Melyssa
So today’s episode is kind of the whole ethos, the whole mission of this entire podcast which is doing business your way, instead of feeling like you have to follow the crowd all the time. And I see this all the time and I’ve seen it in myself too. about feeling like if you’re Business is going to be successful. You’ve got to follow proven strategies, you’ve got to do what works, you have to follow what the most successful people are doing. And just to backtrack, back in the day, I thought I had to be like every other successful business owner in order for my company to succeed. And so, what I did was I started buying dressier clothes. I’m more of the person who loves to wear jeans and sneakers, but I started wearing like blazers and dress pants. I have a couple tattoos on my body and I went to three sessions of laser tattoo removal, so they’re now very faded because in my head I thought, well, successful business owners dress the part they don’t have tattoos. That’s what other people do not successful business owners. I started using things like a teleprompter whenever I would record videos because I felt like my actual thoughts are good enough. I needed to script everything and that was actually a big metaphor. For just my whole life at that moment in time was it felt very scripted. And the most vulnerable thing that I would share on social media at that time was that my house was a mess or my inbox was always overflowing. I was afraid to actually talk about vulnerable things to actually share who I was and what scared me. So I would say things that sounded pseudo vulnerable, but actually weren’t at all. And my life at the time felt like it was insulated from pain or rejection, because I kept myself in this little box called acceptable human being. But then I went to this conference, I saw a poet on stage who is performing his name is in queue, and he is amazing. But he recited this poem.

And for whatever reason, at that moment, this was years ago now, but I just had this breakdown. And I realized that I was living totally out of alignment with myself. I was making decisions based on what other people People would think what I thought I should be doing what I should do to get approval from people instead of rejection. And my whole life, like I said, was this scripted masterpiece, where I really played the part that I thought I had to. And so since then, and even before then my entire business career has been this dance between doing business my own way, and following the crowd of what I think I should be doing. And it makes sense, right? It makes sense because the crowd is everywhere. It’s in social media, it’s in your inbox, your co working spaces, your mastermind groups on TV, news, your family, it’s all over the place. And so we start to develop this picture of what success looks like in life and business. And so we unconsciously or consciously try to match it, we think Well, okay, that’s what success looks like because I know that this person has a really successful business. So I’m going to match what they’re doing, because I think that that’s what’s gonna bring me success. And this was the trap in the cycle that I had found myself in. And maybe you are living in right now or you’ve experienced at some point in your life. But this episode isn’t about how to follow the crowd. It’s about how do we find that peace inside of ourselves. That’s totally true. That’s in alignment that makes decisions from a place of this is what I desire, rather than this is what I fear. But some of the best decisions that I’ve made in my business have gone against the grain rather than with it. I quit my design business cold turkey to create my first online course which was five years ago before online courses were much of a thing like they are now I created a course about Pinterest when literally no one was talking about Pinterest at the time. I ran a fundraiser where I gave all of my businesses sales to charity for To entire weeks, which total about $120,000? When other entrepreneurs were texting me? Why are you doing this? Are you losing tons of money by giving away all your sales to charity? I took a six month sabbatical from my company at the peak of my business’s success because I knew that’s what I needed for my health. I created this podcast, it’s more focused on coaching calls than interviews, something that I haven’t seen anyone in my industry do before. I create mastermind programs that are just as focused on deep mindset work and connection, as they are on business strategy. I invest in personal development, coaching and social justice education for my company’s team. And there’s so many more and all of these decisions have led my company and my life to so much meaning and success. But none of them were really things that I had seen other people doing. They were just things that felt enlightenment, I took a risk on what felt right to me versus what I thought I was right based on everyone else’s standards. So where are you making decisions from a place of I should do this, rather than it feels aligned to do this. And now I will say a little caveat is that there is, of course, something to be said about following strategies that work. I still use strategies and ideas in my business that are common and that other people regularly use. And so it’s not about reinventing the entire wheel. It’s about discovering when you’re following the crowd, even when it feels unaligned when you’re following the crowd, even when it feels unaligned when you’re doing something. Because you think you should be doing it, but you’re feeling this resistance and you’re like, well, I just suck, and That must be why I feel the resistance. I’m just a procrastinator, I’m just unmotivated. And then we start to have all these symptoms of feeling like we’re just unmotivated and we can’t get anything done. We’re exhausted. We’re feeling uncreative. And then we blame it on ourselves and think, well, maybe I’m just not cut out for this. Or maybe I am just a more exhausted person or I just have a busy day when in reality, a lot of the reason is often because we’re walking down a path that isn’t ours. It’s a path that we think we should be walking down, but that actually doesn’t feel aligned or fulfilling to us. So how can you tell when this is happening? When you’re doing something that feels out of alignment, because you think you should be doing it? Well, the first step is that you need to be connected to your truth. And we do a lot of things in life to disconnect from our truth. We scroll aimlessly