CBT can also be used in the reverse manner. You can also use cognitive restructuring to tell yourself that something is important and to focus on the reason it really matters. Repeat this like a mantra – I need to keep working on this, if I work now I can rest later, this work will help me achieve my goals. Focus on the emotions that drive you to keep going and put aside any negative thoughts like ‘five minutes on Facebook won’t hurt’. We all know that five minutes is never five minutes.

As soon as you start using these techniques, you can actually start to lead your brain state and force yourself to focus on the things that matter. When you do this, you will come to believe that what you’re doing is very important and as such, your brain will respond in kind by producing the necessary neurotransmitters to keep you engaged and alert. Other things – like Candy Crush – won’t seem as important and thus they won’t be able to distract you.

It’s Your Perception That Counts

What CBT really teaches us is that it’s our perception of a situation that really counts as far as the brain is concerned. It doesn’t actually matter what we’re doing or how important that is. What matters is how important we think it is.
Let’s put it this way: if you were standing on top of a volcano as it erupted, this would cause you a lot of panic and your brain would react by producing tons of norepinephrine and epinephrine.

This would trigger the ‘fight or flight’ response and your heartrate would increase, your focus would narrow and you’d feel highly stressed and scared. Did the volcano cause this? No: your belief that you were about to be incinerated did. If you were in the exact same position but you genuinely believed that you were invincible, then you wouldn’t have the same fight or flight response.

You’d be able to stand back and just relax while the lava erupted around you. Of course you’d also die, but your neurochemical profile would be completely different. If you can change your perception of events, then you can control the release of neurotransmitters, you can control the activation of brain areas and you can make sure you’re in the perfect state of mind for whatever task awaits you.

You can be more present and in the moment when you’re with friends, more focused when you’re working and more relaxed when you’re thinking creatively and engaging your ‘default mode network’. If you perceive something as important, then you will believe it is important and your body will react accordingly.

Written by Yola Bastos Co-Founder of Women Flix  and CEO & Founder of Beautifly Digital

https://msha.ke/yolabastos/

Women Flix empowers financial freedom for women worldwide. 

Women Flix Limited, is a company limited by guarantee, was incorporated in England and Wales (company no. 13047578 ).

Winning formula for business communication - Real Talk with Ryan J Warriner

Ryan J Warriner is a Professor of Communication at a Canadian University, Executive Trainer & Coach, Professional Speaker, as well as author of the innovative book, The Effective Presenter: The Winning Formula for Business Communication.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanwarriner/

https://www.instagram.com/theeffectivepresenter/

Website

https://www.professionalpresentationservices.com/

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Women Flix empowers financial freedom for women worldwide.

Our mission is to change the mindset of women to have a better relationship with money, through educational courses and coaching.

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Not Out of WORTH - Real Talk with David Petrovay

He has over 20 years of experience working as a career coach. This has led to multiple speaking

engagements through podcasts and webinars. Also published three books. Two of them are career-related

titled, Life between Jobs: Out of Work...Not Out of WORTH.

Social Media

www.linkedin.com/in/davidpetrovay

Website

www.davidpetrovaycoaching.com.

Women Flix empowers financial freedom for women worldwide.

Our mission is to change the mindset of women to have a better relationship with money, through educational courses and coaching.

Women Flix Ltd: https://womenflix.org

Long Term Advice For Keeping Concentrated As You Approach Your Goals

Break Your Goals Down Into Steps

One tip to do this is to break your goals down into smaller tasks. Want to lose weight? Don’t set the goal of reaching ‘5 stone in 1 year’ because it’s just too distant and too out of your control. Instead, set the goal of exercising 4 times a week for one year.

The weight will take care of itself but the goal you have is much easier to control and much more instantly rewarding – remember what we said about getting that constant dose of dopamine as you get rewarded for hard work? Break your goals down into smaller steps and it will be much easier to use the CBT techniques we discussed earlier to stay focused on them.

Training Your Concentration Thanks

to something called ‘brain plasticity’ – which we touched on earlier – the brain is able to adapt its shape and size depending on how we use it. If you spend lots of time playing the cello for instance, then the area of your brain in the motor cortex responsible for fine finger control will grow over time. New connections will form between neurons and the connections you already have will become thicker.

