If you don’t control your thoughts and emotions, or your mindset, then you may be victimizing yourself by reducing or eliminating your opportunities to be successful in the most important moments of your life.

Misalignment of your conscious and subconscious mind is often a form of fear of success. This is one of the most cryptic of all fears because many of the conflicts associated with it reside in the subconscious mind.

Success in business always includes making lots of money. Do entrepreneurs and those in the corporate world have fears of or blocks to making lots of money? Yes, actually. It’s a part of our culture.

Let’s look at some of the language we use and the words we hear that influence how we think:

• Filthy rich. Originally, this meant that one became wealthy by dishonorable gain, but now it describes someone very rich.
• More money than God. This is either blasphemous or more powerful than God. Neither is a favorable attribute.
• Money is the root of all… enough said.

In our culture, money and having wealth are often vilified. It’s quite a conflict in becoming wealthy!

We once met a 15-year-old swimmer who was afraid to clock a senior national qualifying time. She explained, “People’s expectations will just be so much higher. I don’t want the stress of higher expectations!”

Goal #1: To reach Senior Nationals.

Goal #2: To enjoy being a teenager.

She ended up discussing with her parents her conflicting dreams. To its credit, the family came to an agreement that if she did swim well enough to qualify for Senior Nationals, she wouldn’t have to actually compete at that level until she wanted to. This plan allowed the girl to swim up to her full potential without the distraction of feeling that she was missing out on the fun of being a typical 15-year old.

Over the years, we’ve talked with hundreds of woman executives who say they constantly struggle with their desire to be successful in both their business and family lives. Fear can hold them back – if they devote themselves to their careers, are they shortchanging their families? Or if they strive to have a happy and harmonious family, will they be held back in the workplace?

These are conscious mental blocks that will cause you to have a misaligned mind, or a mind that is out of control resulting in thoughts and actions that don’t match your intentions.

In the next post, we’ll look at how you can recognize the factors that are blocking your success.

In the meantime, have you yourself come up with any? I’d love to know about them, and see how we might move forward. Thanks for sharing!

For questions about this post or for information on becoming a fearless leader, contact Dr. Cathy Greenberg and The Fearless Leader Group at (888) 320-1299 or by email at hello@fearlessequalsfreedom.com.