When I started considering offering coaching I had some fears around it. I had been someone that people came to for advice for all of my life, but to make a business of it?! Seemed scary. I quickly realized though that coaching isn’t about giving advice or having all the answers. It’s about so much more than that, and the further I dived in the more I realized that some of the pillars of coaching aligned with my own thoughts about the world — that we all are doing the best we can, that we all ultimately know what’s best for us, etc.

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With that realization under my belt I dove headfirst into coaching, got certified (in NLP, Hypnotherapy, EFT, TIME, and Life + Success Coaching), honed my message, my ideologies… and here we are.

I know a lot of people out there think that coaching is:

1. Someone telling you what to do

2. Someone laying out a blueprint and you following it

3. Someone having all the answers

And I want to break down why that’s not effective coaching and what an actual coach will be able to provide you with. The first thing you should take notice of in the statement above is how much that depends on someone else, versus you. That’s strike number 1 right there, friend.

Here’s the truth: when you put all the weight and pressure of your life, your choices, your abilities, your business onto someone else’s shoulders… it won’t work out. Ever. You are deflecting responsibility, you are putting out the message that you don’t believe in yourself, and you are setting yourself up for more work (and, honestly, wasting money).

Now, if you are looking for a CONSULTANT over a coach, then that’s a different story. If you want a Facebook Ad CONSULTANT to come into your business, give you the low down on Facebook Ads, what works, what doesn’t, and adjust your strategies and technical ish… that’s fine. But own what it is — consulting. And honestly, consulting will cost you a lot more because it’s so specific and so expert. And that’s great! There’s definitely a time and a place for that in business.

In my opinion, the time and place for that is when you know what the f* you’re doing and you’re ready to scale it majorly. I don’t think anyone needs a consultant right out of the gate, or at least not until they have a very clear vision and understanding of where they are going and how they would like to get there. And I’m not saying that because a consultant is bad or anything, on the contrary, in fact. Consultants are amazing and wizards in their own respective fields — YOU just aren’t ready for that on day 0 of your business. Heck, you aren’t ready for that RIGHT NOW if you feel unease about any aspect of your business. Running FB Ads to an offer that you hate offering, that drains you, that is out of alignment… that’ll be a waste of your money. Most good consultants probably would recognize that you aren’t ready FOR THEM and choose not to work with you first.

Okay, so, now that that is cleared up. If you are looking for a coach to come in and tell you what you should do for this and must do for that, that’s not going to serve you in the long run. True coaching, the kind that makes radical shifts and quantum leaps and major up-leveling… it doesn’t give you a cookie cutter answer. It enables you to find, trust, and act on your OWN answers. The ones you have, deep in there. The ones that maybe you’re resisting or ignoring or not trusting.

Here’s how I visualize things: picture a big pipe with water rushing through it and then off of that pipe are smaller pipes that water can pour out of as well. For me, the big pipe is source or the universe and all of us are the smaller pipes. But your pipe might be blocked right now, with all your ish — your negative thought patterns, your limiting beliefs, that one teacher who laughed at you when you said you wanted to run a business, the time your boyfriend said that was a stupid idea, etc. It’s gunked up in your pipe and blocking that stream of water from rushing through. And me? The coach? I’m like the plumber. And using tools in my tool belt, I help to get some of the gunk out of the way so that you can access all the magical-ness flowing through you, you know?

In my practice I focus on three main pillars:

Getting Into Alignment

Cultivating Your Confidence

Making It Effortless.

The first part, Alignment, involves figuring out what you truly want. See, we’ve gone through our lives just absorbing, absorbing, absorbing. Taking in this person’s opinions, that person’s ideas, our parent’s rules, our teacher’s discipline… and where we land is… well, nowhere. We land in this blob of everyone else’s crap and we don’t even know what we think or feel or want anymore. I think this is a funny example, but you know how it’s like a meme and a joke about asking what we want for dinner, and no one knowing? Just going back and forth between you and a friend or a significant other forever saying “idk?”... yeah that’s how we are living our whole f*cking lives.

Focusing on finding that alignment first will help you get over the dreaded ‘imposter syndrome’ and ‘comparisonitis’ too because you’ll start to notice that what you actually want isn’t what they are doing or what they have. That you each have your own unique little spot in the world and there’s more than enough to go around.