Likewise, if you spend lots of time concentrating, guess what happens? You train your concentration and that gets bigger too. Very possibly, this would result in an increased size for your anterior cingulate cortex, which would also result in better motivation. Conversely though, if you are constantly switching between tasks and you never concentrate for more than a couple of minutes, your ability to concentrate will atrophy.

This is one of the biggest dangers of the technological world we live in – if you are constantly using your phone or going from one social media site to another, then you’ll find your ability to concentrate wanes. Don’t worry if you’re not a master of concentration just yet. The key thing is that you keep at it – in which case you’ll get better as your brain develops.

Practice concentrating at every opportunity and engage in tasks that require focus. If you do this enough, you’ll eventually develop the necessary areas of your brain and you’ll become masterful at it.

Mindfulness

We discussed mindfulness as a part of CBT used to identify the contents of your thoughts. Actually though, mindfulness can also be a more general term that describes a type of meditation where you become more mindful of your own body, mind and environment.

Studies show that practicing mindfulness or any kind of meditation, can help you to be more present in the moment and to have a better long-term focus. If you want to step-up your mental game, then give it a go! Why not try the Headspace app?

Written by Yola Bastos Co-Founder of Women Flix and Founder of Beautifly Digital https://msha.ke/yolabastos/ Women Flix, Supporting Women all the way to Success! Women Flix Limited, is a company limited by guarantee, was incorporated in England and Wales (company no. 13047578 ).

Therapies for Emotional Overeating

Emotional overeating can make a person feel imprisoned - it can seem like there is no way out of the cycle of feeling sad, angry, anxious and so forth, and then eating to alleviate the emotional pain. There are treatments that are available, though - some of them conventional and some of them alternative.
Conventional therapy, surgery, and medication have all been utilized at one time or another for the treatment of emotional overeating. There are, however, some alternative therapies that are worth exploring. Here are some of them.

Hypnosis

Because emotional overeating begins in the mind, hypnosis is said to be effective because it addresses the mind directly with the power of suggestion. Hypnosis is not the mumbo-jumbo stuff of cartoons and swinging pocket watches; it's a clinical practice and many practitioners have used it with success to treat emotional overeating.

Meditation

The intent of meditation as a treatment for emotional overeating is to "tune in" to the emotional thought center that is driving your cravings and/or binge eating. Meditation, sometimes taking a form called "mindfulness," is the opposite of mindLESSness, which is what often happens in emotional overeating. The person does not really think about what he or she is doing; it's mindless eating.

Herbal Supplements

It seems like every time you turn around there's a new herbal supplement promising to help you lose weight. But there are some herbs that can help with the issue of emotional overeating. Here are some of them.

•  Hoodia - This much-publicized herb is said to be effective at appetite suppression and boosting energy. Its effects tend to be subtle, and it also has a good safety record.


•  Vitex - This hormone-balancing herb for women may help those whose emotional overeating is influenced by hormone fluctuations.


•  Ginseng - This ancient herb is said to help sugar cravings and curb the compulsion to overeat in response to one's emotions. Both American and Asian ginseng are purported to be equally effective.

Acupuncture

Acupuncturists are often asked if acupuncture can help with weight loss. The answer, in general, is yes - but not always. However, the good news is that acupuncture tends to be more successful with treating emotional overeating than just overeating. This may be due to acupuncture's alleged ability to release endorphins and boost metabolism - making the client feel better emotionally, effectively curtailing the emotional overeating.

Nutrition

Interestingly, having the right balance of vitamins and minerals may affect emotional overeating - it's not too much of a stretch to speculate that nutritional deficiencies could play a part in this kind of overeating. So make sure you're not eating a lot of artificial, processed, pre-packaged foods; opt for fresh, whole foods as a general rule. It's also a good idea to take a vitamin and mineral supplement that is formulated for your gender and life situation.

Cupping therapy

Cupping is an alternative therapy that uses suction cups to stimulate your skin and muscles. It can be done on your face or body. The suction promotes increased blood circulation, which may help relieve muscle tension, promote cell repair, and aid in other regeneration.

