This is a guest post by Ryan Biddulph. He shares smart blogging tips at Blogging From Paradise.
I want to help you learn a lesson I had to learn, to succeed.
No one can outrun their self image. I care not if you work 15 hours daily. It matters not if you generously serve people. I do not even care if you trust in the process. If you see yourself as a certain person, you will be that certain person, until you change your self image.
Why? Where your attention and energy goes, grows.
Give your energy to being a broke, struggling loser and it shall be so. Give your energy to being an abundant, victorious winner and it shall be so. Life follows your self image. You choose how to see yourself and more key, how to feel.
My Deal
10 years ago, I feared life. I was a scared security guard living mainly to get a paycheck. After being fired from my job I decided I would never work for anybody again because I became sick and tired of working 60 hour weeks and 18 hour shifts at times. I hated being bound. I hated NOT being free.
Through the power of a firm, definite decision, I slowly but surely saw myself as a blogger the day I bought my domain and hosting. Hell yeah I made scary, highly uncomfortable decisions. I wished to quit on Day 1 of my blogging career; I panicked and wanted out.
My wife eased me off of the ledge. 10 years later, here we are. But i needed to see myself as a blogger to think, feel and act like a blogger. Thinking, feeling and acting like a blogger helped lay the foundation for sweet blogging results, down the road, at least.
I gradually felt like a blogger so I did as a blogger does. Imagine if I felt like a security guard? No matter how hard and long I worked at blogging, I would fail forever because I would eventually self-sabotage or flat out struggle mightily because a security guard succeeds as a security guard, not as a blogger. Why? Where your attention and energy goes, grows.
One common self image mistake often spotted involves full time employees who see themselves as full time employees terrified to invest time, energy and money in a part time blogger career.
This crowd thinks, feels and acts like full time employees, so the full time employee reality continues to be their life until they think, feel and act like a blogger. Nobody outruns their self image because how you see yourself dictates how others treat you and how you live your life.
Change the Self Image
Spend time in quiet. Play with an image of your dream life in mind. Relax. Allow a calm, peaceful, empowered image of self come to mind. How does it feel? Remember that feeling. Carry that feeling with you. Listen to silent instructions.
Only you can build your self image because it is a “self” image, or, how you choose to see yourself. If you struggle with blogging or writing or any aspect of your online business, change your self image from struggling to successful. See yourself as a current day, successful blogger in mind, versus seeing yourself in your prior profession.
I never could have retired to a life of island hopping if I saw myself as a struggling, fired security guard. I never could outwork or outrun that self image. Changing the image to being a pro blogger quickly influenced me to think, feel and act like a pro blogger, well before I became a pro blogger.
As within, so without.