In my practice another big focus is doing the *real* work. So sure, posting on Instagram or writing blog posts or creating courses is work, but none of that work matters if you don’t have the right mindset. Sure, you can get to a certain level of success without the mindset (in my experience around 80k-100k you can just freaking HUSTLE to get). BUT, it won’t be sustainable, fulfilling, or feasible. Most of my client’s are riiiight at that spot, actually. For all intents and purposes they’ve “made it” but they’re realizing that they can’t keep working 14 hours a day, that they are feeling so disconnected from the work, and that they feel similar to how it was when they were starting… they’re back to wishing a secret magic pill would just show up and they could wake up a millionaire tomorrow.

I call it “the real work” because it’s the work a lot of people do not want to do. You think you don’t want to write a blog post right now? Okay but if it was writing a blog post or diving into why you don’t feel worthy enough to love your life with someone…. You’d probably choose the blog post, huh? But the “the real work” matters. Because that’s what’s holding you back, that’s what’s keeping things hard, that’s what’s making you second guess everything.

And then we can dive into more practical strategies – still not like running a launch campaign, or anything (again consulting!) but things that make a big difference in actually living life and being a business owner: decision making, problem solving, etc. The big thing that comes up time and time again is learning how to actually trust the answers you have inside of you.

The magical thing about all of this is that these steps, working through these pieces, make your business more sustainable. By operating from a place of alignment and cultivating that confidence in yourself and your abilities to lead you will automatically make decisions that are good for the long term. You’ll stop flying by the seat of your pants or stretching yourself too thin. It’s all ends up just puzzle-piecing together, perfectly.

So, with all of that said and done. Where are you in your business? If you’re hitting that ceiling of burnout and frustration, and starting to get an inkling that something isn’t quite right then it’s time for us to work together 1:1. You can click here to learn more.

Share with me in a comment or on Instagram what your big takeaway was from this post! I'd love to hear!

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I’ve officially been a business owner for 4 years now. To some people that may seem not that long, to others that may seem like a huge milestone… but either way you look at it 4 years is 4 years and that’s a lot of opportunity to learn. Some of my biggest ah-has and takeaways have been about things I could pretty easily adjust or tweak to make my business run even smoother, be even more sustainable and in flow, and just… work. We spend so much time learning this and trying that and all the things that we forget to check in and make sure our business is working, y’know? Like that it’s bringing us joy and money and serving that purpose we originally set out for. 

So anyway, here’s my list of simple tweaks and adjustments that I’ve brought into my own business over the last 4 years that have made a significant impact on the ease and flow of things. These aren’t the only things you can do, and you don’t have to use all of them — just wanted to share with you a little glimpse into my business (in NLP we practice modeling, so I like to make it easy for people to model me, if they so choose!)

Believe That Business Gets To Be Fun + Exciting + Easy

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At some point in your journey you were excited about the idea of starting this business. You were gung-ho and taking action! But over time, things got to be harder — maybe your clients started frustrating you, and your inbox got a bit unmanageable, and thinking of good Instagram captions became daunting…

And then, somewhere in there, you made a decision. You decided, “this is hard.”

And so it became harder, and harder, and even harder… and validated that belief. If this feels accurate for you, I want to invite you to change that belief now. To make a new decision that business gets to be fun and exciting and easy.

The trick here is to choose that thought every day. To start to notice when you are going down a rabbit hole of thinking it’s hard and consciously choose to allow it to be easy. To decide it gets to be fun. To only accept that it’s exciting. And in time, that will begin to be your new reality, I promise.

The way limiting beliefs work is that at one point it was just a decision. You made the decision for the first time, and then your Reticular Activating System (RAS) became attuned to finding proof of that. See your subconscious won’t make you a liar, so you said ‘this is hard’ and it showed you that time and time again and took that decision and formed it into a belief. Like Abraham Hicks says a belief is a thought you keep on thinking.

So by intentionally choosing a new decision (that business is fun and easy and exciting) and tasking your RAS to help you believe it (and doing the work of choosing to believe it as often as you can), this will, in time, become your new belief. And then, your new reality.

