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“Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you’ll be able to see farther. “

J. P. Morgan

Decisive action is critical to creating brilliant success. In time of great change, opportunity and creativity, one of the biggest blocks to building momentum and impact is indecision.

Just ask yourself the following questions:

Are you sitting on the fence in terms of decisions you know you need to make?

Does cutting off options feel uncomfortable for you?

Do you like to hedge your bets and keep your options open, just in case your Plan A doesn’t work out?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, don’t worry. You’re not alone!

Let 2011 be the year that you take a stand for yourself and your brilliance. Jump down off the fence of indecision and make a choice. Otherwise you risk getting caught up in a swirl of overwhelm, procrastination and not creating the results and impact you are meant to deliver.

Tip #1 – Decide When You Will Decide

How many times have you told yourself, “I’m not sure now so I’ll decide later.” But then you find yourself constantly thinking about the choice you need to make for days and weeks.

When you finally do make a decision one way or the other, it can feel like more like the victory of getting all the gum off the bottom of your shoe, rather than an empowering choice to create your future.

To keep yourself on track, set a specific date when you will sit down and make a decision. Put it on your calendar. This simple act alone will save you lots of splinters from sitting on the fence forever!

Tip #2 – Get The Big Picture

One reason people stay frozen in indecision is fear. There’s fear of change or that things won’t work out the way you hope. There’s fear your life will be different and your choices put you at risk of losing the approval or love of some people who are currently in your life. We zero in right on the fear and forget to look up for the big picture.

It is true that making a decision does change things. That is pretty much the point! We all need to make regular course corrections along the way to steer the ship of our lives in the direction we really want to go.

So isn’t it more scary to have yourself feeling stuck in this same issue a year from now, or 5 years from now? Think of how much energy, focus and time it is costing you to stay there. When you find yourself on the fence, get stop perspective and remember the big picture.

Tip #3 – Create Some No’s to Make Space for the Brilliant Yes

Have you ever been to an “all you can eat” restaurant? You get excited by all the choices, and so you start to pile all the food on your plate. What happens when you sit down to eat? You have to carefully pick your way through your meal to avoid it spilling all over the table.

Life is like that fabulous buffet table. Anything we want is possible, but we need to realize we only have so much energy and focus. We need to say “No” in order make space for the brilliant “Yes” to come in.

If you’re making a decision and you catch yourself rationalizing why you give it the green light, stop. Step away from the buffet table. If you have to talk yourself into a “Yes” chances are high that the decision you’re about to make isn’t in alignment with your highest purpose. We need to say a lot of “No’s” so we can gracefully and clearly feel our “Yes!” when the purposeful, soul-fulfilling choices come our way.

STEP INTO YOUR BRILLIANCE

Take 15 minutes to brainstorm a list of the different ways you know you’re sitting on the fence somehow. Be sure to scan around in all areas of your life – your career, money, relationship, health, social, spiritual. Read your list slowly and feel into how much of your life force and energy is being tied up in those various places of indecision. Now, pick one item from your list and make a clear decision – Yes or No – right away. If you decide “Yes”, write down the next actionable step you can take to start to breathe more life into that choice. If you decide “No,” cross it off your list with a big red marker and give yourself a pat on the back. Pick at least three more items off your list in the next 7 days.

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I want to ask you a blunt question today, namely, “If money was your friend, what would it say about you?”

I know this may seem like an odd question, but I really want you take a moment and think about it because the answer means everything as it relates to your business success this year.

Would money describe you as a caring and compassionate partner, one who is fully committed to her growth and sustainability? Or would it have more complaints than praises about you, asking:

“Why do you only call me when you need something?”

“Why are you so ashamed of me that you refuse to deal with our issues in an open, honest and forthright way?” or

“Why are you so selfish with me that you lock me up like a prisoner and keep me away from the rest of the world?”

If you decide you’ve been energetically giving your money the cold shoulder somehow, it’s time to take some immediate action to bring confidence, clarity and your brilliance to how you handle your money and abundance. This is especially important if you are committed to taking your business to new levels of financial prosperity this year.

Remember, your business will only grow as big as you grow yourself.  Therefore, it’s critical that you do whatever it takes to make sure your relationship with money is healthy, supportive and primed for lasting growth.

Otherwise your lack of clarity and struggles in this area will sabotage your cash flow every single time.  You’ll ramp up your marketing and start making more money only to see it flow out the door faster than ever.    You’ll never truly get the revenue you deserve from your clients because of that pesky voice that says, “You’re not worth that much” or “You don’t deserve that much”.  And of course you’ll take ride after ride on the cash-flow rollercoaster until you’re physically sick, exhausted and ready to call it quits for good.

I don’t want to see that happen to you or your business! Fortunately, the tools to make a difference are right at your fingertips. Put the following 3 keys into action and you’ll be well on your way to transforming your relationship with money as we go into the New Year:

Key #1 – Give Loving Attention to Your Money

Like any good friend, we need to pay attention to our money regularly. As one of my mentors, Kendall Summerhawk, likes to say money loves attention. Money will get it your attention one way or the other, whether positive or negative. The simple act of tracking your income on a daily basis is a great step to shift your relationship with money.

Key #2 – Stop Your Money Leaks

Think of money as simply a form of energy that flows and circulates in the form of green paper. The more we can focus our energy and attention, the more powerfully we can direct it towards creating and receiving abundance. Things like unpaid bills, uncollected invoices, unopened piles of mail or unfiled paper work nag at our attention and create energetic leaks. When we stop the energetic drains we tolerate around us, our sense of abundance grows and manifests.

Key #3 – Climb on Your Own White Horse

The brilliant entrepreneur shows up as a spiritual grown up around her money, not the little girl who waits and hopes for somebody else to come along on the big white horse to rescueher. Educate yourself and get whatever support you need. Realize it’s time to saddle up and that you are the only one who can take charge of your life.

