Just F*cking Do It

Let’s play hide and seek. But in this version we need to find the stories that you have been telling yourself (consciously and unconsciously) on repeat, that are stopping you from really going for your goals. If you have been trying to change something in your life and, for some reason, you keep struggling to actually make the change, there will be an internal narrative getting in the way.

Like pesky weeds that overtake your garden of potential awesomeness, your limiting beliefs must be dug out and you need to turn your attention to any non-serving stories that may be getting in the way of your fulfilling your desires. Then, like my favourite card game, we are going to shout ‘BULLSHIT!’ at all of it. Not bullshit for it happening, but bullshit to it still holding you back from your greatness. Can I hear a hallelujah?

When you find out what is lurking below your conscious thoughts and also embrace the unprocessed shame, guilt, resentment and so on, you open yourself up to an inspiring future. Old stories that are not conducive to success that began forming in childhood create resistance to achieving what you want.

Even though you may consciously really want something, just below the surface of that desire are probably beliefs and emotions that are in total conflict with your dream. In order to move forward courageously in life, you need to figure out what thoughts have been holding you back. You need to whip out one big almighty shovel and start digging. Take a deep breath: we are going to go deep.

The truth is, the only obstacles between you and the life you desire, are your thoughts. Up until this point in your life, you have been ‘automatically created’ and the automatic programming that created you most likely wasn’t configured to create the best version of you. The automatic creation of you has happened without your awareness, as a result of conditioning, modelling and feelings that you have attached to the experiences you have gone through. Your thoughts don’t belong to you. You may think them, but that’s because your brain is just processing all the data and pulling out what it feels is relevant. You are just the thinker of the thoughts, but the thoughts are not you. However, your thoughts determine how you feel, and feelings power your actions.

Feelings take precedence over logic. Your memories and beliefs about certain situations cause strong feelings that drive every action you take. You need to shift into manual gear and take control. It’s your awareness of the negative stories you have made up about yourself, and of how they may have been holding you back, that sets you free and puts you back in the driver’s seat of your own life.

Isn’t using the Law of Attraction enough?

Maybe you are questioning that, if the Universe is as powerful as I say, then surely some positive thinking and a vision board is enough. The answer is no. If it was yes, then this book would not be bringing in psychology, too. You can’t sit all day saying affirmations, making goals, spending hours carefully cutting out photos of pristine beaches and sports cars to stick on to your vision board, if the stories that you are telling yourself are in conflict with your desires. This is a sure-fire way to end up in manifesting limbo.

If you want to manifest the dream relationship but you have created a powerful story deep down (at an identity level) that you don’t deserve love (because, say, you never received love from your dad as a child), then you can meditate on your vision board all you like and yet still struggle to find Mr/Ms Right. This is because deep down you don’t really believe that you are worthy of love and so unconsciously you will be giving off that energy to the Universe. Daddy issues are a real thing, people!

If you are trying to build a million-dollar business and have a vision board adorned with dollar bills and yet deep down you hold a story that being rich would make you a douche bag, then you will sabotage your business goals on a subconscious level. Our brains are designed to keep us safe, and since one of our biggest human drivers is love and security, anything that would jeopardize that will cause us to sabotage ourselves.

So, it’s imperative that you understand that the Law of Attraction picks up on the negative vibes that your stories hold, which then block the positive outcome you are trying to achieve. To unblock those outcomes, therefore, you have to uncover the bullshit stories, change the energy and truly believe that you can achieve what you want. Your stories and your goals need to be aligned. Capiche?

So, in order to ensure that our energy is totally aligned with co-creating with the Universe, we need to find out what those stories are. Once we call ‘bullshit’ on them, they cannot work so powerfully in our subconscious. The awareness weakens the stronghold of the stories, which then makes way for you to be totally energetically vibing with your goals with no hidden agendas lurking below the surface

Time to be a Soul digger

There are a few steps that you need to take in order to pull those weeds out. I like to call this Soul digging, and it’s the process required to uncover your most powerful self. The steps are:

1 Understand what your stories are.

2 Acknowledge where they came from.

3 Call bullshit on them.

4 Change your bullshit stories.

5 Create a new self-identity that matches up to the new stories that you will create.

For the purpose of exploring these ideas, I’m going to use money and the beliefs around money – our ‘money stories’ – as my primary example. There are also body stories, relationship stories and family stories, but today we will focus on money. Though people may tell you that money doesn’t bring you happiness, it does bring freedom and, if used in the right way, can be utilized as a vehicle for happiness. When you look at your goals list, for most of them, I’m going to bet, money is required.