Do A Digital Detox / Stop Consuming So Much

Another easy tweak that has had a huge impact on my business (and sanity, honestly) is deciding to stop consuming so many other business owners’ content and even to occasionally do complete digital detoxes. So reading, listening, watching stories, etc. of people you like to follow, or even look up to, is great. In moderation.

But doing that for hours a day (especially under the guise of “learning” when in reality you are procrastinating) is a dangerous path. Here’s what you risk happening: you’ll become more susceptible to imposter syndrome, comparisonitis, and shiny object syndrome. You’ll start to absorb their ideas and think they are rules or facts, when in reality YOU create your own rules and facts. You’ll also constrict your own abilities to create and innovate, which is, in my opinion, essential to being an entrepreneur.

What I do and invite you to consider is create over consume. So if I consume — let’s say I listen to an hour of someone else’s podcast — I spend at least 2 hours creating to compensate. Now that might mean working on my podcast, writing a blog post, or writing a newsletter. But it also could mean journaling or brainstorming through my own concepts and ideas. Just something to tap back into MY thoughts versus everyone else’s.

Stop Multitasking

This is a big one! A lot of us like to think we are good at multitasking, but the fact is… we aren’t. We’re not built that way. One time in a peer mastermind I used to be in, my friend Katherine told me this idea once and it blew my mind: 10% of 10 things is NOT 100% of anything. Powerful, right? Stop switching your energy and your focus all the time, flipping between emails and Instagram and Messenger and oh, your laundry is done, and where was I in writing that blog post again…?

Feel accurate? Give it up! One priority at a time. Just one! As I discuss in this episode, priority is a singular word! If you devote your energy in a more focused manner you will get tasks done quicker and overall feel less stress and anxiety around your to do list. There’s no tips or hacks here, just make a decision to stop multitasking today.

Audit Regularly + Time Track

Okay so here’s another big one that a lot of business owners learn the hard way — audit your business regularly and time track to see where you are spending your days. Do you know what you are spending your time doing? Do you know what tasks and activities are actually serving your business and bringing in money and clients? This is a huge deal in working to make sustainable, scalable, lasting businesses.

You can use a free program called Toggl to track your time. It’s so valuable. You may already be doing this with client work, but I invite you to also do it for when you are working on your biz. And be diligent! See if something like writing a blog post is taking you three hours because you start and stop and start and stop. And then bring that info into an audit and assess — okay, if blog posts take me three hours and no clients have ever said they found me originally from a blog post… is that a good way to spend time? And why is it taking so long in the first place? Why am I avoiding doing it and letting myself get distracted?

I don’t know the answers for you in regards to those questions, but it’s worth exploring what comes up for you and making sure that your business is aligned to what you do well and love doing, so that you continue to do it and grow! 

Don’t Be Afraid To Say No

You’ll inevitably end up learning a lot through time tracking and auditing your business and there may be times that deciding to remove something from your business comes up. Open yourself up to the idea of saying “no” to things for your business. NO isn’t a bad word. In fact, saying NO to things gives you the opportunity to say YES to more valuable, impactful, and important things.

There’s not a right or wrong here, but I just want to encourage you to explore the rules you’ve made for yourself and your business and be open to those rules changing or adjusting. Maybe you’ve always just thought you had to write blog posts to be an online business owner and that’s become a bit of a rule for you, but you’ve also began to notice that it’s not really doing anything for your business. Be open to that rule changing and saying no to writing blog posts, if it’s just not right for you anymore.

In the same regard, be okay with saying NO to potential clients that are not good fits, to opportunities like summits, podcasts, guest blogging that don’t feel in alignment or right to you, or to another free coffee chat where someone just picks your brain for free (and doesn’t follow the “rules” of a coffee chat). The more we get confident in our abilities to say “no” and to establish our boundaries and protect our energy the overall better and smoother things will run in our business. 

Get Clear On Where You Are Going

The last thing is perhaps not an “easy” tweak but makes a huge difference in the day to day. Understanding where you are going in your business is essential for your days actually… being worthwhile, honestly. So many business owners are just going through the motions that they think they’re supposed to do and really have no bigger picture understanding of why any of it matters.

