Welcome to the Success Blog Series! There are three parts to this series, and this is Part One. Part Two is here and will drop on April 19, and Part Three is here and will drop on April 21, so make sure to check those out too!
What does success mean to you?
Take a moment before you read on, and just consider that question. What does success mean to you? Take a slow breath in and on the exhale just feel that answer where it sits in your body. You can do it again if you need to.
When you’re ready, read on!
What did your body tell you?
You may have felt a warm or tingly feeling somewhere in your torso - perhaps around your heart or stomach area.
The same feeling you get when you achieve a goal, or realise that you actually did what you set out to do.
Or you may have felt a buzzing in your left big toe - I’m not you so I can’t tell you what to feel!
Just make a mental note now of how that felt, and where you felt it in your body. I don’t want you to judge it, just notice what the sensation was and acknowledge its existence.
What did your mind tell you?
Sometimes your mind is disconnected from your body, and you get a different answer.
Even when you try to pinpoint those feelings in your body, your mind might take over and tell you what to feel. It’s very common for that to happen, so I want you to notice whether it did or not.
If it did, you might have experienced thoughts like “this is stupid” or “why do I never feel this?” or “why do I not feel anything?”
Just make a mental note of the thoughts that happened. I don’t want you to judge them, just notice that they exist.
Were your experiences the same?
Did your mind and body have the same reaction? Or were they very different?
If they were the same or similar, chances are that achieving success tends to come easily to you. You know that you can set a goal, work towards it and achieve what you set out to do, and it doesn’t take too many wrong turns to get there.
If they were different, chances are that success doesn’t tend to come easily to you. You can set a goal, work towards it and eventually achieve what you set out to do, but you go in all directions and take a lot of wrong turns before you finally figure out the path of least resistance to achieve the success you are looking for.
My experience is that most people tend to fall in the middle of these two extremes - success usually comes with a few wrong turns. That comes down to being human, we’re not wired to go from A to B without any problems! And part of that is because…
Your body and mind are often disconnected, and can have very different responses to the same question.
Let me explain what I mean.
Your body is intuitive, it works with feelings.
Your mind is logical, it works with thoughts.
And when those thoughts and feelings clash, you experience a disconnect between your mind and body.
Consider that you want to do something that scares you. So you work with logical thoughts to overcome the intuitive feeling of dread in your body. You do all the right things; you meditate, you manifest a good outcome, you mentally and physically rehearse. But you also push down those intuitive feelings of dread and nerves.
And when you get to The Day, you expect your logical work to pay off! Except it doesn’t.
Because those feelings you had are still there.
You just pushed them away instead of working with them. So the success you worked so hard for either didn’t happen, or it didn’t happen the way you wanted it to.
And this is why telling yourself, and other people to "just do it" or “just practise more” is so unhelpful! It ignores all the feelings and focuses only on the logic.
Can you see the problem here?
(OK, OK, I’ll get off my soapbox now)
So, how do you build success when your body and mind are disconnected?
Work on connecting your logical mind with your intuitive body.
Sounds simple, right? And yes, it can be simple. But it doesn’t mean it’s easy.
I invite you to do the starting exercise above for a few days - notice where and when your mind and body are disconnected and what you would like to change, if anything. Keep a little journal or some notes on your phone or computer, and see what comes up.
Then move onto Part Two of this series here. It will teach you the basics on how to connect your mind and body, helping to set you up for success.
If you have any questions or if this brought anything up for you, my DM’s are open! Email me here or send me a message on Instagram.