Essential oils therapy

Essential oils smell great, reduce stress, treat fungal infections, and help you sleep. They are concentrated extractions from plants. A process called distillation turns the “essence” of a plant into a liquefied form for many medicinal and recreational uses.

Written by Yola Bastos Co-Founder of Women Flix  and Founder of Beautifly Digital

https://msha.ke/yolabastos/

Women Flix, Supporting Women all the way to Success! 

Women Flix Limited, is a company limited by guarantee, was incorporated in England and Wales (company no. 13047578 ).

When The Warrior Fails

You may have read all the self-help books and autobiographies of men like Abraham Lincoln who failed all their lives and finally succeeded. It all seems so positive and feels good until you fail. 

One of Mike Tyson’s most famous quotes is, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." There’s just no denying that failure is a bitter pill to swallow. It doesn’t matter how many times you fail, you’ll still feel that twinge of disappointment or some anger when your best-laid plans collapse.

Usually, the most successful people are also the ones who are best at coping with failure. The reason for this is that they fail more than most people but they just never give up. That also means that they do more than most other people who quit the moment failure knocks on their door. There are many ways to cope with failure but you must understand that it is going to hurt when you fail.

Sometimes it may feel like the only thing you ever learn from a failure is that you failed. While this is not true, it will seem that way. We are all human and no one likes to see their efforts go to waste. It could be a business venture that collapses. Or maybe your relationship with your spouse crumbles and is beyond repair. Maybe your health takes a turn for the worse despite living a healthy lifestyle. All these are events.

Understanding this point makes all the difference between handling failure successfully or letting it break you. Failure is an event, not a person. Like they say, never let success get to your head and never let failure get to your heart. It will hurt and there will be disappointment but you must embrace the experience and push forward.Success is not final and failure is not fatal. As long as you’re breathing you still can turn your failures into successes.

It’s time to discover the 7 secrets that successful people use to cope with failure.

Different individuals may do it differently but the general rule of thumb is this – Failure is always temporary. Failure is not the opposite of success. It is part of success. Now let’s look at how you can cope with it when it comes your way… and you can rest assured that it will. So be prepared.

1. Don't take it personally
This is the biggest mistake that most people make. They blame themselves when things go wrong. Or they blame other people. When you do not separate failure from how you identify yourself, then your self-esteem will drop and you’ll be much more tempted to quit.

People usually quit on their dreams because they don’t believe that they’re capable of achieving what their hearts desire. They feel that it’s too hard and the reason they feel that way is because they may have failed. For example, when someone is trying to lose weight and watching their diet closely, there will be times when they give in to temptation and eat something they shouldn’t. When this happens, they feel guilt and regret that they failed at maintaining their diet.

What do they do then? They toss their diet aside and gorge themselves on food that they’re not supposed to. They believe that they lack the self-discipline to stay focused and lose weight… Just because of one temporary lapse in judgment. This is ridiculous and it’s like accidentally dropping your mobile phone once only to pick it up and keep smashing it on the ground over and over because of one accident. It doesn’t make sense… and yet people act in a similar way.

When you fail at something, whether it’s with your blog or your email marketing or if your latest product launch is a flop, do not assume that you’re useless and just throw in the towel. What defines you is how well you rise after falling.So the most important point to note is that you should not let failure define you as a person. Always know that you can do better.

2. Learn From Your Mistakes

All the most successful people have learned from their mistakes and try not to repeat them. Failure can also be treated as feedback. If some aspect of your online business fails, ask yourself why this happened. For example, if your product launch was a flop, there must be a reason why. Was your niche unprofitable? Did the sales page convert poorly? Did you not actively recruit affiliates?

Analysis is very important so that you do not repeat the same errors. This is the only way to make progress and succeed.Michael Eisner, the Chairman and CEO of the Disney Corporation said, “Failure is good as long as it doesn’t become a habit.”

The only way to prevent failure from becoming a habit is to take stock of your situation, learn from your mistakes and adapt. Try to maintain a certain degree of detachment so that you can evaluate your failure without feeling bitter. Sometimes it might be a good idea to take a break for a short while and come back to it when you’re feeling better. Either way, ALWAYS analyze your failures.

