Blocks I hear you say – what blocks Suzanne?  Well, today I wanted to talk about the mindset blocks that hold us back. I'm going to be sharing something a little bit more personal with you, around something I didn't even realize that I had, but once I went into business for myself I was quite shocked to discover this fact.

What was this thing that I had no idea about?

Sometimes you have to dig a little deeper

I really started to explore this side of myself, and why I was discounting my rates so heavily when the skills that I used were no different. Obviously, when you pay somebody for a product or a service, you're paying them for their expertise, what you're going to learn, what you're going to gain from working with them. Really the price shouldn't be any different, but the reality is, is that it did take some time to really work through that. I had heard of Denise Duffield-Thomas, and I knew a few women that had gone through her Lucky B Money Boot Camp, and so I started to do a little bit of exploring. I signed up for a few of her free audios, webinars, etc, and eventually when she was about to double her price, I jumped on board, and I got in to the Lucky B Money Boot Camp , which I have to say has been a pretty big deal for me as far as really taking a look at where my money blocks are, where they've come from, and how I actually work through them myself.

I started to work through them as per her course, really looking at my earliest memories were of money, and how money was spoken about in my family, how I managed my own money, and the patterns that I had. During my 20s I was very much just flying by the seat of my pants, I was living in London, earning a really good salary, once again, in a consulting type role, and was pretty much just spending it. Travelling, shopping, going out when it got to payday I might have had a couple of hundred quid in the bank, and that would have been it. Then it was time for the next payday. I had always lived like that. I married a man, fortunate for myself, that was completely the opposite, and was a bit of a saver, and was very sensible when it came to his money, and so really trying to learn some of those habits.

The other thing that I also was really looking at was decluttering, so how do I manage my money? Is it something that I am scared to look at? Is it something that I am aware of? What I really started to do was use my Xero accounting software, so I've got it, I input it, I keep it up to date, but I wasn't running any reports, I wasn't really looking at what my P&L was. I started to do that on a regular basis. The more I started to do that, the more I could see the money coming in as well. It was really all about understanding what my potential bad habits had been around money, and knowing that that was my past, and wasn't who I am right now and that I can change how I manage my money, how I manage my money mindset and the things that affect that.

Know what's going on in your business – every day!

The second thing is obviously making sure that I was on top of my money situation, what was happening in my business, being really aware of what was coming in and what was going out. The other thing was looking at where my expenses were, and so I ended up cleaning up a lot of my auto expenses, which is subscriptions that potentially I wasn't using, and also just celebrating the small things. I really loved this as well in the course, was that like if you find a dollar if you find two dollars, that's money. Just because it's not 100 bucks, or $1,000, it doesn't matter, everything counts. I really just started to look at how I view money in a completely different way, and it feels quite relaxing to me now.

The other thing that I am absolutely doing more of is with my mastermind buddy, we talk about money, which some people go, “Oh I can't believe you do that.” It's actually quite empowering to be able to do that, and sort of say, “Okay, I want to earn this much. This how I'm going to do it,” or, “These are the things I'm going to do,” and then we help each other to take a look at what else could you do. If that's the goal, what else could you do? Having somebody that you really trust that is very much in that inner circle for you, I think can be a really great thing. You have to decide whether you're comfortable with that or not.

The 3 P's – Purpose, Planning Power

The next thing that I would say is that whenever I work with clients around business strategy, the three things that I really feel come out of that is that once you know what your purpose is, your why, what you want to do, what's important to you, and you create a plan around it, and that for me is a business strategy. It might be a financial goal, it might be how I'm going to go about doing that, and have a really clear plan, then what it does is that it creates some serious power in your business. Because you know what you're doing, and why you're doing it. You understand how you're going to get there, and what your plan is. Then you're able to actually go ahead and implement it knowing full well that you have the capability to do that, and you know what you need to do every day, and how you're going to do. That also feeds into the mindset of knowing that you have the ability to make the money that you want to make if you can put these actions in place.

I just wanted to share a little bit with you today around the money blocks that I realized that I had come into my business, and how over the last 18 months I've really broken through them. I have to say Lucky B Boot Camp has absolutely helped me with that. Facebook group is great as well. There have been other things that I've done myself, I think, that you always have to develop your own skills, and knowledge, and self-awareness, as to what is holding you back, and how you perceive your value out there in the market, and what you're actually providing people.

I wanted to share that with you today. If you've discovered that you've got money blocks, and you want to leave any comments, or ask any questions, I'm definitely not the expert on it, but that's just my personal story, and what I've experienced, then feel free to leave a question or a comment. I'll come back to you. You can also check out more about Denise and some of her free great webinars, and products, and audios, etc, which I … As I said, that's where I started out. I read the book, I heard the audios, I love her free webinar, she's very funny. It's actually been a really awesome journey for me to be able to break through that, and now feel like I'm standing fully in my worth as a business and branding strategist, and coach, and I'm excited to get out there because I know that the money I'm earning is going to help me grow my business in a way that is sustainable, and in a way that I love.