I’ve shared before my own fears around not having a big vision for my business when I got started. I want to point out that I think it’s okay to develop that vision over time AND also you can still know where you are going in the meantime. For example, maybe you don’t see the 5 year or life plan yet, that’s okay. You can still set a goal in the future, like 3 or 6 months or even a year, and give yourself that clarity for now of where you are going. THEN on a day-to-day basis you know the tasks to be working on, the things that move you closer to that, etc. versus just randomly deciding to write this, or offer that, or share whatever on Instagram, right?

If this is something you need support with, let’s connect about working together. I can help you understand not only where you are right now, but where you want to be in the future. This is perfect for the business owner who feels unclear about their vision, goals, or plan moving forward and need help uncovering the next steps (and working through the inevitable blocks that come up around taking action).

Share with me in a comment or on Instagram what tweaks you are going to make for your business! I believe in you and your power!

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If you are even remotely interested in developing your mindset practices, manifestation, or the law of attraction you have definitely heard the word ‘alignment’. Perhaps you’ve heard it referenced and you could make sense of the conversation around it, so you never had to dive into what the heck people are actually talking about.

I know that’s how I was for a while.

I thought, “oh yeah. Alignment! I know what that means! It means I feel good!”

But then someone asked me, “okay, how do I do it? How do I become aligned? Or get into into alignment?” and I was like… *crickets* because I hadn’t yet had to really identify the word alignment just point-blank without using metaphors and examples.

Eventually we navigated our way through the conversation and all was well, but it got me thinking about how I could make this potentially complex topic more digestible and attainable for others. 

Being in alignment means that your energy and frequency is the same as what you are desiring in your life. So if I was desiring to make 10k this month, if I was in alignment I would be an energetic match for that 10k. We’d be on the same frequency. Tuned into the same radio station, essentially. 

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So that sounds easy enough right? Yeah. I really want that 10k. Done. I feel that 10k coming into my bank account, I can see it there. Got it. *~Aligned~*

But, what ends up happening for most of us is the resistance and disbelief around our desires. The blocks, stories, and fears we have. That pulls out of alignment. So it’s sort of like this battle between what we believe we want, and what we actually believe we are capable of having.

The practice of intentionally pushing past those fears, blocks, stories and fully believing we are capable of having, or already have what we want… that’s the practice of alignment.

When I say, I’m getting into alignment it can mean I’m physically doing a variety of things. It may mean I’m going on a walk, or I’m meditating, or I’m journaling. What I truly mean is that I am working through my shit and trying to expand my mind to a place where I move fast fear, doubt, uncertainty, etc and into a place where I feel confident and grateful and happy both with where I am and where I am going.

I can’t tell you exactly how you will get into alignment, because we are all different and have our own unique processes — but, I can tell you what I do and I can encourage you to take time and explore what works for you.

In my practice, I’m working towards a feeling. I can recognize the feeling, when I am in it, but to try and describe it to you may be a little difficult. When I feel really aligned I feel satisfied. Not satisfied like, ohhh I just ate a bunch of food and now I’m full, but satisfied in that you don’t even realize you’re smiling but you kind of are just a bit. It feels like that moment you get the last piece of the Sudoku puzzle and you know the rest of the spots are easy, not thought-requiring but just filling in the blanks. I’m basically always striving to get to that feeling and becoming more and more aware of when I’m not feeling that way and feeling like things are hard or complex or overwhelming.

The thing I believe about life in general is that it’s all a big puzzle or game. It’s meant to be fun and enjoyed. Now, you could claim to be a person who hates puzzles, and have a miserable time, or you could acknowledge that it’s supposed to be fun — and let it be fun.

Perhaps, your feeling of alignment is different than mine. I have absolutely no way of knowing. But maybe you’re someone who loves running, or reading, or doing yoga — you know those moments when you totally lose yourself in those things? When you feel totally in flow and nothing else around you matters? That might be what alignment feels like for you.

