“It’s important for people to look back before they’re able to move forward.”–Karen McCall

Karen McCall has a special place in my heart. She was the first one to tell me I was an underearner. And it really pissed me off!

“I am not,” I said defiantly. “I’m a writer!”

Talk about chutzpah!  Here was the leading pioneer in the field of financial recovery. And I’m arguing with her?

Of course, she saw right through my defenses and gently guided me to the truth.

I can honestly say Karen changed my life…in ways I couldn’t even have predicted at the time!!!

She stopped seeing clients years ago to focus on training Financial Recovery Coaches.

Now there’s BIG NEWS!

Jedi Master McCall (one of her students used this phrase, in an email to me, to describe Karen) is offering a special 3 month program…Financial Recovery Foundational Training…for anyone.

Yes, it’s a prerequisite for the Certification Core Training.

And it’s also ideal for professionals to augment their financial coaching skills.

But, for the first time…and here’s why I’m so excited…this training is open to ANYONE (you, maybe?) who wants to transform their relationship to money.

This is an amazing program. There is nothing like it anywhere that I know. It’s truly transformational! Karen, herself, will be teaching. And the sessions are on the phone.

You will be matched with a personal mentor, led through  your own money history, uncovering limiting beliefs, and given a tool box of “Financial Recovery’s underlying methodology.”

In other words, if you’re really serious about healing your relationship with money, this class was tailor-made for you!!! To learn more: www.financialrecovery.com.

This course will rock your world. Are you ready?

I have a hunch many of you do the same.  And believe me, self depreciation is a subtle but serious form of self sabotage.

I’d like to share what I did to stop. It wasn’t easy. I’m far from perfect. But success is so much easier since I curtailed my self-criticism and began acknowledging my value.

Here’s my 3-point plan to Stop Self Criticism—Observe; Brag; Find Spotters.

1. I started by observing my conversations. Every time I heard me belittling myself, I stopped. Literally stopped, mid-sentence, and force myself to say something positive…even if it was just ‘thank you.’
2. I started bragging (thanks to Mama Gena’s School of Womanly Arts). I mean, I actually prefaced sentences with “I brag…” and then tooted my own horn.
3. I shared my goal with a few close friends, asking  them to spot me by pointing out my more subtle put-downs. They had no trouble catching me in the act.  Their feedback was quite effective.

Admittedly, these steps, at first, felt ridiculously uncomfortable, completely awkward. But gradually, I began to notice something.  My self-derision all but disappeared. And I felt much better about myself.

I’m here to say, I swear it’s true–what you share, you definitely strengthen. Please leave a comment below on how these steps support you in achieving greatness.

“What you share you strengthen.”

~A Course In Miracles

In the spirit of the above quote, ask yourself this question: Could I be undermining my success by what I’m sharing with others?

Years ago, a  coach gave me a powerful assignment.  For 2 weeks, I was to simply observe my conversations, without changing a thing. Just notice what I talked about, the words I used, my typical reactions…you know, the stuff I was sharing with others.

What I saw was not pretty.

I had a habit of putting myself down…without even realizing it. I’d constantly dismiss my skills (“Oh, that’s no big thing”), deflect praise (“I thought I was awful”), and diminish my successes (“But I could’ve done so much better”).

What felt, to me, like humility, was in truth, a form of self sabotage. Every word of self depreciation put another dent in my self esteem.   I was strengthening my sself-doubt…while destroying my self-confidence.  No wonder I was struggling.

Are you doing something similar? Minimizing your achievements or underestimating your  value?

I invite you to find out. Spend a few weeks simply watching what you talk about.  Then write a comment below on what you observed.

In  my next blog, I’ll share with you the things I did that made a huge difference.

Leaving a Legacy is how you achieve Greatness. It goes right to the core of why you’re here and the mark you wish to make on the world you leave behind.

Some of you know exactly what it is. Mine, of course, is that there are a lot more financially empowered women running this country as a result of my work. And a lot fewer abused women who can’t afford to leave their abuser.

But many of you may be scratching your heads, wondering, ‘huh, what’s mine?’

Your legacy doesn’t need to light up the sky. It could be the tiniest footprint in the sand. All that matters: your legacy reflects your purpose fulfilled.

Need help? Try this exercise.

Imagine that it’s far in the future. You are lying on your deathbed. You’ve lead a long and meaningful life, but it’s now drawing to a close. As you lie there, you begin to review your past. What gave you the most satisfaction, outside of your family, to know this is what you’ll be remembered for? It need not be limited to one thing, either.

Once you pinpoint what it is, come back to this moment. Then ask yourself: What can I do right now that will contribute to the legacy I wish to leave?

Please share below by leaving a comment…I can’t wait to hear your insights.

In review, Sacred Success unfolds in 4 Stages:

1. Stage #1: responding to the Call to Greatness
2. Stage #2: receiving consciously, surrendering to what is
3. Stage #3: pursuing your highest purpose by exercising disciple.

We’re now at the 4^th and final stage: leaving a legacy by modeling Greatness.

The truth is, we are always modeling something: either Greatness or Mediocrity (often disguised as Grandiosity).

Most people, as you can guess, are modeling Mediocrity. Why? Because it’s easy. All you have to do is stay in your comfort zone.    But to  model Greatness, you must  recognize your value, live your Purpose , leap into the unknown, let your light shine, and  leave your mark on the world.

