‘REINVENTION, RELAUNCHING & PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT – FINDING YOURSELF WHEN YOU DIDN’T KNOW YOU WERE LOST!’

I’ve been MIA for the past little while, (my last podcast was almost 18 months ago!) and I mainly think that was because I have gone on a really deep personal development journey in myself, and I really needed to step back for a while.

I have been very committed to my personal growth over the years, but it really escalated 5 and a half years ago when my husband suddenly died, and in particular when I got into some very unproductive relationships after that! There’s nothing like losing friends, going through emotional hardship and being challenged by unhealthy relationships to teach you a few things about yourself!

And then add in I was turning 50, and that every aspect of my life was coming to a crossroads... I was really challenged for quite some time there! My three sons had grown up and needed me less and less, and I was feeling a little stale in my business. I had been working hard in it for 25 years and moving into doing more marketing coaching and strategy work, (which I really enjoy), but I knew something was really missing for me when speaking to my audience.

For a few years now, I have developed a process that I call Connection Marketing, where you tell your story, share your knowledge, and create a great audience around you who relate to you and literally ‘fall in love’ with what you have to say and how you can help them. It’s all about building a truly magnetic personal brand. But it’s easy to say and much harder to execute!

Most business owners agree this is good for their business, but they don’t want to do it. They don’t want to get that personal and they certainly don’t want to put themselves out there to be criticised by their peers. And I realised that I too didn’t want that kind of deep exposure either! I felt like a fraud because my personal life was not good, I was telling people not to worry about what people thought of them when they marketing, and yet when I’d dip a toe in the water and get some negative response, I’d pull back too and smooth things over so I was far more ‘likeable’! The problem is, this makes you really generic, and that doesn’t create a compelling personal brand!

So I took a bit of a break from marketing my business and I went really deep into what was holding me back, because I figured when I got to know who I truly am, how I can honestly help my audience, and how I can sincerely transform lives – that it would be much easier for me to show up and market myself without giving a flying fuck about what others thought of me!

So I joined a covers band and started singing again! Something I’m wildly passionate about and loved doing when I first came to Sydney as a late teenager. I got back into my health and fitness. I started body building and taking great care of my physique and gut health. I learned how to meditate from the monks at the Buddhist Temple in Wollongong. And I journaled, practised mindfulness, walked in nature daily, visualised, worked on my self-talk and became a qualified Tantra practitioner!!

I also learned the Spiral technique of Kinesiology, and NLP (Neuro Linguistics Programming). I now feel I am more than equipped to help my clients unblock their energetic, unconscious programming on many levels with these skills. And I used them on myself to build up my own self-awareness and knowledge.

I really committed to my growth in every aspect of my life, so I could help me and help my family, my friends and my clients. And I learned a lot of incredible things about what holds us back and what it takes to reacquaint yourself with you!

So in no particular order, here is what I learned about growing individually and breaking through the personal barriers to fearing connecting with an audience through personal branding and standing out from the crowed:

1. Never, ever think that what is happening in your life is just a coincidence. The universe/god/source (whatever you want to call it) is always working to help you discover what you need to learn in order to move forward - often by throwing curveballs and challenges at you! So you can either stand still and look to see what the learning is and grow from the experience, or you can keep on repeating it over and over again until you finally get the message!
   
   For me, I am a recovering co-dependent in my attachment style in relationships (both personal and professional!). I have placed so much emphasis on other people in my life and receiving external validation that I have never learned how to put myself first, let alone how to love myself. So imagine how I feel when I receive a tiny amount of criticism or pushback when marketing myself or my services. I would freak out, feel un-loveable, and do anything I could to be ‘likeable’ again. Not a great way to stand out in a crowded marketplace. And not a great way to differentiate myself. Being nice is a lovely trait, but when it comes from fear, there is nothing sincere or productive about it.

2. Life truly begins when you love yourself, and you are no longer affected by how others perceive you. You become capable of anything then. You are willing to go out on a limb for your business and for your ideals. You back yourself and your ideas. You aren’t afraid to voice your real opinion. You are more relatable because you are more willing to share all your experiences – the good, the bad and the ugly!
3. You discover the magic of being truly real. When you understand who you are and what lights you up, and pursue that… then you know no boundaries. When people talk about values and purpose, you truly know what yours are. And you are prepared to live them every day. This instantly makes you more magnetic to the people who can relate to you, and repel the people who don’t jam with you… and when it comes to marketing, that’s a good thing!!
   
