We’ve got an epidemic on our hands. It’s the waiting game, and it’s running rampant among us.

This week alone I’ve surrounded by people’s really damn good reasons for waiting. But here’s the thing. Every thought and action has an energetic consequence. When we wait in one area, whether we have a really good reason or not, we are telling the Universe we are willing to wait in other areas.

The waiting game always has a root cause – things like fear of being wrong, being pushy, being demanding or bitchy, fear of success, fear of failure, or a desire to manipulate an outcome with our action or lack thereof. (If I call them now, they might now buy later, etc.)

This epidemic is exhausting. Every person I talked to this week who told me they were tired was able to isolate the exhaustion to the energy lost in waiting on someone or something.

Remember our old friend Circumstance Cindy? Waiting for stuff to happen is depleting, and sometimes it’s downright self-abuse.

So we aren’t going analyze the cause today – let’s look at how to make it stop. I’ve captured the action to take to combat the 5 main places I’ve seen people stuck in waiting.

1. Put Your Paycheck on Autopay

Oh my goodness, I’ve done it too. You wait to see how much money you have left at the end of the month and pay yourself what’s left. The problem is that you are letting the Universe know that your needs are negotiable, and you are willing to wait. “Once I get to… then I’ll pay myself.”

Now, I didn’t pay myself early in my business. I was willing to re-invest everything and I would do that over again because my business needed it to grow. What I would do differently is set a firm goal by when paying myself was non-negotiable. When I got to this point I put my paycheck on autopay. I was essentially declaring that money WOULD be there. It changed everything.

2. Call, Don’t Email

When we send requests or inquiries via email, we’re essentially building in 1-2 extra days for whatever outcome we are looking for. And, Truth? The other person may not, and doesn’t have to, respond at all!

It can be challenging if you are working long hours and want to get some extra stuff done in the evening via email. But if you notice yourself playing the waiting game, carve out some focused time and hop on the phone to get the answers you need. The sense of urgency and intention that comes with a phone call in today’s world of email will create results.

3. Fire, Quit, or Get Fired

If it’s not happening, let it go. It may sound harsh, but sometimes we have to stir things up. You’re not a bad person. If it’s not working for you, there is a reason. Let it go. Stop analyzing what you could do differently to make it work. Sure, sometimes we sabotage, and sometimes our unhealthy expectations create issues and we have a hard time discerning it. So what? If you’re in a relationship that’s not working – whether it’s with a client, a team member, a vendor, or a coach, if it’s not working let it go.

This assumes you’ve already had direct conversations about what you want and need. If you have, if you’ve come to the table fully present and real, and the situation has not shifted, you’ve got to move on. Sure, you may find out that you missed something and could have done it differently. But if you can’t see what to do differently RIGHT NOW, you’re simply playing the waiting game.

You might worry that people will judge you and think you are rude or bitchy. They might. You’ll live. You’ll be afraid of the consequence of the closed door. Do it anyway. The new door that opens will create a whole new adventure.

4. Stop Manipulating

One of my favorite quotes is by Vernon Howard. He said “Never suppress yourself in an effort to influence, hold, or win someone. When we are unreal, so are our rewards.”

Often the reason people wait is, at the core, a manipulation technique. They keep their mouth shut and don’t do what they know they need to do because they are afraid that if they do it will negatively impact someone else’s actions or perceptions. Often, they are worried someone – a client, a spouse, a team member – will leave.

Some people will leave. Some people will judge. It’s better than sitting around waiting for them to get comfortable with where you’re going. And, the Truth is, you can’t ever really predict how others will respond. So you might as well take some action and find out!

5. Spend Some Time and Money

One of the biggest things we wait for is to make decisions to invest in the things we know we need or want because we think eventually we’ll just have the extra money sitting around, or an abundance of time to have fun.

For some people, they just need to spend on ANYTHING in order to shift out of the waiting. Buy some new shoes, spend a day in the garden, take someone out to dinner. For most people, they know the things on their list that they are waiting to move on out of fear. Just do it. Often, many small businesses have programs on they would be willing to give you flexible payment plans if you are willing to make an initial deposit. It pays to inquire about options as once you commit with a deposit it moves you from waiting into action.

6. Be supremely willing to be wrong, but act as if you know you are right

Often we wait for confirmation of the rightness of our position, point of view, or plan of action. We want to meditate for clarity. We wait to see if people are going to finally change before we make a decision to change because we’re terrified to be wrong.