3. Stop Dwelling On Your Failures

You may have noticed that all some people can talk about is how life has treated them so badly. No matter what they do, they fail at it due to bad luck or unforeseen circumstances. We’ve all seen people like these… and while you may not know why these things happen to them, you know that things like these always seem to happen to people like them.Harsh but very true. Do not dwell on your failures.

Analyze them and move on. You have better things in store for you. Missed out on an opportunity? No worries. Better ones are coming your way. Product launch flopped? That’s ok the next one will sell thousands. Picked the wrong niche to monetize? No big deal. You now know how to find niches with people waiting to buy stuff. Problem solved.

It is inevitable to lose time, effort and money when something fails. If you keep focusing on what is lost, you’ll never be able to focus on what you can gain and there is so much more out there for you.
Focus on the positive and bury your failures.

4. Model Other Marketers

There’s a saying that you should always learn from the mistakes of others because you’ll never live long enough to make them all yourself. When trying to build an online business, instead of believing all the hype that you see in all the infoproducts that flood the market, you’d be better off watching what the successful marketers are doing. Do what they do and not what they say.

Most beginners to online marketing encounter failure repeatedly because they follow untested theory and blindly believe what they read or hear. You have to be smarter than that. If whatever you’re doing seems to be failing, then you need to look at what other marketers who are succeeding are doing  then model them.

That alone will reduce your learning curve and put you on the path to online success. Stop being like a housefly that repeatedly bangs its head on the window hoping to get out when the door is wide open for it to go through.

5. Assess Your Finances

One of the biggest concerns marketers have when they fail is that they’ve lost money. Creating a product costs money. Testing out ads costs money. Outsourcing costs money. There is no getting away from this. In fact, to run any business you need money. It’s like oxygen for your business and without it, your business will shrivel up and die. So, it’s crucial that you have a source of income coming in to tide you over if any online endeavour fails.

Some marketers quit their day jobs to make their online business work. When the business fails and the bills start piling up, they start getting desperate. At times like these, you just may need to get another job to get back on your feet. Do not feel like you have failed and are doomed to a life of ‘working for the man.’ This is just a temporary setback and like Joel Osteen, always says, “A setback is a set up for a comeback.”

Go ahead and take that job. It will feel like retrogression but you must understand that even a tiger crouches before it leaps. Once you have money coming in, the pressure that your finances are causing you will ease. You’ll be able to save up some money to keep funding your online business. That’s really how it is. Sometimes you just don’t have a choice.

Do not throw your efforts down the drain and quit online marketing totally just because you failed a couple of times. As long as you keep learning and doing, success is inevitable.

6. Release the Need for Approval from Others

This is a very common fear and makes failure seem worse than it really is. People often worry what others will think or say about them when they fail. It’s definitely true that you’ll have friends and family members who will tell you, “I told you so!” when you fail. Some of them may even take pleasure in it. This is human nature. It could even be your spouse or parents who don’t support your dreams.

When you fail and see their disapproving looks or hear their sarcastic words, it can seem worse.The truth of the matter is that you only have one life to live and you need to live it for yourself. It doesn’t matter what others say or think about you. Just because others think you’re dumb for failing doesn’t mean that you’re really foolish.

How people see you should have zero impact on how you see yourself. Have faith in yourself and don’t pay heed to the naysayers.

7. Take a Break

Time heals all wounds. Sometimes when failure really gets to you, it may be time to take a break and put some space between you and your business. This will help to clear your mind so that you can think objectively. While taking a break, you can self-reflect and think about your future plans. You may decide to have backup plans to correct any future failures or problems that may crop up.

Take the time to exercise. Research has shown that hard training like boxing, Crossfit, sprinting, etc. help people to release pent up frustration and anger. This can be therapeutic when coping with failure. Instead of hitting the bottle, you can hit a punching bag or lift heavy weights explosively during CrossFit sessions. Do what suits you best.

What is most important is that you not let failure make you quit. That is the most common consequence of failure. People fail a few times and they quit. If you read the story of Colonel Sanders, you’d realise that he was turned down 1,009 times before he finally found someone who would use his recipe. Walt Disney was turned down over 300 times before he received financing for Disney World.

Written by Yola Bastos Co-Founder of Women Flix  and Founder of Beautifly Digital

https://msha.ke/yolabastos/

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