   Your values are deeply personal and take time to uncover. They should guide you every step of the way in life and business.
4. We are the only thing that holds us back. All our stories, all the challenges… they’re ALL just self-creations. When we get past our own blocks and become conscious of them and the stories we have created, we are capable of anything!
5. We are meant to coexist with others and to find our tribe, (the people who truly love and except us for who we are), but this isn’t where true happiness comes from. Self-acceptance and self-worth are the pinnacle, and this can only come from you. 
6. Most people are driven by fear. A fear of not being loved, fear of not being accepted, a fear of being criticised, a fear of being too different, too loud, not fitting in. And it is this fear that has been drummed into us since childhood that wildly holds us back from living our hopes and dreams.
7. Most people don’t know what they want in life. Ask somebody what they want, or what their goals are, and they usually aren’t really sure. Because somewhere along the line we stopped believing that we could get the best for ourselves, so we stopped asking for it.
8. After I showed up with a bad case of adrenal burnout and was seriously looking down the barrel of a long term auto immune disease, I learned how to meditate. I learned how to quieten the mind and go deep within and to learn patience for the answers to appear. You don’t need to go on a wild search for them, you just need to remain quiet for a period and they will come to you as a quiet knowing. We all have this innate wisdom inside of us. 

9. I learned how to respect my body, how to listen to it, how to look after it, and how to strengthen it. Because without my healthy body, I am never going to reach my full potential.
10. I learned that putting myself first and doing what is best for me, doesn’t mean that I am selfish. Conversely, I also learned that when I am really strong and healthy, I am able to help others even more, by sharing, being kind and generous. And the more I looked after myself the more I could help the people I cared about.
11. I learned a new measurement of success. Money and material possessions might be nice (and necessary in western life), but true life success is far more well-rounded that that. Having a happy heart, feeling self-love and self-peace, and being able to choose how you spend your time and have freedom of choice in your life is more successful than any material possessions
12. I learned we can reinvent ourselves whenever we want. We’re never too old to learn a new skill, take a new career path, end a relationship, start a new one, and take time out to learn who we are.
13. I learned the value of saying no. Because when I say yes too many times to somebody else, I end up saying no to myself for something I possibly care about.
14. I learned that you need to be responsible for your own happiness and your own life. If you don’t like the path that you’re on, get off it. I also learned that you are not responsible for anybody else’s happiness except your own. You can ensure that you are kind and you do not knowingly hurt people through your actions, but you also cannot make another person happy. They truly need to do that for themselves.
15. I learned that our self-talk is EVERYTHING. Our body, heart and mind listens to every nasty word we say to ourselves. So stop it! It’s usually just a bad happen. You aren’t stupid, or silly, or dumb, or hopeless… so stop staying it to yourself. Be kind to yourself, we are all just here learning from each experience, and it makes a radical difference to how you feel about yourself.
16. I learned that you can change your emotional state in the blink of an eye. It all comes down to choice. We surrender so much to emotions because we think we can’t manage them, and it’s quite the opposite. Life is choice. Happiness is choice. Dwelling in emotions too long is like getting stuck in a loop, we have the power to change this.
17. I learned that we are creative, emotional, loving creatures that need to express ourselves, be heard, and to move our bodies to feel vital and alive. But the fear of not fitting in or being loved for our true selves limits our true creative expression of who we are, and affects how we show up in the world.
18. I learned that too many people ‘settle’ because it feels safe. It feels safer to treat life as a destination that we reach, rather than accept that it is unpredictable, an adventure, and something that we should embrace as we learn and grow and change together!
19. I learned patience. Somewhat clumsily at first, but the more I learned that if we let go of the outcome and just let life unfold as it should, the easier and more beautiful it gets because opportunities we never imagined become available to us when we don’t block the flow. It doesn’t sit back and be lazy, we should always take action. It just means that not all action is meaningful.
20. I learned that self-belief is everything. If you don’t believe that you deserve something or are capable of something remarkable, then you will never achieve it because you will not allow it on a subconscious level. This is self-sabotage – another form of keeping yourself ‘safe’.
21. I learned the true power of setting goals. Until we set an actual goal, with a tangible action plan with daily steps attached to it, we rarely ever maintain the focus we need to succeed and realise that goal. It is the power of living with ‘both feet in’ the game. And so often what stops us from doing this is the fear of failing and not being accepted. So we’d rather not try, remain mediocre, but be safe.
22. I believe that we are all on our own journey. Some of us are old souls that have walked many lives, some are young souls and are only at the start of the journey. And some of us have walked the same life many times before, never learning the lesson that keeps being re-presented in front of us time and time again!
23. I’ve learned that shame is one of the most dangerous and damaging emotions you can feel or inflict on another person. It’s how my generation were largely raised by our parents as a form of control, and now as adults we carry that shame into our later life. Shame is the opposite of self-love, and until we let that emotion go, we will always be held back with blocks and self-limiting beliefs. The only way to heal shame, is by recognizing it and taking its power away.
24. I have learned that we are all intuitive creatures, and so often we know what is best for us, but we don’t trust our gut feelings because we have always been taught that we are wrong. We get trapped in our thinking brain rather than our instinctive gut feelings. The quicker we learn how to listen to our own intuition, the happier and more peaceful our lives will be.
25. And last but not definitely not least, I learned there are no shortcuts in personal development! Nor do you ever get to the end destination of this work! There is always more room for growth, more areas to expand into, more wisdom to discover and greater depths of love to experience. There really is nothing to fear and so much to gain. 

It just all depends if you ready and willing to do the work and self-reflection! Good luck on your own personal development journey, you will never regret it!