Here’s the deal with this. The actual result, or whether you are right or wrong, is of minimal importance as compared to your experience of life in the moment. When you are worried about being wrong and steeped in doubt, it permeates everything. And all we have in life, really, is our experience in the moment. There’s no guarantee about what might happen next, so you might as well make decisions and make yourself right about them. Because it feels so much better to feel right, even if you’re completely missing the boat. Right?

In “Working with the Law” Raymond Holliwell talks about the Law of Receiving.  He talks about giving your substance where it can do most good, and about specific behaviors that would indicate you are out of harmony with the law.

One such behavior is delighting in something that is received for free.  He asks, “Do you look for a deal or a bargain?” and “Does it make you happy when you get something for nothing?”

These thoughts are out of harmony with the belief in the abundance of the Universe, and that you will receive exactly what you need when you need it. It’s operating based on fear.

I’ve seen this recently. I received a free bonus with a program I purchased.  It wasn’t really something I would have bought and paid for on my own and I was a bit uncertain about accepting it because it wasn’t something that was really in alignment with my current set of priorities, even though it was great.

But it was FREE.

And we are trained to be excited about stuff that is free in our culture.

You SHOULD take something free, right?  It’s like a lucky opportunity, right?  When will you ever have the chance again, right?

Or, perhaps it’s out of alignment.  In my case I attempted to talk myself into believing that it was right, and I resisted outright saying, “I don’t want this free thing.”  Energetically that behavior was coming from fear… “maybe I SHOULD take it.”

Rather than just say no, I took it, but without real energetic commitment on my part.  It was a bad idea.  The whole thing became steeped in fear and scarcity based energy, and didn’t work out very well.

Scarcity Thinking is the Root of Fear

Scarcity thinking is the root of all fear-based decisions.  There is not enough to go around, I am not enough if I don’t do this, etc.

I write this article from Juror Lounge 100 at the Denver courthouse.  I’ve been traveling pretty extensively recently, and I could definitely be in a scarcity thought-process around my time, and resenting jury duty.  I’ve chosen to embrace the opportunity to experience a part of our society that I’ve not experienced before.  I’m staying positive and looking for what’s right about the fact I was selected for this part of the process (and powerfully intending on not spending much more time here!)

Many people have offered me ideas for ways to get out of jury duty and talked about how ‘it’s not fair’ and because I’m self-employed I shouldn’t have to go.

Where is that coming from?  Is there a belief that self-employed people have a scarcity of time and money and should be pitied over their J-O-B-holding counterparts?  Why would I want to buy into that idea?

Taking something free because it’s free is rooted in fear and scarcity as well, and fear begets fear.

Regret is a Form of Scarcity

We could say that I might regret my decision not to say “no” to the free thing.  In Truth I took it because I didn’t want to regret not taking the opportunity.  The definition of regret is:  feeling sorrow or remorse for an act, to think of with a sense of loss.

Why would we worry about the loss of something in the past?  Because we don’t believe that there is an abundance of opportunity in the future.  The moment we notice ourselves entertaining thoughts of regret, we must catch it and stop it in the act.  Instead, ask yourself, “Of what am I now aware that will help me to make a different decision in the future?”  Own the new awareness and release the regret, it never serves you.

Make a Decision and Make it Right

Early on in my business I invested $15,000 in a coaching program.  The program was a group program that did not include individual attention.  I felt crazy for making the investment.  I’d never done anything like that in the past, and I wasn’t making anywhere near that in my business, so I was somewhat terrified.

But my gut told me it was the thing I needed to do (I couldn’t sleep the night before making the decision).  And I went for it.  And I never for an instant looked back.

OK, maybe for an instant or two I would think, “Shit, can I really make this money back?”  Then I would let it go.  Immediately.

Any time I was with others in the program who began talking about how they weren’t getting what they needed, I either declared that I was or I walked away.  I refused to buy into any conversations about regret about the decision, or not honoring my commitment to be all-in.

The people who talked about the problems with the program, who focused on regret… many of them didn’t complete the program because they didn’t make the money, and some are not in business today.

I made the decision and made it right – with no doubt that I’d make the money back.

What if You Go Out of Resonance?

What happens if you made a decision to participate in something, and you either evolve and grow and it no longer resonates for you?  Or, if you recognize you made a decision out of fear and scarcity, and you can’t align with it?

Pay for it anyway.

If you are in business and you have signed a contract, honor the contract.  Period.  It is not a sound business practice to not honor your agreements.  Just do it.

I have participated in a program in which I paid for the entire program, and only took advantage of part of the program.  I could get my undies in a bunch about how I didn’t get the full value from the program, or force myself to do all parts of it even though they aren’t parts that are aligned for me.  But the Truth is I got exactly what I needed from the program.  I made the decision and made it right, and participated powerfully on my terms, and the terms of the contract I signed, with no regret.

