Time and time again I see many women who are not achieving the success that they want in their careers and businesses because of their own self imposed limitations.
They have the talent, they have the skills, they have the capability, but they're not stepping out and achieving the results that they want because there is something holding them back.
Young women, older women and those in between, women of all races are doing it. Yes, there are still many societal issues as to why there are not more women in the boardroom, despite women making up half of the population.
Yes, women are still the main carers both for children and elderly parents, so these responsibilities may contribute to the cause. But even where these barriers to success don't exist, many women are still not achieving the results that they want because fear and self limiting beliefs are getting in the way and holding them back.
We start the new year full of good intentions
We start the new year full of hopes and dreams of what we want to achieve, setting our goals, determined that this will be the year we say 'yes, I did it!'. But then things may not move as quickly as we would like, or we get a knock back and then we become discouraged and procrastination kicks in. Or, because what we want to achieve takes us in to unknown territory, we stay in our comfort zones, sticking to what we are familiar with. We keep ourselves busy, but we're busy not going anywhere.
Then someone dangles a shiny object before our eyes, promising us a shortcut to what we want to achieve. We drool after it, telling ourselves, it's the answer we need. This is what we've been looking for, so we pursue it, only to find that it doesn't take us any further towards our goals than when we started out at the beginning of the year.
We continue in this vein doing programme after programme and the Internet is rife with online programmes, promising a shortcut to success.
There are no shortcuts to success
But there are no shortcuts to success and those that we see at the top of their game and think they've had an easy ride to success, have had years of toil, working beneath the surface that we may not even be aware of.
Many of the distracting, shiny objects, offer a cookie cutter approach, a one size fits all. So, because they're not tailored to our specific needs, we don't complete them. I would love to know how much money is wasted each year on online programmes that don't get completed.
We chase after them because when they are being sold to us, they give us an initial high. We get hyped up by the promises that are being sold to us that feed in to our emotions about how we feel about our lack of success. We get lit up by the vision of what we can achieve. They speak to our pain and because we are letting our emotions rule the roost, our emotions tell us that this is the answer, the golden ticket that will free us from the pain and give us the peace, security and success that we want.
But that feeling doesn't last. Yet again we start off with enthusiasm but then something happens... and before you know it, the online programme is in a folder on our hard drive, gathering virtual dust.
We've spent our hard earned money and are now £000s, even £0000s out of pocket, but we're still no further along.
If only we weren't so emotionally driven
You see, if only we could learn to not be so emotionally driven, we wouldn't let our feelings dictate our mood and therefore dictate how we function.
If we didn't let our emotions rule us, we'd handle rejection we'd handle the knock backs, picking ourselves back up, dusting ourselves off and trying again.
But we can't stop having emotions. They are there for a reason and they do serve a purpose. But for the many women who aren't getting the results that they want in their careers and businesses, who are giving their emotions too much power, they are letting their emotions take control of their lives, rather than they control their emotions.
So, what's the answer? What is the solution for these women who are letting their unhelpful, negative emotions rob them of their career or business success?
Recognise your emotions for what they are
The answer is to recognise your emotions for what they are. They are a part of you, but they are not you. You are soooooo much more than how you feel. Feelings are temporal and like the wind, they come and go. Here today, gone tomorrow. But if you give too much power to your emotions, you run the danger of letting the unhelpful emotions, steal your success.
You have the power to manage your emotions and to put them in to perspective, to put them where they belong. You can choose to accept how you feel, but not let those feelings take control and take you down the wrong path because you are being emotionally driven.
You are so much more than your emotions so recognise them for what they are and don't let them rob you of your career or business success.
Your emotions have the power to derail you from achieving the success you want and deserve in your career or business, but only if YOU let the negative, unhelpful emotions take control.
Success? It's all down to you.