through social media. We create codependent relationships with other people. We watch TV all the time. We work frequently, we shop to death and of course things like drugs and alcohol, etc. So we are a society whose values are based around self disconnection, it’s actually honored if you disconnect from yourself and distract yourself from your truth. And to take it a step further, we disconnect from our truth so that we can connect to someone else’s truth. So essentially, we see what other people are doing. And we think that we should be doing it too. And by the way, I am speaking from complete experience here, I’m not on my high horse telling you that you’re the one that’s doing this, I have experienced this in my own life, for basically my entire life. And, and still to this day, I have such awareness around when I’m disconnecting from my truth, but I still do it from time to time and it’s something that is a constant work in progress to stay deeply connected to me, instead of outsourcing my decisions and my truth to other people. So what are the benefits of connecting to your truth? Well, one is that you get to do life. You’re way. And this in my opinion is where true limitlessness and freedom comes from doing things your way. It does not come from trying to emulate everyone else around you. It comes from digging deep within yourself and discovering what feels aligned for you, even if what feels aligned for you, is different than what you see most people doing. having the courage and the bravery to live a life that might look a little bit different, if that’s what feels online for you. So that’s benefit number one. Benefit number two is that your work in the world becomes more effortless and meaningful. If you have ever felt burnt out or unmotivated, it could be due to fear. You know, in the coaching episodes that we do on this podcast, a lot of times when people feel unmotivated, burnt out exhausted, it is because they’re afraid to put themselves out there in a bigger way. Or it could be due to the fact that you’re working on things that you think you should be doing rather than things that actually feel aligned. Number three is that you create real success when you’re connected to your truth. And success isn’t created by making tons of money. That’s external success. But in our society, we’re fed to believe that that’s what success feels like that when you make tons of money, you buy the house, you got the car, you have all those nice clothes, then you’re successful. And that’s when we’re outsourcing our definition of success to society and to other people. But I have a lot of friends who run multi million dollar companies, and I don’t think any of them would say that money made them feel happy or truly successful. true success comes from living a life that’s aligned with your values and desires. That’s it. That’s it. And money, of course can be a nice thing to have and money can allow you live more in alignment with your values and desires. That’s true, but money alone, this extra markers of material success aren’t actually the things that are going to make you feel successful. So would you rather have the external success? Or would you rather feel internally successful. And that’s what you gain when you live in alignment with your truth rather than your fear is you gain that internal fulfilment and meaning, which is where a lot of the external success flows from. So having that internal form of success, where you feel fulfilled and successful, allows you to create the material things that you may desire to. And lastly, you impact the world in the way that you’re meant to when you’re aligned with your truth instead of your fear. And when we’re not creating from our truth, then we give this sugar coated, watered down version of ourselves to the world, because we morph ourselves to fit into this little box that we think we should fit into in order to help people because we think that we have to do it a certain way. Imagine what you’d be able to create the lives that you would touch. If you were living fully aligned with your truth, instead of the expectations you think you have to live up to? How much more of an impact could you create from that place? So given all of this, how do we reconnect to ourselves so that we can do business our own way? How do we find the truth to guide

us back to us? So I have a few ideas for you things that have worked for me and that work for my clients and students too. So the first thing is to ask yourself, what are my core distractions? What are my core distractions? What are the things that I go to when I don’t want to dig deep into myself when I don’t want to sit with my feelings when I don’t want to think about my thoughts? When I don’t want to ask myself the hard questions, when I don’t want to think about what the right business decision is. And I just want to do what everyone else is doing. What do you do to distract yourself? Do you watch a lot of TV? Do you scroll through social media? Do you call a friend and ask for their opinion? What do you do to distract yourself from your truth? So for me, personally, I tend to distract myself by scrolling through social media, or by shopping. Those are my two core distractions. And so when I notice that I’m doing them, of course, sometimes social media and shopping can just be normal things that I like to do, but I can tell when I’m doing them to distract myself because it feels different, feels less inspired and more of just I’m trying to escape so I can feel the difference. And so I want you to think about what are your core distractions, and just start to build the awareness of the things that you do, so that you can avoid your truth and often connect to someone else’s truth. So just build that awareness. Just notice what you do and It’s not about judging yourself or thinking, Oh my God, that’s why I do that thing so much. It’s just building awareness. There’s no judgment or guilt or shame or any of that here. Because the first step to actually changing a habit is to be aware of the habit. Hey, limitless listener. We’ll get back to the show in just a moment. But I wanted to take 20 seconds to invite you to the free at home digital retreat that I created just for you. It’s called limitless entrepreneur and it’s all about helping you to create an abundant, fearless mindset, all while growing your online business. You want to join just visit limitless entrepreneur retreat.com to register. It’s totally free. That’s limitless entrepreneur. retreat.com. All right, friend back to the show.

