Procrastination Is A Message

In our world where “Just do it” and “Take massive action” are touted as mottos and mantras, procrastination is often considered a bad word. But, what if procrastination holds a powerful message or process for you?

Maybe you’ve experienced being inspired or feeling compelled to take specific action at a specific time, and you found you were right to act on it. And, maybe you’ve had the same experience I have, where you procrastinate, only to discover you were right to do so. Do you find the first example easier to trust or allow than the second? I’d say many, if not most, people feel like that. We’ve been taught to be prejudiced in this way.

Trusting your intuitive impulse to procrastinate can be a challenging mental and emotional place to be in, because something inside you is urging you to not take action, yet others are pressing you to do so or you can hear those who talk and teach about taking action chattering in your mind. You may go into self-judgment mode, and that makes you feel even worse. OR, maybe you’ve learned to trust the particular feeling that happens at those times.

If intuitive procrastination proved to be the right thing to do about a particular matter, that’s one thing. What else might be going on when procrastination happens? I listened to an Abraham-Hicks audio on YouTube called “Procrastination is the way you feel when trying to fill your own grid.” Unless you’re familiar with the grid concept, you likely have no idea what this means. I’ll explain; and I promise the explanation will connect with procrastination again.

When you focus on anything, you summon it to you. The way to summon productively is to create an energy grid; then you must allow the grid to be filled in. Think of this like a house being built. The frame is up and you can see through the grid work of the boards; you have somewhat of an idea what the house will look like. Then walls go up and you begin to get a better image of what it will look like as it gets more and more filled in.

Your grid is your point of attraction. When you create your grid, you want to think and feel deliberately rather than “all over the place,” as may often happen with thoughts and feelings. And, despite what you’ve been told, you do not want to put specifics into the grid; all those specific details will slow the energy and make you work harder than you need to. You want to aim at general feelings with words like ease, comfort, appreciation, confidence, serenity, enthusiasm, joy, love, well-being, worthiness, right place, right time, right people, abundance, means to accomplish, etc., in your grid. This is the framework you create.

Each time you put a general word into your grid, feel what it’s like to feel the energy of the word, e.g., what does ease feel like; what does enthusiasm feel like? Let the feelings, not specific details, do the work for you energetically. What I do is call to mind a moment when I felt the feeling I want to deliberately feel in the now. Once I connect with that feeling, I let go of replaying the moment in my mind because that will just clutter the “space” with details, and I simply feel the feeling for as long as I can hold it. You want to practice feeling the vibration of each word often. Practice leads to resonance with the fullness of the vibration. When a vibration is matched, you experience full manifestation; but while you’re raising your energy and getting your vibration closer and closer as a match, some pretty cool things happen, as well. This is the Universe filling in everything after the framework is created.

Your grid is a reflection of or is constructed by your active beliefs, thoughts, and feelings. Too often, we decide what we want then push ourselves toward what we desire (or believe we’re supposed to) rather than allow it to come to us, whether the pushing is mental, emotional, physical, or all three. We tend to leave the spiritual aspect out of the equation; yet, that spiritual energy work is what gets the ball rolling, so to speak, and in our favor, and is what the “allowing” is about (more on this as we go). All that pushing usually or eventually puts us up against an obstruction of some kind, so we push or struggle even more, or we stop in our tracks—we procrastinate, or the Universe procrastinates on our behalf.

Procrastination can come from resistance to doing something you’re required to do rather than inspired to do, as you construct your grid of experiences and manifestations. When you feel inspired, you are eager to take action. When you feel required but uninspired to take action, you can feel unenthusiastic, put upon, or resistant.

When you procrastinate about doing something you know you need to do, check the Whys. Why do you need to do it; is there any benefit to you or others, or both, if you take this action? Why do you hesitate about getting started? Something Abraham said that I found amusing and profound, that perhaps you, as well as I, have encountered is: “I HAVE to do this thing that I don’t want to do. And I can’t figure out why I’m not getting the cooperation from the Universe to do this thing that I don’t want to do.”

If you know you really need to do something and aren’t feeling inspired, aren’t feeling cooperation from the Universe (or yourself), you might assess the conversation you’re having with yourself and the Universe about this thing. Is your conversation creating alignment for you about doing the needed action? If it isn’t, you can be certain it isn’t creating the alignment with Law of Attraction you truly desire either. So, you want to change your conversation.