Growing up in a religious household, my dad had strong beliefs about money. He always drummed it into us about giving to charity and he had even stronger views about the ‘corrupt rich’. Even to this day, he makes comments about rich people being greedy. What I didn’t realize is that I began to believe him.

My mind put 2 + 2 together and created the story in my head that being rich would make me greedy. Since my dad (who I love very much) hates rich greedy people, so the story inside me told me that, if I created wealth, my dad would hate me. Therefore, not being rich was actually a safer option in that it would keep me being loved. As I explained above, as humans, our biggest driver is love. We all just want to be loved and safe. And if anything jeopardizes that, we will stop it. For me, becoming rich could jeopardize that. As you can see 2 + 2 here actually equals being poor.

JESSICA’S STORY

Jessica saw her dad work 24/7 and, although he was successful and wealthy, he was miserable. Her story was that wealth equals stress and so she kept herself broke because wealth clearly did not equal happiness.

EMMA’S STORY

Emma saw her mother working hard in her own business and that meant Emma and her siblings were looked after by nannies. Emma wanted to be a mother and when she became one she found herself financially struggling. We uncovered that she had a deep-rooted belief that, if she was successful, she would neglect her children. So, she kept herself broke so she could be a good mother.

AARON’S STORY

Aaron kept hitting an income ceiling in his business, and it transpired that, as he had become more successful, he felt compelled to keep giving money to his friends and family, because he felt guilty for having it. As we delved into his particular money story, he realized that his dad had always done the exact same thing as he had come from a poor background and had strong family values when it came to financially supporting those you loved. Aaron took on these beliefs and started to act in the same way, even though it wasn’t a conscious decision.

As you can see from the above examples, our money stories are powerful and also irrational.

You will also see that money stories are mostly learned from our darling parents and those closest to us as we grew up, and for the most part they are created and embedded in our psyche as children. All of us have some skewed equation in our minds that stops us from becoming rich. Sometimes, it’s easier to tell ourselves that ‘being rich’ would make us evil, so then we don’t make the effort to start a new business that could fulfil us on a deeper level. Therefore, our negative stories serve a purpose of keeping us ‘safe’, even if they are suffocating us and keeping us from our true potential.

The reality is, however, that money is neutral. It is just a kind of energy, which is why it is referred to as currency. In one sense, it doesn’t really exist. The paper you hold in your hand that represents a £5 or £10 or £50 note is just a value that the piece of paper represents. The actual paper is worthless. It’s the value that we attach to it that’s important. When you log on to an online banking site, you are just looking at numbers on a screen, yet the numbers have the power to induce fear and anxiety or, conversely, happiness. All these reactions are a result of what you think and believe about money, which is why it’s important you get up close and personal with your own money story.

Let’s start digging

So here is a task for you. I want you to grab a pen and flip to the note section at the end of this book. I want you to write out your ideal yearly income. Once you have done that, I want you to look at the paper, take your pen and add a zero to the end of it.

Have you done that?

Now, look at the second figure. If I told you now that you had to earn that amount this year, what comes up for you? What do you feel and think as you look at that number?

Write everything down on that same page. Anything and everything, however stupid or small.

Now you have in front of you the set of beliefs you have formed, and this is a great starting point for unearthing your money stories. These stories have been producing fake limits on your earning potential, and it’s time to figure out where those pesky beliefs came from.

You need to shoot the messenger

I don’t care who made up the saying that told us not to, but I’m telling you now: it’s time to shoot the messenger. You need to find out where your beliefs come from and then, metaphorically of course, shoot the person who gave them to you. The reason is that that story does not belong to you. It belonged to someone else and they kindly gave it to you and now it’s messing up your manifesting mojo. As soon as you recognize that you were not brought into this world with that story, you can begin the process of letting it go.

Perhaps, in the task above, you wrote down things like:

• ‘I am not clever enough to make that money.’

• ‘I don’t have a clue how to make that money.’

• ‘I don’t want or need that money.’

Go one step deeper: question all the reasons why you couldn’t go and make that money with the extra zero. Perhaps you think that your family would judge you, or your friends would want you to give it to them or that you would be scared of all the extra taxes. The reason why finding these things out is so important is because it’s those stories that are currently defining your actions when it comes to making the moolah. And it’s believing those stories that are keeping so many people broke, when they have the potential to be truly abundant.

Whether it’s money, relationships or food, there are always some clues in your earliest memories as to where your negative stories come from. If my clients tell me they aren’t clever enough to make money or not pretty enough for someone to love them, I always ask them to think back to a time before the age of 12 when they first felt that feeling. This is usually a great indication of where these irrational stories originated.

