Here is a second story: As a stay at home mom when our kids were little I went to a corporate event with my husband. There was a draw that you entered with your business card. I didn’t have one. I couldn’t enter the draw. I told my Mom the story in one of those feeling worthless drained Mom moments. She made me business cards with the credentials M.U.M Masters Underage Management

We all have a mental picture of what it means to be successful in this world. Mine apparently has business cards and power heels in it.

This wellness career path we have chosen to walk is not mainstream. These skills are not accredited the way my university degree is.  Insurance policies don’t acknowledge what I do the way they would a massage therapist, and to many, it may look like I just have a hobby job.

But this job is so much more than a hobby, I honour my deepest passions and rise to my role as a positive change maker in the lives of those I work with. We grow together.

This world needs more of us. This path chose us, knowing that we are ready to trust in deeper things. We are ready to nurture and trust intuition, slow down enough to listen to it and make every effort to live embodied in our mind, body, and soul. The rewards could not be greater.

Understanding that I have an old definition of success, and uncovering a new access point to my inner wisdom with my practice. I come to a place where I need to reconcile the gap between the two. Here are my 6 things that really word when it comes to dropping limiting beliefs and stepping up:

1. Tune into your innate qualities that create ease and flow. Be aware of any tendency to undervalue those skills merely because they come easily and naturally.
2. Take a few personality assessments. There are my favourites:

• 16 Personalities
• Human Metrics
• DISC
• Enneagram
• Myers Briggs
• Wealth Dynamics
• How to Fascinate
• Gallup Strengths Finder

3. Dig deep into the results. Focus on your strengths and take note of the positive words and phrases used to describe you.
4. Look at how you are already delivering your contributions. What is working well? Where are you being pulled to work more? What direction are you being nudged in?
5. Create a Vision Board using your success words.  Do some Word Art on your computer, or write a new resume. Put it somewhere it will provide daily inspiration
6. Go back to 3, use relevant words to rewrite the Titles and Descriptions of your contributions – from individual yoga classes to your Yoga Health Coaching Program. Get clear on what it is you offer and think carefully about the words you use to describe it and yourself?.  The effect is magnetic.

Of course, (I grin as I write this), if all of this seems a little alien, how about going old school?  Find a beautiful representation of the Solar Plexus Chakra, and meditate on it. Access your personal power the old-fashioned Yogi way.

I promise you will feel the shift.

While you are at it, create an amazing job title and order new business cards. Then, put on your most amazing high heels and walk around for a little while.

Please share your new definition, one that acknowledges the success already present, because there is power in this posse. If we each bring our unique individual qualities to the world, we will affect change individually and collectively, in a bigger way than we ever dreamed.

I’ve run the experiment.

The results: Trying to launch my wellness career alone sucks! In business, going at it solo is a dead-end path.You’re a wellness leader. You care about helping others. Are you having the impact you desire? If so, great, forge ahead. If you want to enjoy exponential growth, read on. You’ll see why going at it alone is a fixed, dead-end approach and be inspired to transform your mindset and nurture your potential in a dynamic group of growth-minded wellness leaders. 

The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.

– Lau Tzu.

While growth is one of my highest values, I have a tremendous fear of failure. I don’t want to expose myself in the early stages of development. I don’t have enough information yet. I can’t possibly have an impact if I’m not an expert. People will see me as a fraud. Instead of asking others to support my growth, I contract, isolate, and drown my desires in fear. I shut down the growth path from the get go. Sound familiar? What I realize now is that although I value growth, my mindset around growth has been fixed. There was only one way to grow and it was on my own. After all isn’t that what solopreneur means?

Which Mindset are you operating from?

“Your mindset is the view you adopt about yourself.” Psychologist Carol Dweck’s book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success cracked open my mind about how I had been viewing myself as I contemplated my dreams. 

Your mindset profoundly affects the way you lead your life. It can determine whether you become the person you want to be and whether you accomplish the things you value.

– Carol Dweck.

Dweck describes 2 mindsets fixed and growth: “The fixed mindset makes you concerned with how you’ll be judged; the growth mindset makes you concerned with improving.” I was approaching my business dreams armored with fear of judgement and failure.

According to Dweck, we can have different mindsets about different parts of ourselves. You may have a growth mindset when it comes to your intelligence, believing that your intelligence is malleable, while you may believe your personality traits are fixed. My stubborn, “I’ll do it alone” approach is a fixed mindset that I’ve clung to for too long.

Isolation is a self-sabotaging behavior that feels like a contraction around the heart. Growth is not possible in a contracted, isolated state. Not only was my fixed mindset closing off my heart, my head hurt. Trying to build a website, blog, learn about marketing, do my own accounting, were all foreign to me. I may have looked at a few websites trying to figure out how to assemble these pieces on my own. But did I ask for help? Heck no!

Is fear of failure holding you back?

I didn’t want to risk being judged. I would see feedback as criticism rather than support. Intolerance to criticism, mistakes and setbacks is classic fixed mindset according to Dweck. In my contracted state, I couldn’t see that the work I desired to do, pursuing my passion, required a group. Late in 2016, my mind cracked open. I couldn’t take the mind-numbing pain any longer. One day after many years of following Cate Stillman on Yoga Healer podcasts and blogs, I decided….ENOUGH! I reached out. I was ready to admit I needed help. I became a member of the Yoga Health Coaching community. Joining the YHC community has been the smartest decision I’ve ever made. Why did I wait so long? Before joining the Yoga Health Coaching community, I had a fixed mindset about growth. I was going to grow my business on my own. I was going to do it my way. I didn’t want to seek out help for fear of failure and judgement. I needed to shift my mindset. If I wanted to inspire others to grow, I needed to adopt a growth mindset. And I needed a community to shift my mindset from my isolated fixed way of doing things to a dynamic, growth-oriented approach. 

This growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts, your strategies, and help from others.

– Carol Dweck.

The last part of that quote is life enhancing…help from others.

Our community has a growth mindset.

How do we support a growth mindset? We have rules. No, these rules aren’t about right and wrong. The Ground Rules for Dynamic Groups of Yoga Health Coaching are about cultivating our unique abilities to inspire growth through dynamic group engagement. The intro to our “rules” reads: All members of your dynamic group are on a growth path and their pace on this path accelerates in an engaging and supportive environment. As each member “pays forward” their attention and commitment to the group, the group gives back exponential value to each member. Higher levels of growth and development only happen when we surrender to and commit within a dynamic group and stop trying to evolve alone. BAM! That’s a growth mindset! Together we Engage our Edges and Nurture Identity Evolution and we Reach Out When We Tweak Out (3 of my favorite rules). We connect through private Facebook forums, weekly coaching calls, mentorship, bi-annual retreats, mastermind groups and more. “Why look for friends or partners who will just shore up your self-esteem instead of ones who will also challenge you to grow? People in a growth mindset don’t just seek challenge, they thrive on it. The bigger the challenge, the more they stretch.”, Carol Dweck. So again, I ask you: Are you having the impact you desire? If not you may want to check your fixed mindset at the door and try on something new…a growth mindset. Stop wandering aimlessly. You can change your mindset and it’s much more adaptable in community. Nurture your passion in community. You need a community to thrive. Welcome to our Tribe! Open arms, hearts and minds await you. Check out Yoga Health Coaching and accelerate your growth. “

We have all known the long loneliness, and we have found that the answer is community.

– Dorothy Day