So instead of beating yourself up or sticking your head in the sand, I encourage you today to get honest about your relationship with money.  Start taking the steps necessary to iron out the areas where you aren’t feeling confident or clear so you can create space for abundance and total prosperity.   Show the Universe you mean business and watch 2011 become your best fiscal year yet!

Step Into Your Brilliance

Stop to review the state of your current relationship with money and your feelings about your finances in general. Feel whether your energy feels expanded or contracted. Brainstorm a list of any area where you feel like your relationship with money and finances is not fully in alignment and support of your brilliance.

Be specific. Some examples could include seeing where you have bills that need to be paid, revenue to collect from others or your filing system needs to be uplevelled. Choose the area that feels most stuck for you and block off 15 minutes this week to focus on taking care of that specific situation.

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If you want to use this feature article in your ezine, blog or web site, you can! I just ask that you include this complete statement with it:

Brilliant entrepreneurs are masterful at creativity and taking inspired action. We get so fired up in doing what we love we sometimes lose track of where we are going.

I know many well-intentioned entrepreneurs go flat out in offering their brilliance they unknowingly can develop tunnel vision. They aren’t crystal clear with their business or personal goals, or they fail to set up appropriate benchmarks for their progress and success along the way. Unfortunately, what starts as a joyful dream of a successful business can end up becoming an energy-draining expensive hobby. The result can be feeling you’re choking on your “to do” list, running on empty and struggling with a perpetual worry of “What’s next after this launch? Where is my cash flow going to come from?”

The first ship that landed on the moon was actually off course over 90% of the time. Yet it landed within inches of its desired destination. Necessary course corrections were made en route so it landed right on target. This is a great metaphor to hold as we captain the ship of our brilliant business forward in a quickly changing and increasingly competitive economy.

Here are 3 keys to help you make brilliant course corrections:

1.  Confirm Your Destination
Do you really know where you are going? Are the goals you have for your business truly yours, or are you trying to emulate someone else or their definition of success? Whether your goal is to earn a million dollars or to break into 6-figures, you are the one who needs to set and articulate a meaningful and authentic goal and vision for your business.

2.  Leave Judgment Out of the Equation
I believe it takes a courageous person to step onto the entrepreneurial path. Your business will only grow as big as you are willing to grow yourself. With this strong correlation between your business and yourself, it can be an easy mistake to judge yourself harshly when you hit the inevitable road bumps you’ll encounter in growing your business. Learn to see needed course correction as simply observations and valuable information, rather than as an excuse for negative self-talk.

3.  Go for the Subtle and Powerful Shift
Course corrections are often subtle. Think of when you’re driving at a fast speed on a highway. Correcting for a strong cross-wind by jerking the steering wheel is likely to create an accident instead of a smooth ride. Establish some basic measurements of your business success, such as monthly sales, number of products sold, the average sales/client or the size of your database.

Don’t focus solely on acting just on course corrections that might means massive improvements. Perhaps it is time to tweak your sales copy, update an autoresponder series or set aside time each week to make customer appreciation calls. Don’t forget to look for the “low hanging fruit” opportunities that are likely right there in front of you that could improve your results in subtle, yet powerful, ways.

Birthing a baby isn’t an easy task, as any mother or witness to a birth knows. Giving birth is a joyous process to be sure. But it is also an intense and painful process.

The end result of bringing a new life out to the world feels like a miracle. We know that it would be far more painful, protracted and potentially even dangerous if we tried to go it alone. So most expectant moms gather a support team around them to guide us and care for them through the labor process.

The labor process is something that all brilliant entrepreneurs are intimately familiar with. Creative and brilliant entrepreneurs give birth to amazing ideas all the time. We dream up amazing products, services and programs that make a difference and create powerful results for our clients.

But so many purpose-centered business owners are stuck having labor pains. You know you have something to offer but you’re not getting the traction and results you want in terms of implementation. As we start to live more from our hearts and intuition, we are flooded with wisdom that wants to be manifested and offered to the world.

But the way we approach our work and get things done is still often driven by the ego-mind. This creates a painful bottleneck I call “Spiritual Overload Syndrome.” We get overwhelmed and distracted. Ultimately we get frustrated and even question our right to dream such brilliant ideas.

If you’re feeling like this, remember the labor process analogy. You are in a period of gestation, just like a mother waiting to give birth to a precious child. Here are some tips and reminders to help you with any labor pains you might be experiencing:

• Delivery of a baby requires patience AND persistence.

• Labor requires both expansion AND contraction.

• You need strength AND an ability to surrender.

• Having someone by your side encouraging and coaching you through the labor pains makes it a whole lot easier than giving birth on your own.

Keep your focus on the big picture outcome and you will be amazed at the outcome.

Copyright 2010 – Carolyn B. Ellis

P.S. Do you want to reprint this article? You may, as long as the article remains intact and you include the bio below.

Have you ever encountered the kind of person to whom you are immediately drawn like a magnet, even though that person is a complete stranger?   You have probably said to yourself, “I don’t know what they have, but I want to find out more about them.”

That person exudes personal confidence, and who wouldn’t want a piece of that?

How do you harness that energy?  Does it just come naturally for some people, or is it a learned behavior?  Well, I think it’s both.  It is definitely possible to make that internal connection that is attractive and intriguing to your prospective clients.  It is possible to get to a place where you’re no longer selling…you’re attracting new clients.

With the Six-Step Mastery Program process that I’ve created, you will have your emotional housekeeping done so you’re not being held back by any limiting beliefs or plaguing thoughts from your inner critic.

Isn’t that great? What an exciting place to be!