If you are the type of person who views contracts and agreements (or jury duty) as things to get out of, that is the energy you will bring to your business and your clients.

Love making your payments, be empowered by your decisions to make and spend money, and don’t spend time spinning in doubt and regret.  All that says is that you don’t think your time is better spent being of service and making more money, and I don’t think you want to believe that!

It’s a story I can’t stop going back to.

I call it my 10 years in the self-help aisle.

I was aware of this thing called coaching, and I was pretty sure it had something to do with what I was meant to do with my life.

And I would get moments of divine inspiration about how I could put my gifts to work in a business.

And I would tell the people around me, and they would wrinkle their nose or give me one ‘solid’ reason or question that suggested I was wrong and I would quit.

And this pattern went on for a good 10 years.

So lets talk Truth. Were the people in my life hell bent on keeping me stuck? No. And yes.

See I now know that who I was being during those years was someone who was secretly saying with my energy, “someone please stop me from this madness because I’m really afraid I might fail.” This is true, even though what I was actually saying was, “Don’t you think this is exciting? Come on, agree with me!”

Love and Support

I titled this, “He Loves Me, He Supports Me Not,” and ‘he’ can just as easily be interchanged with ‘she’ as we’ve all got friends, family members or significant others in our lives that just don’t get this whole entrepreneurship thing.

It’s time to get really real on the dynamic of love and support around you. This is arguably THE hardest thing that an independent business owner faces. It’s making the decision about who is going to be in your life, and what you require in order to keep them in your life.

Do they have to support you and your dreams, or is it OK if they just love you ‘in spite of’ your dreams? This is a personal decision that each person needs to make, but let’s explore each side here.

What is Love?

The first thing to ask yourself is what it really means to love someone. A common definition of love is as follows:

Love (n): a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.

My favorite definition of love is simply, “accepting another exactly as they are and exactly as they are not.”

Here’s the thing about my definition of love. You don’t have to be in someone’s life to love them by this definition. They may have behaviors and thought patterns that simply don’t work for you, even though you can accept that they are true for them. But you don’t have to be around them.

When someone in your life tells you they love you (even if they don’t seem to support you), the thing to ask yourself is, “Do they really accept me exactly as I am, or are they secretly hoping I’ll change?”

Oh, and by the way, ask yourself the same thing about THEM!

What is support?

I recently created a list of 10 Lies We Tell Ourselves in Business, one of which is “I need the people in my life to understand and support me in order to succeed.”

So I looked at the definition of support.

Support (v): to bear or hold up; to sustain or withstand to undergo or
endure, especially with patience or submission; tolerate.

Now, do we really want the people in our life to support us by this definition!? Ha! We want the person we love to endure and tolerate us? Really?

What do you really want?

It’s worth stopping to ask yourself, when it comes to the relationships in your life, what do you really want? If you can stop focusing on needing other people to support you, you can give them the freedom to give you what you really want. And, you can give yourself the freedom to choose what you really want as well.

Most likely, if you’re a “my people” type of person, you’re not looking for someone to support, or tolerate, you. You want to surround yourself with people who love you. In the definition that says they accept you exactly as you are and exactly as you’re not. Even when you grow. Even when you have ideas that seem like hair-brained schemes from their point of view.

How do the people in your environment respond to you when your intuition, or personal Truth, gives you signals about what to do, and they just don’t get it? Do they accept it as what you need to do, or do they question you and suggest you might be wrong?

But, what if you’re right?

If the people in your life don’t believe you when you are stepping out in alignment with your Truth, what is really going on? What are they really saying when they ask you, “What if you’re wrong?”

We like to justify their responses by saying, “Well, they just love me and want what’s best for me and they are helping me to think it through.” I know I’ve said that. But what if the Truth is that they are really meaning, “It makes me uncomfortable when you change, and I’m afraid of what would happen if you are right, so I’d rather have you doubt yourself and stay the same than believe yourself and actually grow.”

People who question and doubt your decisions, they aren’t concerned about you. And in that moment they certainly aren’t loving you. They simply don’t want to be inconvenienced by the outcome that happens on the other side of your decision when you are right. They are saying “What if you’re wrong?” but they really mean, “I sure hope you aren’t right!”

Who gets on your bus?

I teach in my programs that when you invite a client to work with you, you are letting them “on your bus,” and that you want to be really clear about who you invite on your bus. The same is true with the people in your life. There is no right formula for determining what is really going on. Are you are busy pointing fingers at the people in your life so you don’t have to grow? Or are in a place that you’re ready to move away from the people in your life so you can attract a loving environment?