I want you to think back to when you were little. What did you hear about money? Did your parents tell you money didn’t grow on trees? Or did you hear the phrase ‘We are comfortable’ all the time? By recognizing the language you were surrounded with regarding the subject of money, you can begin to unravel why you believe certain things. Perhaps you bought into the whole ‘rich people are evil’ story, like I did. (We will talk more about the power of the language you use in Chapter 8.)

Here is a list of negative beliefs about being rich you may be holding:

• Being rich is evil.

• Rich people don’t have friends.

• Being rich will make you stressed.

• In order to become wealthy, you must sacrifice family time.

• Being rich will mean paying more tax.

You get my drift.

Money mistakes you have made

The next powerful thing to do is recognize the past mistakes you have made around money. Maybe you have got badly into debt once or have been declared bankrupt. Perhaps you got into a financial dispute with a partner or lost money in a bad investment. Maybe you are terrible at saving or spend all your money irresponsibly.

These experiences have negative energy attached to them and are also stopping you from finding the financial success you deserve. As long as you personalize your lack of money, you will not make money. When you recognize the mistakes you have made about money and your ruthless, unforgiving self-talk around that, you can really start to move forward.

Write down all the things that you are bad at when it comes to money. Any bad experiences that come to mind, however big or small.

I know we have focused on money in this chapter, but you can use the same process to uncover your stories around relationships. A great starting place for this is looking at the nature of your parents’ relationship. Look back, too, at your own earliest relationships.

Breathe out the bullshit

Clearing out your money blocks or any other blocks and stories can be a painful experience, and, quite honestly, lots of people would rather just go on day to day, paying bills and plodding on, without really reaching their full potential. Money is just energy and it flows to whoever wants it. But in order to want it, you need to have carried out the excavation of your limiting beliefs I’ve described above,

By now, I hope, you should have uncovered some of your limiting money beliefs, recognized where they have come from and be ready to do some work on changing them. One simple yet effective task is to write down all those beliefs on a piece of paper. Go through each one and write next to it the total opposite in relation to you.

For example, if you think rich people are evil, write down: ‘I am rich, and I give generously to all.’ If you have the belief that building a business makes you stressed, write down the opposite: ‘I am building a successful business with ease and flow.’

TOP TAKEAWAYS

• Just below the surface of every desire is probably a bullshit story that is in conflict with that desire, and subconsciously stopping you.

• You are the thinker of these stories, but these stories do not belong to you. They are just data being pushed out of your brain.

• We have created internal beliefs about money, relationships and our body, all mostly stemming from childhood.

• You need to be aware of what these limiting beliefs are by doing some soul digging. This will weaken their hold on you.

• Shoot the messenger and detach yourself from these stories so you can move towards your dreams with gusto.

JFDI!

Tap, tap, tap: the Emotional Freedom Technique

One of the most powerful ways to energetically change your feelings and beliefs around money is through a technique called tapping, aka the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). EFT is defined and described as a clinical procedure for the relief of psychological and physical distress. It’s a process of removing the negative emotional charge of negative stories, so that they no longer affect you. Tapping combines the cognitive reprocessing benefits of exposure and acceptance therapy with the energetic disturbance releases associated with acupuncture and other energy therapies.

The cause of all negative emotions and beliefs is a disturbance in our body’s energy system. The energy system is the same system that is used in acupuncture. Acupuncture posits that there are pathways in our bodies called energy meridians. All of our negative emotions, such as anxiety, anger, shame, guilt, hurt and so on, are due to a disturbance in one or more of these energy meridians. These energy disturbances are connected to memories of painful events. When we think of the memory, the associated energy disturbance gets activated, which then causes the negative and sometimes even painful emotions.

EFT works by intentionally and powerfully activating an energy disturbance as you think about a negative memory or just ‘feel your feelings’. While the energy disturbance is activated, you tap with your fingertips on the meridian points in order to clear out the energy disturbance in the affected areas.

As the disturbance gets cleared through the tapping, you will feel your negative emotions actually start to disappear. When the energy disturbance has been completely cleared, your negative emotions will have gone. You can then think about the memory with no nasty emotional reaction! Then you tap in new positive affirmations and emotions. It’s like pulling out weeds and planting sunflowers.

Head to www.noorhibbert.com/book and follow the tapping tutorial so that you can use tapping to help you reprogram your mind for success.

Once we start clearing out the old negative stories and emotions, we can start crafting a new self-identity that is stronger happier and more determined to go out there and do big things in the world. We are going to delve deeper into creating a new self-identity in the next chapter that is really going to help you to create your most abundant life.