Abraham said procrastination happens when we try to take action before the energies are aligned. We’re trying to move something forward through action rather than moving it forward with aligned momentum. We need to enlist the cooperation of the Universe by doing the energy work first, which is how the grid serves us: we use the grid to align our vibration with the vibration of what we wish to experience.

Releasing disempowering, resistant, worried, anxious thoughts and frenetic activity opens your energy – maybe “relaxes your energy” is a better term to use – so that your vibration can go up. When your vibration goes up, you get closer to the frequency of Source. The frequency of Source is alignment, never strain; if you’re straining on any level, you’re moving away from alignment. Don’t judge that; let it draw your attention to what’s happening so you can shift it. You know when you’re in alignment or not by how you feel. If you feel good or great feelings, you are aligned; if you have bad feelings, you aren’t. The thing to remember is that you can practice your way out of bad feelings by releasing any unwanted thoughts and filling in that space with general thoughts, like those mentioned above, and feeling their vibrations.

Let’s get back to procrastination. What are we supposed to do when we bump up against some forms of procrastination? I’ve done what Abraham advises about this: “When you feel procrastination, procrastinate. Don’t try to push through it. You can’t buck that current. Go do something fun.” I know, I know. There are times when you might be penalized for doing this. Take this into consideration, but know there are times you need to procrastinate because the Universe IS assisting you; times when you need to procrastinate because you need to pause and align your energy with your desired experience; and times when you procrastinate because you need to recharge your energy at the mental, emotional, and physical levels.

Rushing around with a frenzied energy or having too many things to do makes and keeps our energy vibration low, not high, the way we need it to be for alignment to happen. When we want or want to do too many things at one time, we diffuse our energy and cause a shortage of focus. A low vibration and shortage of focus creates struggle.

I recall a time when I was asked to house sit for a friend. I’d been under a strain about a lot of things, including money. When I arrived at her house, I made a conscious choice to put all of those kinds of thoughts and that kind of energy aside and be where I was for the time I was there, and that’s exactly what I did. A lot of people, feeling that kind of strain, would have used every spare moment to make a plan or take all kinds of action to change their financial situation.

I chose to take care of the house sitting responsibilities as needed and make the rest of the time a vacation, including or especially from thinking about anything other than what was right where I was. I did such a good job with this release that income and means for income started showing up in my inbox immediately and nearly every day I was there. I didn’t add any strain to this; I told those who contacted me that I was away until a certain date, made whatever arrangements I could easily make by e-mail (including pre-payment from them) until I returned home, and relaxed and recharged my energy with a nice influx of income that I didn’t stress or strain to acquire. A gain without strain—what we all desire yet usually do the opposite.

Someone said to Abraham, “So what I’m hearing is that it’s okay for me to just sit there and wait to feel inspired action.” Abraham responded: What you’re hearing is that you have no choice. What you’re hearing is you can take the action and can make yourself do it, but the results won’t be pleasing, and that’s why you feel like procrastinating. You’ve been playing this game a long time. It’s not fun. You can make yourself do it, but all you do is carve out a mediocre life by making yourself do stuff you don’t want to do. What you want to do is find the reason that you want to do it, or don’t do it.

Being easygoing, rather than stressing and straining, is frowned upon because society has stipulated that effort is rewarded, not laziness; that there can be no gain without pain; that no matter what, we should just do it. We’ve been conditioned to believe if we aren’t struggling or taking massive action (whether aligned with it or not), we aren’t doing what we should be doing. To deliberately procrastinate or allow it for a period of time while we raise our vibration and match it to what we want seems counter-intuitive because of this conditioning to please or appease those who do not know about or understand the leverage of alignment. We are conditioned to worry and be active, even if not productive, despite any trust we may feel about the alignment process and its leverage (if we’ve gotten that far in our spiritual development), because others will criticize us if we’re calm and trusting.

