Imagine for a moment that you have a glass full of your favorite alcoholic beverage directly in front of you. Big, bright, and colorful, that glass is just calling your name.
How does the thought of this drink make you feel?
Do you want to know the correct answer to this question?
The answer is: It depends.
- Is it Saturday night and you’re about to go out with your friends? Or,
- Is it Sunday morning and you’re sick with a hungover?
In this instance, the things you notice outside of you are different based on the emotions you feel at the time. When this applies to dating and relationships, if I feel unworthy; the girl who looks at me without a smile is judging me. If I feel confident, I would perceive her as maybe having a bad day and nervous to talk to me.
While nothing outside of me has changed, my emotional state did in face change what is outside of me, or my perception of it at least.
How does this apply to business?
I’ve noticed a pattern in my entrepreneurial career that my productivity and my ability to effectively spot opportunities (and perform optimally) depends on my emotional state. When I am starting a new business, I have no experience in that industry, and my emotional state is one of feeling lost and confused: Everything I see outside of my comfort zone is confusing to me.
But a little mind hack I learned is to begin to feel as if my business is already at the next level (where I want it to be 1-3 years into the future). When I did this, it raised my emotional state and all of a sudden, I had a new sense of clarity in the opportunities that presented themselves to me.
I would have a new insight related to a person who appeared in my life, or I would spot an opportunity that was already here. When you are in a lowered emotional state, your perception of opportunities in front of you is grim (at best), and impossible (at worst).
The other week, I was having a conversation with a retail franchise owner who was caught in that “low vibrational state” and this emotional state had him looking at his business through the lens of “being hungover at 7 in the morning”, thinking about swallowing that next double shot of whiskey.
His emotional state impacted his perception, which impacted his behavior, which ultimately impacted his results.
How to Break Free
When he was talking about one of the problems he was facing in his business, I told him to shift his emotional state, feeling as if he already sold his business (his one-year goal). Then I told him to tell me to repeat the same phrase he was just talking about (previously being frustrated and unable to find an answer).
While he was simply repeating what he just told me: by shifting his emotional state (and making no other changes to his thought processes), the words he delivered came from someone who had experience selling many companies before.
He had clarity in the next steps he had to take and he took them.
So I tried this on myself…
Whenever I make an important decision for my business, approach a sales call, or whatever it is, I imagine making this decision from the emotional state of already owning my dream house, with $23.8 Million in the bank account (my 3-year goal).
This emotional state of abundance, and acting as if I’m already here provides me with the ability to look at whatever decision I’m making from the sense of a night out with my friends, and not hungover, feeling terrible on a Sunday morning.
Summary:
The emotional state you are in shifts your perception of the opportunities that are in front of you. Whenever you make an important decision or face a struggle with your business, you may be surprised about how you already have the answers when you do so from the emotional state of already being at your destination.
If you would like to learn more about emotional states and maintaining positive emotions (the level past mindset), I wrote a book to share my experiences on the topic: The Cure for Happiness: Timeless Secrets to a Stress Free Life
