Whatever You're Thinking About Doing - Just Start!

Do you have a goal, a dream, or a new idea?  Whatever you're thinking about, considering, or even dreaming about, take action now!  Take one small step.  By doing this, you set it in motion.

You learn and succeed by taking a chance

If you don't take a chance, you'll never know if it's something that could be successful.  You need to have the willingness to take a chance.  Build that willingness by letting go of any doubts or fears and then start somewhere.  Take that important first step.

If you don't start, you'll never know.  You won't know if it's right or wrong. If it's worth doing, or if it might need some tweaks along the way.  If you keep it safely tucked away in your imagination or in your thoughts, you'll never know if this was the one thing that would've made a difference for you or for someone else.

It can be anything - Just do it

It can be a big project, or a small one.  A conversation you've been meaning to have with someone. A new idea or career change.  If you feel a pull to do it, or it's something that keeps coming back around for you to look at, do it.  When you have those pulls, you're meant to follow them.  This is the Universe, or your own internal wisdom, giving you the nudge to try something new - something that will lead you in a new and interesting direction.

Whatever it is, if you're not doing it, you're robbing not only yourself, but anyone else who could benefit from what you have to offer.  Are you really willing to rob yourself and anyone else of this chance just because you're not sure it's a good idea?

Take a step - Even a small one matters

When you take a step, you set everything into motion.  Your mind starts working and opening up to possibilities.  You become more aware of ideas or opportunities that would assists you in doing it.  And somehow, once you start taking those steps, life just seems to send you exactly what you need to support your dream or project.

But........ "What if?"

If you're stalling or procrastinating on following through with something, take a look at what the "benefit" is in your not doing it.  If you're not doing it, there's some kind of hidden benefit for you.  Under your procrastination, hesitation, doubt, or over overwhelm, is a fear.  It could be anything from

•  "fear of failing"
•  "fear of embarrassment"
•   or even "fear of not being accepted".  

Under the fears, is the hidden benefit.  What is this keeping you safe from? The list is endless of what we're afraid to experience.  It's just part of being human and the "need to survive".  The idea of "what if this happens" is real for us.  Our minds can come up with all kinds of scenarios of what might happen if we do what we want to do.  The best way to let go of the "what ifs?", is to find out what they are and then collapse the hold they have over you.

We all have fears - learn what they are and let them go

We all have fears.  We grew up, went through some challenges and they formed our sense of what's "safe" and what's not - what it is that represents a "danger" to us.  With the survival instinct alive in all of us, we find ways to stay safe or not feel threatened.  But, those "ideas" of safety aren't always appropriate since they were formed while we were in the stage of development which is ruled by the Primitive Brain.  At that point in our lives, we didn't have the logical brain online to help discern if something was a real threat or not.

But we're adults now and we have the capacity to change the messages our brain tells us.  We can let go of any fears that keep us from taking a chance and from succeeding.  If you feel stuck, find yourself procrastinating on an idea, project, or conversation, then there are underlying fears to address.  Work on those and you'll find yourself moving forward easily and with excitement.

Keep taking steps and deal with any internal objections as you go

If you just keep taking one step after another, you'll get to where you want to go.  It's the little steps, all added together that make it easier to keep moving forward.  These small steps, all strung together, are what bring about success.

As you go, if any other fears or objections crop up, deal with them.  Notice them, acknowledge them and work through them.  They're just information for you on what stands in the way of where you want to go.  At some point in your life, they were helpful.  But they aren't anymore.  Decide to move them out now.

Go for it - The time is now.

If you want to see what keeps you from following through on a dream or goal,  book a complimentary call. 

Contact Info:
sumi@sumijones.com 
(805) 265-9063
Santa Barbara, CA 93101

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How Burying Emotions Derails Your Happiness & Success

When you deny how you feel about something, or you tell yourself you're "over it", but you haven't fully worked through the emotions, those emotions end up buried inside you where they eventually come out in one way or another.  The habit of burying emotions is pretty much the norm with people.

We've been taught to just get on with life and not acknowledge how we feel.  But doing this takes a big toll.

Buried emotions create inner turmoil or worse

Emotions that are buried and not dealt with have been linked to:

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Insomnia
• Poor self-esteem
• Teeth grinding or TMJ
• Poor relationships
• Chronic Fatigue
• A feeling of emptiness
• Angry outbursts

The list goes on.  Stuffing emotions has also been linked to poor immune and health issues.  With the stress it causes, it damages your body's ability to heal or remain healthy.