In John Earle’s book, Waking Up—Learning What Your Life is Trying to Teach You, he writes about a dying man’s last wish, which is for “the town judge to give his inheritance to the one of his three sons who the judge finds to be the laziest. ‘Laziest’ here is used to identify the son who is the greatest mystic…” From the Rumi poem, The Night Air: “Mystics are experts in laziness. They rely on it, because they continually see God working all around them. The harvest keeps coming in, yet they never did the plowing.”

That last part about “never did the plowing” might confuse some. When you focus on aligning your energy vibration to the energy vibration of what you choose to experience or create, you are working, but more effortlessly. And, you will also, in that place of alignment, receive inspired ideas. You’ll also find people look for you to connect with, rather than you looking for them. Yes, you take action as needed, but you don’t need to take more action than is really needed. You act, and you allow the Universe to direct what or who fulfills your desire to you so you connect with it or them, by holding the vibration.

Remember, it’s more effective to choose a good feeling and practice feeling it often, until inspired ideas begin to arrive and then you take inspired action you feel eager about. It’s more effective to relax and recharge, or revisit your Whys and conversations with yourself and Source when you feel procrastination. It’s a good idea to get familiar with the feeling that comes with procrastination you are meant to trust that is operating in your behalf. You are meant to create and enjoy the creative energy grid of your choice. Create a grid for any project, phone call, or whatever you wish to experience. It’s a good practice, one you’ll appreciate.           

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce Shafer

You are welcome to use this article in your newsletter or on your blog/website as long as you use my complete bio with it.

One Way to Get Past Many Fears

All of us come face to face with tasks or choices we feel anxious or fearful about, that perhaps stop us in our tracks. Here’s something you can do to empower your way past them.

Maybe you’ve been in this uncomfortable place: There’s something you need to do or know you should do, or a choice to make, but you hesitate or outright resist it because you’re scared. Likely, the primary thing you’re scared of is being scared. We resist feeling scared because we believe it’s wrong to feel that way; that if we do feel that way, then something must be wrong with or lacking in us. And if something is wrong with or lacking in us, we’re bound to mess up; so we’d prefer to avoid the matter entirely, rather than address the cause of the fearful or anxious feeling.

This involves a number of other fears, as well: Being embarrassed, thought less of, or humiliated (including about feeling scared, even though everyone feels scared at times). Who wants to willingly volunteer for THAT kind of experience?! We may also be scared about the outcome, or scared about what might or will be required of us after we make a choice.

What’s listed here, or any similar concerns you may think of, seem like pretty good reasons (to our ego-aspect) to avoid any or all action, which includes making choices, so we might avoid the thing or things we fear might happen, or might prove “true” about us, or the feelings that are unwanted. But, then a whole other set of thoughts and feelings happen as a result of avoidance, don’t they? And these can feel even worse than the ones we initially feared.

What can you do about this? You can have this conversation with yourself: “Even though I feel fear or anxiety about this matter, is there anything or anyone, including my well-being, involved here that I truly or deeply care about? If my answer is yes, is the care stronger than the scare?”

We get caught up in or blocked by the scare aspect and miss the important care aspect. A strong level of care is a powerful motivator. More care than scare creates different feelings in you, empowering feelings or, at least, intention and commitment. These two questions can help you identify your level of care or investment, or identify what is and is not appropriate for you.

If or when you find there is something or someone you care about more than you’re scared about regarding a particular matter, including care about you, you’ll find it far easier to figure out a right action (or next step) and to take it, than you could imagine while being in scared-mode only. It’s even possible that nothing will stop you from taking right action, not even fear, if your level of care is deep enough.

 

When you care enough about something or someone, including yourself, you may find that you won’t feel good about yourself unless or until you take a right action, whatever else happens. Theodore Roosevelt said: “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”  Although, those who practice spirituality or metaphysics would offer that there are times when it’s best to do nothing until you are clear about what you must or choose to do. And, you can always do something at the inner level.

When you identify with something you really care about regarding a person, yourself, or a specific matter, you do what needs to be done. You find the will and the way. And if you feel nervous or anxious, you do it anyway. You can do things that scare you and release most or all of your fear about doing it whenever the real or potential greater needs of another (or your needs) are put before your need to not feel scared. Notice I didn’t say to put others’ needs before yours, but before your need to avoid feeling fearful or anxious.

