This writing will be the first in a series of posts that deal with negative self-talk and how it can kill the business of a heart-based entrepreneur.  We’ll work our way toward a simple yet powerful exercise you can do in the privacy of your office—an exercise that will help you expose how your mind has been working against your vision of a highly successful business.  In later posts I’ll also include suggestions for some simple, powerful steps you’ll need to take to transform how you speak to yourself.

Post 1:  Your Heart.  First of all, when you have a heart-based business, it implies that you are doing something you love.  Love is an energy, a thought, a concept, a feeling, and the basis from which your actions spring:  love needs expansion, not constriction.  If you speak in unloving ways to yourself about your business, about the possibility of achieving great success in it, you are canceling out the very thing that moved you to establish your business in the first place—your heart’s love of what you do.  This, of course, is counter-productive and makes no sense.

You and I have approximately 60,000-65,000 thoughts per day.  Now let’s imagine that the majority of your thoughts create feelings of discouragement, depression, doubt, and hopelessness about your business.  Since “thoughts become things,” look at all the ‘thought-things’ you may have created in just one day.  If you’re saying, “There are so many other entrepreneurs in this field—how will there possibly be room for me?”,  how does it make you feel?  Just reading this makes me feel somewhat down.  How about you?  If you’re saying to yourself, “I’m working really hard on my business, but I don’t think it will ever pay off,” what have you just created for yourself?  Check out your heart.  How is it feeling after you read that self-talk sentence?  If you say, “I have lots of drive but I can’t compete with the big guys/gals,” you can be sure that you won’t.  You’ll have dashed the heart enthusiasm you have for the very thing you love by futuristically competing with “the big guys/gals,” which you don’t need to do in the first place.  You need to compete with only one person:  you.  That kind of ‘competition’ needs to simply be striving more  or differently today than you did yesterday to fulfill your heart’s vision of your beloved business.  The love for what you do needs to remain constant; your activities will shift as you fulfill each step of your business plan and as your creativity moves you in various directions.

I guarantee one thing:  what you say to yourself—your self-talk—will greatly impact your present and future business realities, and it will determine how you feel emotionally and energetically every day of your life.  If you hear an inner voice in you saying, “I just love what I do!” when you start your day, imagine the spring you’ll have in your step as you move toward your office.  If you prepare to meet your clients with a good-hearted attitude that sounds something like, “I am so eager to serve my clients today,” or “I want them to walk away knowing that we both care about them getting enormous benefit from their contact with me,” then it will likely happen.  Read those two sentences/intentions again, please, and notice what you feel in your heart.  “I am so grateful to be serving others who eagerly want my products and services…” comes from an inner voice that deepens the language of the heart.  That’s where gratitude lies and lives.

So, now that you know you need to transform your self-talk, what will you say right now that serves your heart and your highest good?  You could even build your statement into your morning meditation with something like, “May my heart-based business flourish and serve us all today.”  If you happen to use the basic Loving-Kindness Meditation that goes something like, “May I be safe, may I be happy, may I be healthy, may I live with ease,” you can also create a Loving-Kindness Meditation for your business and the clients/customers you serve:  “May I serve wisely, may my heart remain loving,” “may my business bring great benefit to each,” “may we all prosper with integrity.”  Or something like this.  Your words will fit you best—better than mine—especially if you speak directly from your heart.

Hold fast to your heart.  Take time each day to stop and ponder what your heart wants for you, your business, your clients and customers.   Say loving, encouraging things to yourself (and to others)—statements that are genuine, positive and uplifting.  Negating your heart needs to happen no more; loving what you love and building your heart-based business from that spot upon which you stand will serve you very well.  Now, what would you like to say to yourself right now?  Make sure it’s constructive self-talk that motivates, inspires, and moves you to action.