Hi Reader!

The other day I wrote to you about how obscured and warped my own personal sense of value would sometimes become.

And it would hurt. I would believe I "wasn't valuable" and spiral into negative thoughts and self-doubt.

I know a lot of us have been there.

So I developed a 3 step process for bringing myself back to center, which I noticed would work for clients too. I'm sharing the rest with you here after discussing Step 1 last time.

Here's a short reminder of that full piece if you missed it:

• Separate doing from being: "I'm not being valuable" is about your output, not your inherent worth as a person. Conflating the two is where the trouble starts.
• Watch out for "deletion": Under stress, the mind unconsciously strips context from thoughts over time. "I'm not doing well enough at this thing", becomes "I'm not doing well enough", which becomes "I'm not good enough." Each deletion removes the qualifier that made the thought specific and true, leaving a blunt, false generalization.
• Notice the pull to believe the worst: There is sometimes an odd pull toward believing "I'm not enough," because it can feel oddly familiar or even validating. Left unchecked, repeating that thought reinforces it neurologically, making it feel more "true" over time.
• Pause and regain objectivity: The fix is to consciously step back and separate what you're doing or having from who you are.

So now let's move onto Step 2. This is to understand what our value actually is, objectively (or as objectively as possible)

Let's use me as an example.

Whilst I initially felt a little bit defeated that the client I had been courting (is that an appropriate word in this context? 😂) had said no, perhaps that just means that that area of work isn’t meant to be right now, or that there’s a skill I need to improve upon.

That is information, whether I like the information or not.

Maybe your work is going well, but maybe not - maybe you’ve been laid off, or the business isn’t doing well.

Maybe your relationships are great, but maybe not - maybe someone has hurt you, or something is ending.

Maybe you’re just not feeling purposeful or aligned.

That isn't "bad" - it's just information.

And what about the things that go well?

For example, the other day I co-hosted an event called Networking in Nature that went really well and surpassed my expectations (though I try not to have any to begin with).

When my co-host Melissa reached out with the idea to create a networking event that avoided the staleness of handing out business cards in a small room with four white walls, we brought together conscious leaders, creatives, and business people from all walks of life out into nature and played games and focused on fun. It worked really well, but don't take my word for it. You can read about it on LinkedIn here.

So what "information" did I gather?

• People loved it, giving great feedback,
• More people (including previous attendees) have already signed up to the next one,
• And even our LinkedIn posts are doing really well!

These are all pieces of information that show, in this case, something really positive.

One challenge is seeing all of that as useful information to begin with.

The challenge is that we often don’t know how to interpret the information that we do have.

For example, is that event something that we should keep doing? Probably, yeah.

Does it mean I should base my whole business around something like that just because that went well and something else didn’t? No, probably not.

However, it does give me information that can be further tested. For example, did that event go well because of the team that was there? Did that event go well because of the vibe and the energy, because of what we were focused on, the topics, and the communication?

Which of these things - maybe all of them, maybe none of them - really made the difference?

That is information that must be tested.

So that's step 2 of determining your value: You've got to do things that can be tested, then successfully, accurately, and objectively interpret that information.

(Which is a challenge in and of itself, because our emotional responses and perspectives can obscure the truth of this. Read my article about that here so it doesn't catch you out.)

But there is an important caveat here. We need to also test the non-obvious data points.

See, the challenge I’ve had in the past is that I’ve often tested things I can see myself, or by running by asking things like survey questions and doing customer feedback.

Which are super important. However, by focusing only on the material value, research, and my experience, I left out the non-material data.

For example, what about our intuition?

If I take the whole list about what did work and what didn't work about any given thing (an event, a job, a relationship, a product, etc) I can then ask:

• What does my intuition say about those points?
• What does the research say about those points?
• What do my current and potential customers and my ideal customer profile say about them, and does any of the above conflict with what they want?

Once I’ve done all of that, and most importantly including the intuition part, then I have real information I can use to decide whether I am being of value.

Finally, you have everything you need to go onto Step 3: Creating and Implementing an Action Plan.

This is that part that's specific to you, obviously. Some basic things to consider would be:

• What are your first steps?
• What do you need to research further?
• What are your minimum targets?
• When are you going to do the first steps?
• And LOADS more that fits into the "who, what, where, when, why, how" framework...

That might be simple for you, Reader. However, I find that's where folks actually get the most stumped.

Because it requires knowing what works - and what doesn't - and that requires experience.

I don't talk about it much, but I've advised hundreds of businesses and seen a lot of failure. What works, what doesn't, and how to figure out what will actually get folks to their goals, is like second nature to me.

That's why I actually launched something new to help people who want to quickly grow whatever they're working on. It combines my business, emotional fitness, and public speaking support services into one affordable programme. More about that later - but read here if you'd like to potentially snag an early bird discount.

So that's your process!

• Get objective
• Get information
• Get working

And again, I want to stress that if things haven’t worked out for you in a certain way, it doesn’t mean that you aren’t of value intrinsically. It means that you have not used or gathered information appropriately, or executed that strategy effectively.

So if you're feeling down, feeling like things aren't going your way right now...

Take a deep breath, a step back, and focus on the process.

PS just 2 more days until I close the survey. It would mean a lot if you could support me by filling it out here. Thank you

Thanks for reading through this one, and I hope it serves you. Sending energy, and here's to our collective successes!

Seven

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