This Q&A with your self is intended to reveal head-and-heart alignment about your level of care as the result of the questions, not so you convince yourself that you “should” do something that you’re not in alignment with. You serve no one if your choice or chosen action invalidates or fragments you in any real way; and only you can know this about yourself.

Decades back, I went to a monthly meeting that was held in a fair-size room, though attendance was usually 10 to 15 people. I walked in and saw about 100 chairs positioned in a semi-circle across from a table with 3 chairs behind it. The 100 chairs were filling fast, and I wondered what was going on. The director approached me and said, “Thank goodness you’re here. I planned a 3-person panel today, and one of them can’t make it. Would you please take her place?” It was about two minutes to start-time. There was no time for me to do any kind of real preparation. But she needed a third person and believed my perspective would contribute to the dialogues she hoped would happen.

It was an adoption triad meeting, meaning attendees included anyone in a relationship with an adoptee, was an adoptee, had adopted, or was a birth parent or birth family member. At that time I was married to an adoptee who’d decided to search, or rather had asked me to do the search because of his fears about it. The director asked me to speak about this.

I took my seat at the table and looked around the room. The realization that at least one person there probably needed to hear what I would say pushed most of my fear out of the picture. I’d speak about what I knew, based on my experiences, and hope that it benefitted someone.

The other two speakers went before me, and they each received one or two questions from attendees. Then it was my turn; and with no notes to assist me, I shared what I felt were the relevant parts of my story that they might appreciate hearing. I got lots of questions; and after the meeting, one man said it was as though I had repeated his story, that I had expressed how he, as an adoptee, felt.

I could have let my scare outweigh my care that day and refused the director’s request to be on the panel, because the thought of public speaking made me nervous, not to mention my concern that they wouldn’t like what I said or that I’d do a bad job of it. Putting care before scare allowed me to contribute something of value and make a difference for others.

How many ways might you make a positive difference in your personal, professional, or vocational life if the care outweighed the scare? What kind of difference might you experience at the inner level because of this? How might how you feel about you be different? How might your life be different?

Many times care vs. scare does involve others, but it always involves you. You are the constant in your life and experiences. The next time you face a task or choice that you feel anxious or fearful about, ask yourself if there’s anything or anyone involved, including you, which causes the care aspect to be stronger than the scare aspect. If there is, or if there isn’t, let this fuel your motivation to right choices and right actions, and always in ways validating and appropriate for you. It’s a good practice, one you’ll appreciate.          

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce Shafer

7 Tips to Manage Overwhelm

Overwhelm blocks productivity, creativity, enjoyment… and even income! You can begin to improve this starting today.

In my article, “What Does Feeling Overwhelmed Really Mean?”, I mentioned I’d created a mind map. Since then, I revisited my mind map and removed a few things listed there. They’re terrific ideas, but they don’t really “crank my tractor.” This is something you might keep in mind, too.

I’m something of a list addict—okay, maybe list maniac is more like it. Over the years, I’ve revised how I manage my lists so I don’t overwhelm myself with them and what’s on them—though, I can still get carried away when ideas flow. It may look messy or imprecise to others, but it’s a system that works for me.

Here are 7 tips to help you manage or prevent overwhelm, especially for those of you who are list addicts too or don’t like lists and, perhaps, operate a bit on the disorganized side.

1. Stop looking at your physical or mental to-do list and focusing on what isn’t getting done. Key Lesson: To-do lists are to help you focus, not hold you hostage.

2. When you feel overwhelmed by your list, either your energy and enthusiasm fold up and you do nothing or you run yourself ragged trying to clear items from the list—usually non-essential items instead of priorities. You do this to, hopefully, make that darn list smaller! But, of course, you continue to add items to your list, and you feel like you don’t make any real headway. As soon as you catch yourself doing either of these or about to, stop! And, go to the next tip.

3. Prioritize! This may mean numbering items in order of importance or noting which are actually priorities (essential) and which aren’t (not essential).

4. Dump some of the non-essential to-do items—or all of them—or give them to someone else to do, for pay or not, depending on the situation.

5. Give about an hour a week to your to-do list to categorize items as Priority, Not A Priority But Needs Doing, and Non-Essential. Decide which priority or priorities will have your attention that week and decide on which days you’ll focus on which priorities. Include some time for non-priority items that do need to be completed by you or will create personal fulfillment.