When I feel aligned, when I am in alignment, the idea that I want anything isn’t scary. The idea that I’ll try new things isn’t scary. Nothing is scary, it just… is. Growing up my grandma was always very matter of fact, I think in the way that people who have experienced and seen a lot can be. So if something felt scary, or hard, or intimidating she would matter of factly tell me, “it’ll be scary, and you’ll do it, and you’ll move on”. And you know, maybe that sounds a bit straightforward… but that’s what alignment is for me, too. It’s like “okay. You want to offer coaching services. That’s scary. But you’ll do it. And that’s that. And it’ll work out fine.” and being in alignment helps me to not shift into the negative thoughts like, “what if it doesn’t work out” or “what if no one hires me”. It just becomes facts: you’ll do it and it’ll be fine. And I appreciate that sort of matter of factness honestly. There’s no room for fear in that statement.

So how do I get into alignment? And how, potentially, could you?

First: I get clear with my goals and what I am working towards. This is the step that so many people skip over because they think it’s really obvious. Of course I want money and success and happiness and blah blah blah. But, to be honest, those aren’t really good enough answers. Money could mean a penny or a dollar. Success is completely subjective. And happiness is just a state, you could be happy just by thinking about a happy memory. These aren’t goals.

So for you to get into alignment with what you want, you have to first determine WHAT you want. Specifically. I have an episode of EffortLess about this if you want to listen to that, click here. But we want real, specific, tangible things. I want to make 15k this month from my coaching services. I want a pink Away suitcase with the battery charging thing. I want to be able to run a 5k by November. 

Then: Understand why you want these things. I want 15k this month from coaching services because I want to replace my graphic design business revenue. I want 15k this month from coaching services because that means I’ve impacted and helped 5 people. I want 15k this month from coaching services because I want to push myself to grow. Dive in. I know you’ve seen so many times, “find your why” — but it’s actually important, y’all! If you don’t know why you want something, when the moment comes to take the action and do the work you may find it harder to commit to doing it. You may find yourself finding excuses or feeling “lazy” because you don’t actually know why any of these things matter.

Next: Actively work and push yourself to believe that the things you want are coming to you. This is, potentially, the “hard” part. The part where you have to push past the fears, doubts, stories, blocks, etc. and put yourself in an energetic match for what you want. It doesn’t have to be hard though! Telling yourself that getting into alignment is hard is a story, and you can decide right now that it is easy to get into alignment. It’s easy to feel like an energetic match. It’s easy to attract what you want in your life.

This can be done a lot of ways and you’ll eventually find a practice that works best for you. For me, I can get into alignment pretty quickly by journaling. This is probably because I’ve just done it so many times now that it’s like a muscle memory, right? So let’s just say I make a decision I want 15k this month from coaching. I would take time everyday to journal about it. To picture myself with that 15k. So see it in my bank account. And I would pay attention to the things that come up for me… the resistances. And I would actively work through overcoming those, so that eventually when I thought of 15k it was just facts. It was there. I had it already.

Maybe I’d recognize a resistance in the form of feeling like “who would want to work with me” and instead of getting mad or frustrated or feeling like UGH now I am OUT of alignment, UGHHHH… instead of all that drama and uselessness, I would instead either talk to my coach, or journal through why that feeling came up. Where I developed that story. And what I wanted to believe instead. I’d move myself back into a place where that story isn’t true and the one where I feel good, and happy, and satisfied, and fulfilled is the main story again. 

This isn’t like a one and done thing. You will see things come up again and again. And when you think you are past one story or block you may find that new ones come up. But the practice of recognizing the stories or the resistances and actively pushing past them and working through them to get back into alignment is the gold. That’s where the magic happens. That’s where the growth happens. It’s not bad to have a bad thought. It’s not going to ruin everything to feel negatively. You just recognize it for what it is, and decide to work through it.

I think a big problem in this world of manifestation and mindset work and law of attraction is that the message of “good vibes only” is pushed too much. It’s not about constantly feeling AMAZING. It’s about actively working through your shit and recognizing where negative thought patterns are and intentionally bringing it back to feeling good. 

Other things that help me besides journaling are:

• Going for walks and being in the sunshine

• Talking things out with my coach

• Taking a nap (I’m serious!)

• Reading a good fiction book (Harry Potter, usually)

• Listening to Abraham Hicks on YouTube

But yours can and may and probably should be totally different. How will you find them? By paying attention! So many people go through life completely unaware of how they feel and why they feel that way and what they are thinking about. Start paying attention. See when you naturally just feel good. Is it after a long run? Or during savasana? Or while cooking an elaborate meal? Pay attention to the things that put you in a relaxed, satisfied, good state. And purposefully bring more of that into your life!

