As coaches, consultants, entrepreneurs, you are probably aware of the term self-limiting beliefs. These start out as negative thoughts, conscious or unconscious, about what we can or cannot do. When we hold these thoughts regularly, they become beliefs. They are untruths about our abilities that arise out of our past. It's the messages whispered by that voice in our head. Self-limiting beliefs affect how we feel and often hold us back from taking action or living fully self-expressed.
Well, I had a great "in-your-face" example last week of how I (we) can project self-limiting beliefs onto our prospects in such a way that we risk sabotaging sales that are trying to come to us! These projections can impact how we market and how we respond when our marketing actually works! In my opinion, self-limiting beliefs and our projection of them are often at work when we procrastinate. I'll share with you how I view the power of projections, a technique I used to stop mine, and the great results I got so you can do the same.
What is projection? For starters, here's an imagery I use to help me remember the power of projections to limit me and others. First, I imagine my beliefs and how I see the world as a movie running in my head. As a child of the 50s, my earliest experience with movies was those our teachers showed in our classroom. Picture one or more big metal reels filled to the edges with film. As a kid in school, we took turns loading these reels onto the movie projection, threading the film around gears and pins until it passed in front of the lens and into an empty take-up reel. Then you turned on the light bulb and your images were projected onto a screen or any surface on which you pointed the projector. For fun we sometimes stood in front of the projector and watched the images play on our bodies.
How projection affects interactions with prospects. Now imagine yourself standing in front of a prospect to talk about their challenges and how you might help them. If you are feeling fear or insecurity, your subconscious egoic mind may load up a juicy story about how you think you are a good coach but you don't have a lot of clients right now and so it's questionable just how good you really are.
Ah... here's the fun part. You turn on the movie projector and the images project through your eyes and play on your prospects face. You now believe your prospect believes the same thing you do! In fact you may not recognize it as your belief but you are sure they won't hire you because they can somehow tell you don't have people clamoring to hire you so you must not be good at what you do! Does this sound familiar?
My projection movie. In my case, I sent out a newsletter with an offer for 10 no-charge "Marketing-in-Action" phone sessions for 10 lucky women solopreneurs. I wrote and rewrote the message so they would know they'd get some assistance AND would hear about how working with me would help them get there. I asked them to reply to sign up with the answers to what turns out to have been great questions! "Describe your business, the marketing project you are avoiding that could make a big difference and the impact if you took action and generated income now?" This generated some concrete answers and even some language around how they needed help. (Feel free to use this!)
My projection? Well, some deep-seated doubt and fear I didn't do it "right" stimulated negative thinking that these women were just hoping to get some free help and were not really interested in working with me. I read each of the 7 replies I received finding words and phrases that supported my limiting hypothesis! I even delayed a day or two confirming these sessions in email. And I want new clients, or so I say! Whoa. I knew I had to make a change.
How to change movies using the Pivot. This is a great concept I'm learning by reading the daily Law of Attraction quotes I get from Abraham-Hicks. I looked at the beliefs (movie) I was projecting onto my prospects and realized this was not the mindset or feeling I wanted to be in to coach or consult with these women! I turned away, literally, as if standing, pivoting on my heels to go in another direction, and looked for what I DID want to believe and wanted to feel. I did some deep breathing and brought to the surface my most welcoming, creative, generous self-loving and other-loving beliefs. I brought this love and enthusiasm to my email responses as I confirmed their sessions. I accessed my coaching skills and acknowledged the courage my prospects showed by stepping up and asking for what they want. I suspended my judgments.
The Results. As you may guess, this story has a happy ending and a great learning. So far I've talked with 4 of the women and 2 of them hired me on the spot. One prospect is a woman who participated in a tele-group with me two years ago. She told me then and now I had a profound affect on her. Last week, she responded to my offer and described a marketing action that she has been avoiding for two years!
My DEEP realization is that if I didn't stay in contact with her through occasional newsletters and if I didn't ask these probing questions, she would not have reached out to me. And she's a big fan of mine! Funny thing is I had the biggest negative projection of all about this former group participant. I assumed she was just taking advantage of the free assistance since she could have called me any time on her own! Oy vay. She needed me to call her forth. I needed to welcome her, suspend my judgments and get curious. Gladly I did.
What stories do you tell yourself? What do you notice you project on prospects when you procrastinate on following up, replying to or sending out an email or newsletter? What would happen if you could pivot away from the fear-based movie you might be playing and turn towards the love story you are capable of telling?
Share your thoughts by clicking on the Comments link below to this post. And remember you can always change movie reels to tell your most powerful, deeper true story.
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