6. Remember to take breaks. Get up and move around or do something else for 5 to 10 minutes every hour. (When you focus on projects or tasks, eliminate as many interruptions as it’s realistic to do.) Be sure to take at least one full day each week (two is better), when you do nothing work-related, including thinking about anything work-related. This can make a huge difference in energy, enthusiasm, creativity, and yes, even in income. If you’re self-employed, stress from overwhelm can push success away from you. If employed, being productive, rather than frazzled and behind in your work, can justify pay raises, in your mind and your employer’s.

7. Adjust your attitude. Find a way to make whatever you do a creative challenge for you, whatever that looks or feels like to you. “Martyrs” don’t have fun and aren’t fun to be around. If what you have to do isn’t pleasant, why are you doing it? Sometimes you have to do the unpleasant tasks, but sometimes you don’t. It also helps attitude to consider if what you do will be a genuine help to someone who relies on you for valid reasons. If you switched places with them, what attitude would you hope the other person demonstrated?

Another contributor to overwhelm is when your actions don’t show immediate results. You might give up or change course instead of look at what’s going on and what might lead to desired results. Impatience makes you chase lots of flashy things that seem to say, “Try me! Try me!” This is a big reason why success gets stalled—this, plus too many people believe they have to get it “right” and strike it big right away rather than improve and build gradually.

Overwhelm leads to lack of faith in yourself, leads to lack of faith that your desired result is possible. You may flip back and forth between, “This will work” and “This will never work,” which is stacking another form of overwhelm atop what’s already there. Overwhelm can lead you to undervalue you and what you offer—and even those you offer it to.

Really look at what your priorities are—what can actually lead to desired results. Really look at what aren’t priorities. Is there anything on your list that is a terrific idea but just doesn’t float your boat about doing it (and the decision to do it is yours alone)? Delete any of these you know you could or should, or recruit someone to handle them for you, if you truly believe they need to happen. But, don’t convince yourself non-essential items, or uninspiring ones, have to be done just because you wrote them down.

Keep in mind that life seldom happens in a straight line. Neither does goal or dream setting and getting. A plan-of-action helps you stay the course and get back on course when detours show up. You don’t have to be “perfectly” organized, but you benefit if you have a system that helps you be better organized, in a way that works for you.

Practice makes progress.
© Joyce Shafer

You are welcome to use this article in your newsletter or on your blog/website as long as you use my complete bio with it.

End procrastination and achieve desired change in a 2-month online course (see website) with Joyce Shafer, Life Coach, author of I Don’t Want to be Your Guru, but I Have Something to Say & other books/e-books, & publisher of State of Appreciation, a free weekly online newsletter promoting a blend of practical & spiritual approaches to life for personal development and self-realization. Receive a free PDF of How to Have What You REALLY Want when you subscribe at http://www.stateofappreciation.webs.com/

What Does Feeling Overwhelmed Really Mean?

There are two types of overwhelm: the type that’s triggered by external events and the type you self-impose. Both can be managed with the same technique.

“I’m overwhelmed,” was my client’s first comment. You’ve been in that state of mind, and so have I. And, that’s what’s important to understand—overwhelm is a state of mind, not an actual event.

Let’s look at a parallel situation. Say you’re hosting a holiday dinner, maybe for the first time, maybe not. Very few people, though there are some, would go to the store and push a cart up and down the aisles, believing the meal plan will come together for them as they do this. Most of us would hit overwhelm pretty quickly, especially if we want the meal to be a good one and the preparation to go smoothly.

You could avoid that overwhelm by sitting down with paper and pen, deciding on what’s to be served, what you have already, and what you need to get. At some point you might even write out a plan of when to start preparing each food item, when to set the table or lay out what your guests will use. You might even recruit helpers. You may feel somewhat anxious on the day because you want everything to go well, but you won’t feel overwhelmed—because you have a plan with steps to take—a strategy. And, yes, something unexpected may happen that makes your plan wobble, but it’s easier to address a wobble if what needs to be done is clear to you.