The next step is to develop a practice where you can process your feelings, emotions, thoughts and experience Now you probably know by now that I’m a huge advocate for journaling. journaling has become one of the most powerful and important tools in my life that has helped me to see my patterns, gain awareness, make changes to my life, and develop this record over time of my growth. It’s just been a beautiful practice, and I recommend it to everybody. So start journaling on a regular basis, because when we’re disconnecting from our truth, we’re often hiding from the thoughts and feelings that are simmering underneath. And journaling allows you to bring those out. And what I journal about is usually just what I’m thinking and feeling in that moment. So process through things. And if you’re stuck, or you don’t know what to journal about, I get this question a lot. What do I journal about what I write about in my journal, one of my friends and coaches, Christine, she has this beautiful question that she uses as a journaling and a writing prompt. What’s true for me in this moment, What’s true for me in this moment, and then just journal about whatever comes out, and your journaling doesn’t have to be perfect. This is a place where you just get to unload your thoughts and feelings. So try to remove the feeling that you need to edit your journal or you need to water down your thoughts. Just say what’s true for you, and the truth will start to come tumbling out. Now, I will say one thing. If you’re not used to doing this, you’re not used to connecting to yourself. It might take a little time before you feel like you’re getting anywhere with journaling. Because there’s a lot of undoing that needs to be done before you can start to get to the juicy stuff underneath. So if you feel disconnected from your truth or from your emotions or from your thoughts, you’re not really sure if you have clarity on who you are what you want in the world. Then just give yourself some grace here. Continue journaling You’re going to start tapping into things you didn’t know were there before. But it might take a little time. And that’s okay. Most skills take time to learn. And this is just a new skill you’re adopting. So another one that I recommend, in addition to journaling is some form of meditation. Now, I’m not a strict meditator, because I think that there are a lot of ways to meditate beyond sitting in a cross legged position, listening to the sound of gongs and chimes. I think that’s cool too. And I like that form of meditation as well. But there are a lot of different forms of meditation that I think take the pressure off of this practice. So there are things that you could do like silent walks, you can just go for a walk around your neighborhood, no music, no phone, just walking, observing, looking at things, staying in tune with your breath. Try not to think about a million things just walking. So a silent meditation there when you’re going for a walk, you could also meditate while you’re taking a bath or a shower. Really just the practice of focusing on your breath, instead of focusing on the million thoughts that are coming into your mind, you could meditate while you’re going for a drive, just driving somewhere with no music, windows down, meditating. So there’s a lot of different ways that you can meditate, you can do it pretty much anywhere doing anything, so long as you’re able to just silently focus on your breath. I actually do like to mix up my meditation because I need variety in my life, otherwise, I get really bored. And I used to put a lot of pressure on my meditation that I had to sit for 20 minutes, I had to hold my crystals, I had to have the right music, and I had to do it perfectly. And then I realized that I wasn’t doing it because I had all this pressure in my mind of the way that I had to do it. So take the pressure off, do it in your own way. And just let it be a practice. This where you can connect to yourself. Now I love this quote by Wayne Dyer. He says, prayer is you talking to God? and meditation is God talking to you. And so for me, what that means is that meditation is an opportunity for you to connect to source the universe, God that lives inside of you. That Higher Self is part of who you are. That’s your ticket to connecting to that truth within you.

