Why upleveling your mindset is like getting your bank card blocked.

To be able to use my card again, I need to provide evidence that I am who I say I am and that I am responsible for the purchases made.

Dealing With Your Inner Mean Girl

I need to provide evidence and reassurance that.I am the kind of person that takes this action and that it is safe for me to do so. I have thought it through and am responsible for the actions, I recognise the risks and will work to overcome them.

My card is working again.
My inner mean girl is taking a break.

Bank Fraud Team vs. Inner Mean Girl

Having spent the last few months working with the founding members of my Love Your Marketing Membership Club I’m now finally building out the full membership website.

It’s a sizable job but I decided that rather than wait until I ‘have enough time’ to sit down undistracted for prolonged periods or waiting until it could be perfect, Instead, I would take at least 1 action, however small, every single day until it was done.

So last week I got to the point where I needed to start investing – hosting, website themes, plugins – all the stuff that’s going to make it fit for purpose and get my members falling in love with their marketing as effortlessly as possible.

As I ticked off one item after another on my tech shopping list I was feeling pretty triumphant. I thought I was doing such a great job. I was upleveling my mindset meant I was upleveling my business.

And then it happened. I had one last thing to buy and suddenly I couldn’t seem to checkout. I tried again. And again. Nope, something had gone wrong.

Deflated and frustrated I took myself off to bed hoping a new day would be enough to resolve the problem.

The next day I was ready to try again, full of optimism that it would be different this time. Nope. Once again I couldn’t purchase the last piece I needed to build my membership site.

I realised what the issue was. The night before was basically a little shopping spree and I guessed that my bank had probably stopped my card.

Take Action

A phone call later and it was confirmed, ‘unusual activity’ on my account had set off an alert and until I addressed it directly with my bank by confirming who I am and that I had deliberately spent that money I wasn’t going to be able to move forward.

Phoning the bank is one of those ‘easy on paper’ things for me. I hate calling up not knowing who I’m going to speak to or what I need to say.

However, it was straightforward and let’s face it – critical to me being able to spend money again in the future!

So other than to remind you to ‘spread your purchases out if you don’t want your card stopped’, what’s the purpose of me sharing this story with you?

Well, I realised that it’s actually a pretty good metaphor of what happens in our brains when we are starting to move outside of our comfort zone and upleveling our mindset and our life.

In the same way the bank fraud team is monitoring my account for unusual activity, this is exactly what your Inner Mean Girl does for you.

She wants you firmly rooted in your comfort zone where she knows you’re safe. As soon as you start thinking or acting in a new way she sounds the alarm and floods your mind with thoughts of Who am I to do this?’ and ‘What if I fail?’.

It’s exactly the same! She does an identity check! She wants to know if you’re the type of person that can make big things happen.

She wants to know if you have thought through the risks of your actions to ensure they really are intentional!

Understandably this is where a lot of people stop and shrink back. Or maybe you’ve tried powering on and ignoring her? A bit like my just trying my card over and over again hoping whatever was getting in my way would magically disappear!

Well just like that fraud team, she’s not going to let it go until you’ve given her the evidence she needs to stand down.

So next time she jumps out on you just as you were about to do something amazing – stop and spend a few minutes coming up with examples and evidence that you ARE the kind of person who does something like this.

Sit down and work through the risks, show her that your HAVE thought it through and you CAN handle problems if they crop up just like you have in the past.

Take the time to reassure her and then watch her tentatively move out of your way. Yes, it might be a little uncomfortable and feel like a hassle but it’s worth it to make you unstoppable again.

The truth is when we want to get consistent and uplevel our lives, our businesses etc we normally have to uplevel our mindset first and listening to your inner mean girl and then taking action to stop her blocks is one of the best ways to do this.