Any dream or goal, whether for business or personal fulfillment, deserves a strategy session. You’re told to take action and to take it fast. That works well for inspired ideas—ones that happen in a flash and create a particular feeling inside you when you get the idea and while you act on it. The rest of your ideas need some time spent on them so you know which actions to take, both the initial time you consider this plus some revisits and revisions, until you achieve your desired outcome.

Sometimes, people procrastinate because they don’t practice using a strategy. The longer this continues the more fear stops them in their tracks, possibly for years, until they no longer believe in their ability to go after what they desire. I share such a story on the End Procrastination page on my website.

Back to my client . . . when I asked her what her overwhelmed feeling was about, she shared something new she’s moving forward in her business and several other personal projects she feels strongly about. We discussed her need to spend productive time with each project, the need for research, when her most productive work time of the day is, and the need for her to create a list of what she is to work on each day—created the night before. We included flexibility to act on inspired ideas if they show up and want to bump her original plan over short-term.

She also had the thought, as many do, that maybe she should work on all of her ideas at once (which was part of the cause of her overwhelm); so, we discussed prioritizing. Years back I worked for someone who brought me three “priority” projects at once. I asked, “Which would you like completed first?” His answer was, “All of them.” I handled that situation; but you can see that you might do this to yourself, might think you have to work on everything at once, which is impossible, isn’t productive, and puts you into a state of self-imposed overwhelm.

I created a mind map. At the center is my core (business) purpose, what I choose to provide/create. I drew lines out from the core and added more circles at the end of each line that include ways I want to fulfill my core purpose. Each circle requires a strategy. Each circle can have its own mind map, if needed. Everything listed on that map is directly related to the core purpose. Some of the items are ones I do weekly. The others are prioritized and re-prioritized when I add new ideas or feel a particular inspiration about them.

Some of you may have an aversion to mapping out a strategy. For some of you, the absence of a strategy may work—it’s rare, but it does happen for a few people, like shopping for a major dinner without a list and it works out. If you don’t fit into that rare category, you need a strategy, a plan, a map—call it whatever you want to that makes you feel on board with the process, but give yourself and your project(s) the time deserved so you know what you’re doing, why, when, and so on. Otherwise, you’ll stay crazy-busy being active, but not productive; or maybe you’ll be somewhat productive but also crazed by the activity involved and the undone items you feel looming. You’ll exhaust and overwhelm yourself, when you don’t have to. You’ll also move toward your desired result steadily, with fewer starts and stops.

Steadily . . . One of the external causes of overwhelm these days is a result of some of the marketing going on where individuals lead you to believe you have to aim at becoming a gazillionaire overnight or by next week. How about letting those ideas go and just focus on creating a foundation of action so you get started and move forward consistently.

Whether part of your purpose is to generate income or not, let how you can make a difference with each item listed—before a dollar (or praise)—guide you as you map out your strategy.

Practice makes progress.
© Joyce Shafer

You are welcome to use this article in your newsletter or on your blog/website as long as you use my complete bio with it.

Joyce Shafer (jls1422@yahoo.com) is a Life Coach, author of I Don’t Want to be Your Guru, but I Have Something to Say & other books/e-books, and publisher of a free weekly online newsletter that connects people with information, resources, and others aligned with enhancing and expanding spiritual Truth in their personal and business lives. Receive a free PDF of How to Have What You REALLY Want when you subscribe at http://stateofappreciation.webs.com

Has Approval Been Your “Currency” Exchange in Life, Business, and Relationships?

All the strategies, systems, programs, books you’ve invested in that haven’t shifted your prosperity or life experience may have missed one key point. You may not realize approval, rather than value-for-value, is your imprinted “currency” exchange.

Expectations and limiting beliefs introduced to us in early years become invisible residents in our non-physical “bones.” They also morph—change form and function—as we grow into adults.

When we’re children and we experience events we feel are unfair or limiting, we tell ourselves as soon as we’re adults we’ll never allow those things to happen again. Only, that isn’t what usually happens. What happens is we find subtle ways to repeat them—at least, the underlying theme of them. We are drawn to and draw to us people and situations that make sure these patterns are repeated. Because that’s exactly what they are—patterns. And, they are familiar.

“People-pleaser” is a term known by many, and lived by many. People-pleasers are not born, they are created. It’s natural to want approval; it’s the out-of-balance reason for wanting it—and needing it in an unhealthy quantity—that can turn life into a hamster-wheel experience rather than a joyful, fulfilling one.