Now, another way that you can connect to your truth and start to build this muscle is by surrounding yourself with other people who are dedicated to living their truth to so this I think, is a big one. Because if we’re always surrounded by people who are determined to live inside the status quo, who are determined to keep you inside the status quo, who don’t want to connect to their own truth, who are masters of their own distractions, then it becomes difficult for us To live any other way, because we don’t have the support of other people. So I challenge you to find other people who are determined to connect to their truth who are asking big questions who are wondering how can I live in alignment instead of in fear? One way is that you can join my free Facebook group called limitless entrepreneur on Facebook. If you just search for limitless entrepreneur, you should be able to find it and join it. But you would be surrounded by myself and thousands of other people who are seekers who are asking themselves these bigger questions. So that is one place that you can find people but I do encourage you to find other people that you’re in closer contact with, than maybe some of the people who are keeping you distracted. And lastly, be conscious of your input versus your output. Because in my opinion, there is no greater killer to your impact and your creativity than having your input exceed your output. So input can look like social media Media, Netflix books, podcast, yes, even this podcast that you’re listening to right now, asking your friends and family for advice instead of looking within first. All of these are just different ways that we gain input that we look to the world we look outside of ourselves for the answers. And how often do you look to others for answers, because it can be a scary leap to begin looking inward for your solutions. But the more that you do it, the more you’ll build this self integrity and trust with you. And when we outsource our decisions to everyone else, when we ask for other people’s opinions, when we look to TV and social media and news and books for how we should live our lives, then we start to build this level of mistrust with ourselves. We actually stop trusting our own intuition, our own knowledge, our own senses about what will you want to be doing what’s in alignment so This is just an opportunity for you to start rebuilding trust with yourself. And how do you rebuild trust in any relationship when trust is broken in a relationship? How do you rebuild it? In my opinion, you rebuild it little by little, it’s not something that overnight Okay, you trust them again. It’s something that is demonstrated in small actions over time, little by little by little. So for you if you’ve noticed that your input is exceeding your output that you are looking to the external world, other people for how you should live your life, how you should make decisions, then think about what can you do, what small practices what small online actions can you take on a daily basis, to start building that integrity and trust with yourself again, a couple of them could be journaling or meditation. And if you feel extremely disconnected from your truth right now, commit to a really small action that You can do every day because if you commit to something that’s really big, and it’s going to take a long time, then the moment you stop doing it, it’s going to start to feed that feeling that you don’t trust yourself again. So commit to something really small, really small, like a one minute activity you can do every day. And over time, you can start to add to this daily habit that you’ve got going on. And slowly but surely rebuild that trust within yourself. Because when we trust ourselves fully, that’s where the real magic comes from. That’s where we start to make aligned decisions. That’s where we start to do business our way instead of the way we think we have to do it.

And as you do these activities to connect with you, your authentic answers, your authentic ideas, and your authentic solutions will start to emerge. And this is how you live a life that’s guided by your values and truth rather than someone else’s. And this is how you create true success. fulfillment and joy in your life and your business. Now, before I go, I want to leave you with two questions that you can either ponder about, or journal about. The first is what truth Am I avoiding right now? What truth Am I avoiding right now? And the second, what would become possible for me if I lived this truth instead of resisting it? Now I would love to hear what comes up for you from responding to these questions from thinking about your answers to these questions. So go over to Instagram and check out my podcast page limitless life podcast is the username on Instagram, and send me a message just let me know what came up for you. As you pondered or journaled about these questions. I would love to hear your feedback and your thoughts. I appreciate you and I just cannot wait to see what’s possible for you and your life and your business. When you You start living in alignment with your truth rather than your fear. You just listen to the limitless life podcast Now don’t worry with new episodes every week, there’s plenty more where that came from. Now make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next one and visit the limitless life podcast.com for the latest. Now, I’ve also created a free five day at home digital retreat that will show you how to create an abundant, fearless mindset. All while growing your online business. Just visit limitless entrepreneur retreat.com to register, it’s totally free. And also if you want to spread the love, you’re welcome to share this episode on Instagram so that other people can come and get this info to now tag me at Melyssa underscore Griffin and at limitlesslifepodcast so that I can give you a big ol virtual hug as a thank you. Alright, that’s all for now. Thank you so much for listening. This is Melyssa Griffin and I’ll see See you next time.