It’s different for everybody based on your own personal subconscious programming and degree of growth and awareness. The one thing I can say for certain is that you are teaching people how to treat you, and the surest way to retrain your environment is to begin honoring your Truth without fail every time, being completely willing to accept the outcome of your actions and decisions. Stop looking for and waiting for support and start living in love, and watch what happens!

I first heard the phrase “CYA” or “Cover Your Ass” in my corporate marketing job at the company that strongly propelled me out of corporate.    The CYA mentality is alive and well, and it’s the opposite of the Truth about which I like to speak.  I’ve seen this magnified this week.

I’m a sponsor at an upcoming event and I’m super excited about my booth strategy.  I’ve got a beautiful raffle prize and some cool giveaways that speak to the heart of my message.  I am psyched.

I’m also a little pissed off.

The logistical challenge of a large conference is astounding.  Being one booth in a sea of many means a variety of specific deadlines on submitting topics, strategies, and materials.

And for the last several weeks it’s meant selecting suppliers, ordering items, and coordinating shipments.

Now, most of you likely aren’t doing a lot of production and shipping in your businesses, but the physical world is a great demonstration of how Truth or Untruth gets magnified in the world to create bigger gaps than we might imagine.

Let me tell you what I’m talking about.

We ordered several booth items to be delivered to the company coordinating the event.  There are two very specific delivery windows, and each requires a different address, and has different fees associated with the receipt of shipments.  The later shipments must go to the site directly, and incur an additional handling fee.

In our ordering process, it was important for us to get clear about the turnaround time of our orders so we could provide the proper address and be sure to hit the delivery window.

One shipment was for a custom printed item, and they asked for a 7-business-day turnaround after final art, plus 5 days for shipping.  That’s 13 days plus the weekends, which brought us to a rush-order with our designer in order to meet the deadline.

Two days after submitting our artwork, we received notice that the items had printed and shipped significantly ahead of schedule.

Our second order did not require printing, but was still billed as custom as they were unable to guarantee that the item would be in stock, and it would take 4 weeks to deliver.  I was scheduled to be on a plane to the event in 4 weeks and a day, which was past the delivery deadline, so I chose to have the item shipped to me directly with a plan to carry it on the plane as checked luggage.

The item arrived on my doorstep in ten days.  Turns out it would have had plenty of time to be shipped directly to the coordinator as an early shipment.  In fact I had time to ship it there myself.

Now, we might think this is great!  Everything is early!

But there’s a cost to padding timelines and not being Truthful.  Both of these instances cost me – a rush order with my designer, and $220 to REsend the shipment.

What if they had just said this?

“Well, we have no real system to monitor our production schedule, we don’t trust our people do what they say, and we can’t tell when it will all come together for you, so your guess is as good as mine about when it will actually arrive, but worst case will be four weeks.”

Now, this sounds crazy, right?  But here’s the thing, at least this truthful.  Now I know what I’m dealing with and I can make decisions accordingly.  I can find a different supplier that seems more organized, or I go with it and at least I won’t be surprised when it shows up early, costs me an hour of my day to reship, and incurs additional fees on my end.

It’s not just one supplier, this stuff is everywhere…  systematic deceit…  adding in extra days so we don’t disappoint, setting shipping deadlines early to account for the stragglers who fall behind, you name it.  

Where there is lack of Truth there is uncertainty.  Any time we aren’t 100% accurate about WHAT IS, we are introducing uncertainty, and these little uncertainties add up to big gaps in timing in the physical world.

How does this affect your energy in your business?

Think about your words and thoughts as your version of a printing and shipping timeline.  Every time you exaggerate a statement, or hold back and sandbag so you don’t put your butt on the line and risk disappointing people, it’s like you’ve created a gap in your delivery. Being afraid to state the result you will deliver is affecting you and your clients’ decision-making ability.

It may not show up as a package arriving 2 weeks early, but it will, however, show up in that subtle feeling that something is off, that you’re not OK, that you’re out of integrity.

The Truth About WHAT’S SO

When you are 100% truthful with yourself no matter what, you can communicate in a way that best represents you, and will ultimately serve your customer.  You’ll resist the urge to try to assume you know what’s best for your customer, and you can instead have a real conversation about WHAT’S SO.

These companies assumed I’d rather have things arrive early, and that erring on the side of underestimating and over-delivering would make me happy.  But it made me make entirely different decisions than I would have had they been honest.

This applies with the idea of “sell them what they want, give them what they need” that is so popular in marketing.  If I feel as if I know what you really need (and often I do with respect to my line of work), but I don’t check in to see that you’re willing to go there too, I’ve set us both up for disappointment.