If any aspect of your formative years imprinted you with the belief that you were not good enough as you are and as you were becoming, you may have chosen one of these two paths: a consistent exhausting, frustrating effort to win approval or you gave up trying and resolved to do only what you had to do to survive—you decided to settle for less in every area of your life. Maybe you even merged the two.

An out-of-balance need for approval can manifest as perfectionism, procrastination, lack of belief in self, self-sabotage, fear of following your dreams, and even fear of naming your dreams—especially if your dreams might not win approval you seek from one or more individuals. Add some of the negative prosperity beliefs such as some are lucky, some are not; the only way you can succeed is if you work really hard (ask any hard-working minimum wagers and struggling solo business people if this has proven true); you either have what it takes or you don’t . . . I’m sure you can add to this list.

Only you can know if you have a deep need for approval and how this impacts your life. If your primary need has been for approval, you’ve seen it affect the jobs and wages you’ve accepted; the relationships you’ve engaged in (likely, longer than you should have); lack of energy or self-confidence to go after what you really want in every area or several areas of your life; and, often, the various forms of abuses and self-abuse you’ve allowed.

If you’re a solo business person (or want to be), fear energy about charging a fair fee or price for what you provide, and getting it, may be present—you doubt your right and ability to be compensated appropriately. You may engage in lots of activity, but little productivity. You may search for ways to succeed rather than create them.

Approval seekers are often not connected to self-esteem, self-confidence, self-worth, and self-appreciation in ways that support them to feel how they wish to about themselves, or to make choices that help them create desired experiences and outcomes. Self-trust to know and act on what is appropriate for them (and what’s not) has not been developed as it might have been. Fear of making mistakes shadows them. They may not even ask what their desired experiences are—not with true clarity.

If what you need and want in order to have the life experience you desire comes last (or even second), your “currency” may be approval. You may want approval more than value-for-value in your personal and professional life. This is about proper self-respect, not improper selfishness.

When approval is your currency, your inner images are so entwined with this need you don’t even enter into the space where you envision people, who really feel you can make a difference, being happy to make a monetary exchange with you. You don’t envision being able to discern early on if a person is the right person for you to be in a relationship with—that the exchange and value in any experience is equal and in your best interest. You second-guess yourself on a consistent basis.

Take some time to sit with what you’ve read here. See if the out-of-balance need for approval has been a driving force in your life. Ask yourself how this has manifested in your experiences and how you feel about this.

Then, do a quick replay of your life and re-write the “film script.” Allow the image of receiving the approval you desired. Watch as you honor yourself by saying no to inappropriate personal and professional relationships when you said yes instead—making better choices on your behalf in certain moments.

Envision and feel the satisfaction of providing the service you’re passionate about to those you’d enjoy engaging with (even if what that is isn’t clear at this time). Let who, how, where, when, and for how much play out in your favor. Imagine the feeling of it—and you—as you truly desire. Allow yourself to feel this as true for you, even if that feeling is somewhat small right now. It can expand as you become gradually more comfortable with it. It may be unfamiliar, but it doesn’t need to stay that way.

Starting now, allow yourself to recognize when approval is your currency, as you consider important life choices. If it is, realize it’s you who will pay for the experiences and outcomes that result. This only empties the “well.” You want to fill it.

It’s time to shift this so that “give and receive” become the energy exchange they are meant to be and that feel good for you and others. It’s time to stop believing the stories you tell yourself, especially because a better story could have happened. It still can; but you need to begin to rewrite your story now and place your focus on it, and stop repeating the old ones.

It’s time to upgrade your “currency” exchange, and to understand it is your right to give and receive in equal measure.

Is it time to learn how to more effortlessly have desired experiences in life and business? Start now to re-write your stories for a More Calm, Confident, Creative You with You Are More! Empowerment Coach and author Joyce Shafer(jls1422@yahoo.com)—Sign up now for the 4-week Valentine’s Coaching Special (sign-up deadline is Feb. 14/program starts when you sign up) or let the e-book guide you. Fall in Love with Your Life! Details at http://tinyurl.com/yljhw4b