Share with me in a comment or on Instagram what you are currently attracting into your life and how you plan on getting into alignment to make it happen! I believe in you and your power!

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The first time I heard someone mention their gratitude practice, I thought… isn’t that strange. Why would you call it a practice. I mean, it’s just saying thank you for the stuff around you, isn’t it? I was confused and thought the whole idea sounded, well, frivolous and unnecessary, if I am being honest.

But I kept hearing about it, kept reading about it, and eventually I was ready to give it a try. To see what the hooplah was all about. So I got my pen and a notebook and sat down and…I didn’t know what to do. 

I imagine it was a similar feeling as if someone handed me a football and said, “okay, throw a perfect spiral”. I felt a little annoyed that I wasn’t instantly a natural, I felt kind of dumb that I didn’t get it.. And then it occurred to me: oh. This is why it’s a practice. 

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Because expressing gratitude in a way that actually changes things takes time, energy, and commitment. It’s a routine you have to adopt. And it, strangely enough, can feel harder to get started than you think.

But once you do it a few times it quickly becomes second nature. It’s not very hard. It requires no hand-eye coordination. And it can have immediate results (which is my favorite kind of practice, right?!)

I got the 5-minute journal* because I felt like having a bit of an outline would be beneficial. They also have an app if you are more of a digital type, but there is something very satisfying about writing it out to me. It took a while to get good at the habit, especially the night part — but I just keep it by my bed with a pen so there really are no excuses.

I don’t abide by the morning ritual hype (I think it ends up becoming just a check-list for people and loses its actual magic when treated so methodologically) but I do have a goal feeling I strive to achieve in one way or another before I start working. Gratitude has become something of a routine because it helps me get to that goal feeling (mine is a feeling of calm preparedness). I’ve noticed in times that I forget to do my gratitude practice that I end up feeling more frazzled, or that things start to get to me quicker and stress me out. 

Overall, if I had to tie real results to my gratitude practice it would be this: I’m less likely to get immediately stressed over something. I can keep a level-head, find the positives, and solve the problem. I’m more likely to get my to-do list done because it helps me to see it as a ‘get-to-do’ list instead. I’m more likely to see opportunities (and therefore make more money) because I’m looking at the world and my circumstances through a lens of happiness, abundance, and more.

If someone had been keeping track, and plotted the best times in my business history (financially, stress-levels-wise, etc.) they would coincide with the time that I focus on gratitude. I truthfully feel like incorporating a gratitude practice into your life in some capacity will improve everything, and definitely grow your business. 

But how, you ask?

Less Stressful Days

I used to not handle stress well. My natural ways included bottling everything up and then having a meltdown over some incredibly small trigger (once this happened because the gym was too full and I couldn’t figure out where to do a workout that I was kind of embarrassed to do — burpees — privately enough). Other alternatives to that include lashing out against people, crying in public, and laying on the couch unable to do anything for a day or two. Basically I turned to mush.

I’m not here to tell you that writing 3 things I’m grateful for makes that stress disappear. The stress still appears, but over time a gratitude practice has improved my ability to handle stress. And if you are running a business, no doubt, there will be stress.

What I’ve noticed is that I’ve started to recognize when I feel anxious or overwhelmed sooner, and I’ve given myself permission to stop. Writing down what I’m grateful for forces me to sometimes zoom in and find a micro thing I’m grateful for (the way Monte meows after I sneeze, as if he’s saying ‘bless you!’) and sometimes zoom out and see the big picture thing I’m grateful for (the sunshine coming through the window this morning). That same skill is really useful for me when it comes to handling stress. I’ve learned how to zoom in and see what is truly bothering me, but also zoom out and see that it won’t have any long-term-big-picture impacts, and I can let it go.

I did a little research, and there are scientific studies that show having a gratitude practice shows up physically in people - and one big way is with lower cortisol levels. Cortisol is the stress hormone, and we don’t want too much of that going around in our bodies (it can make you legitimately sick!). I can’t tell you whether or not my cortisol levels are any different, but I can tell you that days when I am consistently practicing gratitude are some of my calmest, easiest, least-stressful days. I mean there are still things happening that in the past would’ve thrown me in a tailspin, but I am able to process them easier.