Where are the little lies you, or those around you, tell to ‘pad’ against the Truth causing disappointment in the end?  This is more of a discussion than an answer.  I’d love for you to you share your Truth!

By Karen Fagan of Feel Amazing Now

Hands up to all you rebels! I used to be the world’s biggest rebel and now I am a refined rebel.

Simply put, a refined rebel is a powerful woman who only rebels to fully expand her life, relationships, business, sensuality, well-being, wealth, etc. She rebels in a way that completely enhances every morsel of her life. Rather than rebel; rebel in such a way that hurts her life, keeping her exactly where she doesn’t want to be as in broke, struggle, overwhelm, overweight and unhappy.

The moment I created the transformation from a rebel to a refined rebel is the exact process that upleveled my entire life and business. It’s the exact reason why I am in love with my life and run a multiple six-figure company. Lori, I want you to have anything you desire so read and apply this rule a okay?

I used to say, screw the rules (all of them).

Especially if I didn’t “feel like it”. You know just not feeling like it. I don’t feel like doing (fill in the blank).

I would procrastinate.

Tell myself that certain things didn’t apply to me.

My mindset and who I was being definitely needed to be refined. How I was behaving was not aligned with how people behave who had what I desired.

Then one day I woke up and realized my inner rebel was causing less than desirable results. I noticed the following:

• I’d take way too long to get things done.
• Not getting things done made me wonder if I really had what it took to do what I desired most.
• I’d sit there and know what I needed to do to advance my life and business but I didn’t.
• I needed a coach but resisted someone telling me what to do.
• I would get caught up in the “how” which only paralyzed me. It was my excuse to not take action and go do something else – usually that something else didn’t move me any closer to my goals.
• I was not productive.
• I was resistant.
• I was afraid.
• I was not happy.
• I would procrastinate, get distracted, and do the things my inner rebel told me to do.
• I was broke.
• I was struggling.
• I ate too much sugar.
• I was miserable.
• I realized my inner rebel was not working for me. Honestly, my inner rebel was screwing me over and keeping me exactly where I didn’t want to be.

I wondered what it was going to take to turn things completely around.

That was the moment I refined my inner rebel. I got honest that something needed to change. Then I created one powerful rule that when applied will shift everything for you.

Funny, a rebel creating a rule, right?

This rule is called the 7-Minute Rule: It’s so simple and so profound. It’s the one rule that channeled all my rebel energy into really positive, juicy, successful and productive energy.

How to apply the 7-Minute Rule to Your Life:

When you are faced with something to do, that by doing this will advance your life, well being, business etc. forward than all of sudden you find yourself not doing it! You perhaps may have overwhelming feelings and you start to doubt yourself, tell yourself you can’t do it, question your abilities to make it happen, find yourself feeling like you don’t want to do it, feel too tired, or unsure. Especially use this rule if you hear yourself say “I think…I will do this tomorrow”. Tomorrow never happens, trust me on this one!

Here’s how it works. You give yourself permission to do the task for only seven minutes. If after seven minutes you still don’t want to do it, you stop. It may look like this:

You want to exercise but don’t feel like it. You put your exercise clothes on and head out to the yoga class or gym, walk or run and if after seven minutes once you start exercising you don’t want to or still don’t feel like it you stop and you freely give yourself permission to stop. It won’t happen – mark my words, you will keep going.

In seven minutes you can warm up to anything. Trust me on this one.

If you know making sales calls to prospective clients or making calls to get booked speaking gigs will be the exact thing to accelerate your income but you just don’t like it or feel like it or you don’t know what to say or who to call. Apply the seven-minute rule ~ just start calling. Same for exercise just start moving your body. Just start.

Here is the magic of this rule. The transformation always happens in the decision. The decision of applying the seven minute rule to your life takes you out of the not doing. Once you start doing, mark my words you won’t stop. Why? Because inside you are truly doing what you want to do! Nothing feels more amazing than actually doing all the things we say we want to do! Yes, if you want to be in great shape, increase your sales, up your speaking. etc. The only struggle is deciding not to start and listening to the monkey mind or allowing yourself to turn your back on the exact thing you said you wanted. If you just allow yourself seven minutes then all that will be a non-issue.

Negative emotions are a clue. The best way to make a shift from feeling any negative emotion such as frustrated, crappy, overwhelmed, or doubtful is to apply the seven-minute rule and just start. You are one decision away from shifting into the unstoppable, positive energy flowing and getting a whole lot done!

Apply the seven minute rule that will rock your world!