The benefits of opening to your feelings

When you learn to allow your feelings in, not only do you feel great relief, but you're also in touch with your personal truth - what it is that inspires you and makes you come alive.  You also feel less stuck.  You have a more positive feeling inside of you.  When you're in touch with your feelings, you also have an easier time expressing yourself.  All great benefits to supporting a fulfilling life.

The process of uncovering buried emotions

When you start looking at what emotions or past experiences you might have buried, it's best to do it in a way that helps you feel secure and supported.  Our subconscious is designed to keep us safe, so anything that looks like a threat will only shut you down and hide difficult emotions or events even further from your conscious mind.  

Think about it.  Why would you be willing to uncover uncomfortable emotions if they're only going to feel threatening or be extremely hard to unravel?  You wouldn't. This is where EFT works well.  They allow a person to look at what's holding them back.  As you work with EFT, the subconscious brings up memories or events that it feels safe to look at.  And events that you're ready to let go of.  As you move through these events or past experiences and you see how much relief you gain from it, you become more encouraged to keep doing it.

Healing, growing, and creating the life you want is a process.  It's something we do for the rest of our lives, if we want a fully experienced life.   If your desire is to have joy, contentment or fulfillment in your life, the way to insure that is to keep learning and growing. 

A great book on getting in touch with emotions, why you'd want to, and ways to do it is Living Like You Mean It - Use the power and wisdom of your emotions to get the life you really want.  What I love about this book is the author is someone who understands, personally, the  cost of not being open to your own emotions.  He lived like this for a good part of his life until he learned to experience his emotions in an easy way.  The book addresses why most people are afraid to feel their emotions to one degree or another, and takes the reader through steps to change this.

If you want to explore any emotions that could be holding you back, book a complimentary call. I'm  happy to answer any questions you have and we'll see if we're a mutual fit. 

Contact Info:
sumi@sumijones.com 
(805) 265-9063
Santa Barbara, CA 93101

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Create Success By Finding and Letting Go Of Limiting Beliefs.

To create success, you need to be 100% congruent with what you're going after.  This means your subconscious mind has to be in complete alignment with your goal.  I you have a project you need to complete, a job change your contemplating, or a goal, and you aren't following through, you have a subconscious emotion or belief that's holding you back.

Our subconscious mind is the driver.  

Our subconscious mind drives our decisions, our actions, and how we view the world. This isn't a bad thing, unless the decisions your mind made as you were growing up don't match what you want in your life.  When you discover what these decisions or views are, you can change them to be more supportive and positive for you.

To change your perspective, look at any past upsetting events, traumas, or negative role models you had as you went through your formative years.  These can be anything you viewed as challenging, upsetting, or traumatic.  

Our minds are extremely creative in how they piece together sections of experiences and then create a decision or belief to keep us safe.  It's all done out of the instinct to survive.  What one person takes away from a situation can be completely different from what another person takes away.

We make decisions or beliefs out of our past encounters or even role models we witnessed in life. When you combine those with a  new experience, your mind comes up with it's view of the situation.  It's created by your own particular filter.

    

Create success by changing your filter

We create our life around us by what we belief - what our filter is telling us.  From the people we have in our lives, to the type of treatment we accept from clients, friends, even strangers. It's all driven by our past experiences and what we learned early in life.

So if you want to create more success in  your life, not only in your career, but financially and in your relationships, you have to change your filter.  It's simpler than you think.   

I help clients identify beliefs that keep them from achieving their goals by using EFT.  EFT, or The Emotional Freedom Technique, also known as "tapping", is great at discovering and collapsing subconscious beliefs that sabotage success or happiness.  As you work with EFT,  look for beliefs that are no longer supporting your success and dismantle them. As you do, your life will change.  You'll view circumstances, relationships, and opportunities differently.  As a result, you create the success you want by taking action and by making better decisions for yourself.

Be gentle with the process

What I've noticed is when you gently work on a problem and let it resolve in phases, rather than force the issue through all at once, it's an easier and more thorough process.  The subconscious feel safe bringing up any additional issues or past events that felt traumatic or threatening when they originally happened.  Our subconscious mind is here to protect us.  When you allow what's ready to be resolved come up as you work through the issues, you actually move through them more quickly than if you'd forced it.