This 4^th stage is where Real Power lies. I believe when enough Enlightened Women, (along with enlightened Men) come together to model Greatness, our collective legacies will change the world, heal this planet. It all starts with each one of us.

Have you thought about the legacy you wish to leave?

Need help? I’ll share some tips in my next blog.

Until then leave a comment below about which stage in Sacred Success you are navigating right now.

I haven’t blogged in awhile.   And I’ve got a good reason—I’ve been really busy. I mean, I was preparing for my first Sacred Success Retreat.  I had house guests visiting. I flew to California for my grandson’s 6th birthday.  Yada, yada, yada…..

But you wanna know the real truth? I went oblivious to what I’d been blogging about—DISCIPLINE. I wasn’t making myself do what I needed to do, when I needed to do it….because I bought into my excuses. I actually believed them!!

Excuses are to discipline what cheating is to diets…a sure fire way to undermine your success by letting yourself off the hook.

And we all do it. We make a commitment. Stuff comes up. We get side tracked. It comes with the territory. Discipline isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being persistent.

As of today, I’m making it official. I’m getting back on the Discipline Train. And I’m inviting any of you who’ve fallen off (you know who you are!) to join me.

What that means to me is that I’m back to writing regular blogs. I’d love to hear what it means for you.

In my case, I just felt ‘blah’, squeezed dry, devoid of creativity, lacking the passion that once was so prominent.  These feelings sort of snuck up on me, caught me by surprise, sometime last summer.

My coach, Martha Lynn Walker, suggested I take a retreat, get a way for a few days. I did and blogged about it earlier –  http://barbarastannyblog.com/2009/12/16/it%E2%80%99s-a-miracle/

I returned reinvigorated, back in the groove. Or so I thought. A few months later, my business partner and I split up. At that point, I really felt lost.

I knew, right then, my “blahs” and the break-up were more than isolated incidences. They were wake up calls, signals from my soul, sending me an urgent message: Stop what you’re doing; Pay attention; there’s something you need to know, but you must be quiet enough to hear it.

I wonder how many of you are receiving similar messages, alerting you to the fact  you’ve somehow drifted  off purpose or  perhaps your direction may be morphing into something altogether different. I wonder how many of you haven’t a clue what to do.  Or are horrified at the very thought of taking time out. Well, my friends, I’m here to help.

Coming up next: a Beginners Guide to Surrender

But the first words I typed took me by surprise:

“I’ve been feeling restless lately. Unsettled. Out of sorts.”

That’s not at all what I’d expected to say! And you know what? I love when that happens….when writing turns into a voyage of self discovery. I decided to let the words flow and see what unfolded.
“Whenever I feel like this,” I continued, “it can only mean one thing. I need time to reflect…to hear what my soul is yearning to tell me.”

I promise you, that wasn’t what I wanted to hear…even though I knew it was the truth. I was craving solitude, but had no time for a time out. I had a gazillion things to do before I flew to Mexico for Christmas, including a business trip to the east coast.

And then my fingers, flying across the keys, made a pronouncement.  They (my fingers, not me!) publicly committed “to take time out, this month…even though at this moment, I have no idea how I’ll do it.”

I’m here to tell you, I was ready to hit the delete button on that one. There was virtually no room in my schedule for a retreat.  But I went ahead and sent out the newsletter. Then the damnedest thing happened.

The next day, I got an email from the East Coast client with the subject heading: No Travel. They cancelled the event, at the very last minute.

Suddenly, I had a few unscheduled days.  Instead of filling them with busyness, as I normally would, I sunk into the empty space like a tub of warm water, soaking in the luxury of unstructured time.

I share this with you because I promised to blog about it. But also, I share this as a reminder… not only of the power of commitment, but also the often pointless effort of trying to figure out how something’s going to happen.  My experience proves what Johann Wolfgang von Goethe  told us long ago:

“The moment one definitely commits oneself, providence moves too.

All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.

A whole stream of events issue from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man (or woman) could have dreamed would have come his (or her) way.”

Don’t you just love when miracles occur? Do you have any you’d care to share?

Admittedly, I “ran into” it  because the writer credited my book, Secrets of Six-Figure Women, for motivating her to blog. (Google sends me an alert whenever my name appears on the web.)  But enough about me…

If you’re looking for an extra shot of courage, I urge you to visit  http://amanda-whatareyouafraidof.blogspot.com/ Especially if you’re an aspiring writer…or an aspiring whatever….

All her life, Amanda wanted to be a writer…but never did anything about it, other than make excuses for why she couldn’t.  After reading my book, however, she had an epiphany–she was just plain scared…of failure, of rejection, of not doing it right, of what others would think.

At that moment, Amanda realized, “We would rather stay exactly where we are—even if we’re miserable—because the thought of taking a risk and shaking things up scares us far more than a life of being comfortably numb.”

And at that moment, Amanda knew she had the “perfect subject for a blog—fear.”  She started blogging with 2 goals in mind: 1) to overcome some of her fears, and 2) help others do the same.” And you know what? She’s actually doing it!!!

If you’re wrestling with fear (and who isn’t, to some degree?), I invite you to check out  Amanda’s blog and let me know what you think!

Barbara Stanny

The leading authority on women & money
barbara@barbarastanny.com
www.barbarastanny.com

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