“WHEN will you stop sucking & live up to your potential?!” [Part 3 of 4]
…that was actually the voice of one guy’s inner critic.
Rough, right? We would never talk to our buddy that way. And yet we talk to ourselves like that all the time.
Yesterday, I asked you to think about how YOUR inner critic has held you back.
These are some of the things I’ve heard:
- “‘It’s not good enough. People will laugh at it because it doesn’t have millions of users.’ I only spent a few grand on this, but it was the time investment that I really missed. Shortly after that, I let it languish. What if I had pushed through?”
- “I was talking to a potential customer who was not convinced. There were several arguments I could have made but did not make, because my inner critic said I would have sounded too pushy, annoying, or just too salesy. Later I heard they went for a very similar, but in my opinion, not as good product. That was about $2,000 monthly revenue I could have made.”
- “‘You don’t have the the skill set, you’re just posing.’ I stopped making phone calls and emails. Instead I revert to ‘studying.’”
- “‘You aren’t good enough to take on this client.’ I have missed countless sales opportunities because of this.”
- “I have about 950 bottles of a supplement product in my car. My inner critic told me, as I nervously sat outside a yoga studio, prepping to go inside: ‘Who are you to pitch yoga studio owners? How did you come up with this formula, you’re no doctor! What do you know about yoga, you’ve been doing it for only a few months. You’re a phony. They will see right through you.’ I never went into a single studio.”
- “I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to deliver the product I had offered. So I just stopped working on the sale, after I got 90% of the way to shipping our first fueling station in Vermont. The experience made me feel really bad and bewildered by my illogical behavior. I wondered if I could ever really trust myself to follow through.”
I had thoughts like that, too. It’s why my second business failed.
I call that inner critic–those unhelpful and untrue thoughts–the Counter Mind.
They’re the thoughts in your head that you don’t even know are there. But they’re running the show.
They’re keeping you from doing the things you know you should be doing.
I told you yesterday that most startup founders didn’t want to talk about their Counter Minds. At least, not on camera.
So I thought, “If they won’t, I know who will…”
And I put a call out to my audience. (This was in the very early days of Mixergy.)
I said, “Do you guys have this problem? Do you want to work with me to solve it?”
“Heck yes,” said 100+ people.
So we took a basic framework I developed, and we brutally tested it.
I was serious–if something didn’t work, I wanted to know. After months of development and iteration, we had a system.
And today I want to walk you through the very first step…
Yesterday I asked you to think about ONE of your Counter Mind thoughts…
Something that’s held you back in life. Costing you time, money, confidence, motivation…maybe even relationships.
And what I want you to do now is to think about that thought.
Give it your full attention.
Now, you might be thinking, “Andrew, why would I want to give it attention? Why not ignore it?”
Because ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. It’s still running the show. Only you’re not aware that it’s running the show.
What we discovered is that when you pay attention to it, it loses its power. You start to see that Counter Mind thought for what it really is: unhelpful mental chatter.
So, as you pay attention to it, ask yourself two questions:
- Is it true?
- Does it matter?
So take 30 seconds and actually write down the answers to those two questions.
I’ll wait…. :-)
All done? Do a quick check-in: does the negative thought feel as powerful now?
Here’s what the hundreds of other people I’ve taught this to have found:
The Counter Mind thought is usually NOT true.
And even if it’s somewhat true, it does NOT matter.
And after asking those two questions, the thought loses some of its power.
Now, we’ve discovered lots of other questions that can diminish mental chatter. However, those two questions above work for most Counter Minds thoughts.
Of course, here’s the thing…
No one ever grew their business just by NOT sucking!
Killing the mental chatter isn’t enough. It’s just the start.
The next thing we discovered is that we have to pay attention to our true, useful, and wanted thought…what I call the True Mind.
We’ll talk more about that tomorrow.
In the meantime, if any of this has struck a nerve…
If you feel resistance around doing things you KNOW you need to do…
Chances are, you’ve got Counter Mind thoughts holding you back…
And not enough True Mind thoughts propelling you forward.
So you don’t ask for feedback…
You screw around with your website instead of making sales calls…
You delay your launch…
Or maybe you never actually get started at all.
If you’d like for me to help you change that, this might be a good fit for you:
https://mixergy.com/true-mind-2016/