As entrepreneurs stress is probably going to come up, right? Having a gratitude practice can help ease some of that overwhelm and let you think and produce good things easier and with less PANIC crying-at-the-gym-over-burpees moments.

See More Opportunities

With my gratitude practice I’ve also been able to notice more opportunities for growth in my business. And I don’t think it’s just a  happy coincidence, either. Here’s the deal: 

Have you heard of the idea (or had it happen to you) that you express an interest in something and suddenly it’s everywhere? A common example is when you buy a new car, and suddenly it seems like you see that car everywhere - at the grocery store, in line ahead of you at Starbucks, coming out of your neighborhood… what gives?!

It’s actually a real thing, called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon (also known as a frequency or recency illusion). The concept is actually really simple — all those instances of the car were there before, but because you put it into your mind and went out and spent time researching the car and buying one, your brain starts to give that more attention.

Using your Reticular Activating System, you’ve basically put a filter on alllllll the data your brain sifts through and said, “this car matters. I want to see more of it” on a subconscious level. So while the cars have always been there, your brain didn’t think they were important enough to show you necessarily. But then, you said, “hey no, those cars are really important to me actually” and your brain was like “oh, okay. HERE YOU GO.” And then you see one and you get excited, and you cement that idea a little bit more into your brain. And you see another one and you’re like “omg see, it’s everywhere!?” And your brain is like “YES this is what she wants!” It’s a cycle, one that you unintentionally created.

Okay, so what does that have to do with gratitude? Well. You spend time focusing on things you are grateful for, you take time to appreciate the good things in your life… and you start to notice them more and more. It’s not magic, truthfully. It’s your brain just doing what it does best — looking for patterns and connections and doing what you tell it to do (either consciously or unconsciously).

So here’s an example for business. Maybe you spend time focusing on how grateful you are that opportunities for new clients keep rolling in. And because you’ve built this subconscious focus on finding clients, or getting clients, or seeing opportunities for clients… maybe it’s easier for you to see how you could answer that DM on Instagram in a way that leads to your services. Or maybe you see a post of someone in the explore feed or in a Facebook group needing to hire a position you’re a great fit for. Those things would’ve been there regardless, but because you’ve opened yourself up to seeing them — you do!

Other ways I’ve noticed gratitude impacting my business is that I’ve become a total silver-linings-person (and honestly, I love it). I see opportunities in everything now. Lose a client? That’s fine, now there’s room for a better fit client. Oh that email didn’t send properly? That’s okay, now I can tweak the copy, or reach out directly to someone and make a more genuine connection. I am in full belief that the universe is always working out for my best interests, and with my gratitude practice it becomes so much easier to see every single situation (“good” or “bad”) as a way to grow and develop and get a step closer to my goals. 

Better Quality Work

The last thing I want to mention is that overall my quality of work has improved when I focus on gratitude. It’s because I suddenly see tasks as things I GET to do, things I’m EXCITED to do, versus just a to-do list. 

It allows me to see that big picture, and remember why I am doing what I do. Why what I do serves the life I want to live. It’s really easy to get bogged down in the to-do list and the overwhelm, and the blah blah blah. But moving your focus from ‘this is too much’ to ‘this is helping my create my dream life and business’ is a gamechanger, and gratitude has helped me to do that.

That being said, if you feel like right now perhaps you aren’t creating your dream life and business — click here to learn more about working together. 

 But overall a gratitude practice is sort of like a reality check. You know the scene: your friend complaining about something that to you seems trivial and silly, and you’re like okay maybe that kind of sucks but then you got all of this thing and you did all of that other thing and it’s not that bad… a gratitude practice helps me to do that to myself. 

 *This post has been adapted from its original posting that I created under my design business, TheCrownFox. It does contain affiliate links of products that I use and love!

Have you started your gratitude practice yet? If not, you should get this journal!* It’s very helpful in giving you some structure and guidelines. I’d love to hear how gratitude has impacted you or your business - leave a comment below or reach out over on Instagram!

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