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I just had one of the most awkward, but transformational weeks of my life – I chose to work with the spiritual teacher Teal Swan at an intimate event in Utah because I knew she would challenge me.
It was exactly what I needed to experience. Even though I want to evolve and grow I initially found it awkward – but then everything came together.
There were a number of things I didn’t want to admit, but by admitting my truth I can serve you.
Needs
I thought I knew myself well, but I wasn’t aware my biggest need was to feel wanted. I knew events from my childhood lead me to feel like this, but I wasn’t aware of how my need to feel wanted was a huge need of mine and how that had made such an impact on my life.
Have you ever stopped to think about what is your biggest need is?
Self-Sabotaging
When you’re interacting with people in personal development and transformation, as a coach or a mentor, you want to find things out so you can help them.
This comes with good intention, but it can also cause problems. If you treat all your relationships with people like you want to fix them you end up sabotaging your relationships.
I wasn’t aware that as I was trying to fix people I was pushing them away.
I had the unconscious need to feel wanted; my safety net was being a coach to everybody because I thought if I could help, save, or teach someone something, they would see me as a worthy person.
It was a huge issue for me to want to help and serve everyone I came into contact with – I’m going to continue to devote myself to serve my clients and help people, but I’m also going to live my life, be myself, and truly connect with people.
Self-Expression
I’m calm and confident in many different situations but I noticed how I suppress my emotions too.
I’ve evolved from someone who used to unconsciously react in personal relationships by throwing toys out of the pram to suppressing my anger and saying nothing.
I stopped expressing how I was really feeling because I didn’t want to upset the person I was with and I didn’t want to make them feel bad especially if they were going through a challenging time. By keeping my emotions to myself I wasn’t aware that I was suppressing feelings that I could have expressed in a healthy way.
I learned the person I was showing on the outside wasn’t what I was experiencing within – I was disconnected, wearing a poker face that people couldn’t read.
I’m now able to match what I’m feeling with what I express on the outside. Instead of holding my feelings in, I want people to see my sadness, anger, or joy.
Are you positioning yourself in a certain way that pushes people away from you? If there’s a disconnection you need to start to express who you are and what you are feeling so people can experience the real you.
Asking What Someone Needs
Do you need to take ownership of your leadership? With leadership, partnerships, and especially in my intimate relationships, I felt the need to ask what someone needed so I could meet their expectations, instead of messing things up.
Someone’s needs and desires are really important – asking a person what they need, are feeling or what they want are all appropriate questions unless you’re in a situation where the other person needs you to lead them.
I had a fear of rejection and of screwing things up.
When I asked what someone needed I felt it enabled me to meet their needs because I wanted to get everything right. I didn’t want to mess up because getting things wrong triggered past events – if I got something wrong I thought there would be rejection or consequences.
Now I’m aware I can take control, I can lead powerfully with love, and be okay with screwing things up sometimes.
Being Passive
I’m a great leader in my business, but I also see areas where I’ve lead in a passive manner.
When you run a business, you have to take action, but there will be areas you’re more passive in; you’ll easily take action in one area, but other things won’t come so easily so you naturally become passive with them.
Think about the areas you need to take control of and grab the bull by the horns and lead to move things forward – maybe there’s an area of your marketing you struggle with, or there’s an employee you know needs direction from you, but you keep putting things off.
Lead from a place of authentic power, take ownership, and don’t focus on anything that might go wrong. Focus on winning, succeeding, and leading with power.
Self-awareness is the key to everything so it’s important to have things about yourself brought to your attention. Honesty from your friends, mentors, and coaches can be uncomfortable interactions that you may not want to face up to but your biggest shifts come from the things you find difficult.
If it was easy and it felt good, everyone would be evolving and growing a successful company. For you to get the growth you desire, you must go to the uncomfortable places within you.
You have to go deep. Sometimes you will want to bail, but when you stay to push through you will experience your transformation.
To listen to the full episode on iTunes click here
If you’re a CEO / entrepreneur and you want to develop strong emotional intelligence you can apply for my 6 week 1-1 intensive here or check out the Super High Performance Formula.