Continue to motivate yourself by adding in the positive

An important component of change or growth is to stay inspired and motivated.  If it's all about the negative, it can get old.  Why would you want to keep growing if it's always about "What's wrong", or "What needs fixing?"  I've fallen into the trap myself by wanting to just reach the goal I'm heading for.  I've ended up only looking at what needs fixing instead of also looking at where I'm making progress, or where my life is going great.  When you do this, it ends up not being much fun.  When it's all drudgery, we tend to avoid it.  Life is about the journey and all of the parts to that journey.  We need inspiration to keep moving forward.  By adding in the positive, you're adding the inspiration.

Remember to look at what you appreciate in life -what's going right for you. A way to let the positives sink in is to use tapping to tap them in as you think about them, or talk about them.  It's a great way to anchor them.  Or  you can make a list.  At the end of the day, or even during lunch, write out what's going right for you.  Or what you accomplished that day.  It helps keep the inspiration going.

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If you feel stuck or at a plateau in your life, book a complimentary call.  We'll discuss your 

goals and see if we're a mutual fit. 

Contact Info:

sumi@sumijones.com 

(805) 265-9063

Santa Barbara, CA 93101

If you'd like to receive notifications of events, discounts, and future blogs, sign up below

Celebrate Your Wins - Why It's Important To Your Success

Working to improve anything or achieve success takes effort and commitment.  Lots of it.  To keep yourself motivated and continuing to put in the effort  needed to reach your goals, remember to celebrate your wins.  It makes a bigger difference than you know.  

Why acknowledging your wins is important to your brain

Celebrating your wins programs your brain away from it's natural tendency to "look for problems" in all situations.  We're all programmed to survive.  This is what insures the overall survival of the  human race.  Because of this, our brains are programmed to look for "dangers", or "what could go wrong in this situation?"  When you add in any past experiences where you felt like you made a mistake or failed, you add more "proof" to your brain that maybe you should be cautions or pull back from putting in 100% of your effort.  

There's nothing wrong with discerning whether or not something is a risk.  It's when we overdo it and it stalls our efforts where it becomes a problem. 

Celebrate your wins - the big ones and the small ones 

Celebrating doesn't have to always be a big thing.  When you celebrate, it doesn't have to be a party.  It just needs to be something where you slow down, feel what it's like to have accomplished something, and take it all in.  Really let the experience of "winning" sink in.  You can add something small like taking yourself for a mid-day break for coffee or dessert.  Or even just a walk through the park.  Anything that signifies to you, "I did a great job there and I'm rewarding myself for it"   

All of your accomplishments are important to notice and celebrate in some way.  This builds on your enthusiasm and bumps up your motivation.

Easy ways to celebrate

Take some time to just sit and experience how great it feels to have succeeded at a task or small step towards your goal.  Give yourself even 3 minutes to do this.  It takes only 20 seconds of feeling a positive emotion for the neural-pathways in your brain to begin to rewire in beneficial ways.

Tell a supportive friend about it.  Sharing it with people who want the best for you adds to your feeling of accomplishment.

Write it down in a journal.  By writing about it, you're reliving it and it imprints the feeling of success and accomplishment into your mind and your body.  The more you do this, the more inspired you feel to keep going. 

By having these feelings, these "rewards", your brain starts to associate effort with pleasure.  You're overwriting your brain's tendency to feel threatened in giving it your all.  If you happen to have an underlying fear of failure, which many people do, anything that feels difficult to achieve, (or has any potential for failure,) is viewed by the brain as a threat.  The brain then sets up blocks to you following through on actions or decisions that would keep you moving in a forward direction towards your goal.  

When you add rewards or mini celebrations in as you achieve positive steps along the way, you're showing the brain that it's not only safe to keep working towards your goal, but it's also pleasurable. You're reprogramming your brain to accept challenges as merely effort without it having to look for reasons not to do it.  Use your brain to assist you, rather than get in the way.  

Life is busy - sometimes we don't have time to celebrate

Life is busy.  Take the time anyway.  It's well worth the payoff.  If you don't take the time, even just a few moments to recognize what you've done well, you're sending a signal to your brain to always be on the lookout for "what's wrong". You're repeatedly telling your brain to discount the feelings of joy.   You're "practicing" something that doesn't support your success. By doing so, you rob yourself of the satisfaction and confidence you gain through your accomplishments.

When you celebrate your wins, It isn't a waste of time.  It's one of the best things you can do to insure your success.

For those of you who use EFT, or tapping, tapping on your wins adds an extra layer of oomph to the result.

If you're ready to take your life to the next level, book a complimentary call to discuss your goals and see if we're a mutual fit.

Contact Info:
sumi@sumijones.com 
Santa Barbara, CA 93101

If you'd like to receive notifications of events, discounts, and future blogs, sign up below