Pt. 1: Why You Are In A Rut
It seems right now that we, as a world, are in a giant rut. We are being forced to take time and space (literally) away from our social, productive, and economic lives. There is a mutual scarcity mindset that is slowly pervading and causing many people to panic about various aspects of their life, especially surrounding finances and work- myself included!
I have been personally working through my own scarcity mindset and my beliefs around the rut that I am in. The following content is adapted from To Be Magnetic, EMDR clearing exercises, “It Didn’t Start With You” by Mark Wolynn, and my therapist, Lauren Sheehey. These are the tools and prompts that I am using to work through my current rut!
“Ruts, whether perceived or real, are caused by a diversion away from our authentic selves. They are a sign to us from the Universe/God/Source that we are living inauthentically and need to be almost stopped in our tracks to realign and move forward. ”
To understand where you veered off track, or if you’ve never felt on track, you need to get very clear on what you value and who you are when you are your most authentic self. To Be Magnetic calls this your Authentic Code, Lauren refers to it as “what lights you up”, but either way, it is the foundation of who you are and what you want out of life. We will refer to it as your Core Values.
The fastest way out of a rut is to determine your four Core Values and to pivot your actions to match in your daily life.
Journal: Day 1
Discovering Your Core Values:
*Note: if you have done something like this before for a business class or workshop, please bear with me and answer the questions. I promise that it will be slightly different and worth your time.
During this activity, you need to be brutally honest with your answers. Don’t answer based on who you want to be or who you think you should be, that will only bring you farther away from who you are and the pathway out of this rut!
List four answers for each of these questions, listing them most relevant to least relevant. As you go through these questions, patterns will begin to emerge and point to your Core Values.
Take a look at how you spend your days, what to you spend the most amount of energy on? Especially when nobody else is around, how do you like to spend your time?
Where do you focus your finances? What do you spend the most money on? What do you save for? If you want more money, why? For what?
Where are you most organized in your life? Job, a hobby, finances, closet, social calendar, etc.
If you could live your perfect day, what would your priorities be?
What consumes your thoughts?
What do imagine when you think about your future? Who? What things do you want? Experiences?
What do you want to talk about most? What topics light you up?
What inspires you most in life? If you were creating a vision board for your life, what would be on it?
What are your long-term goals? What do you want in life to make you the happiest?
What do you watch/research/look up/read/ about most when you are online? Who or what do you follow on your social media channels?
Take a look at your answers and see if there is a pattern. See if you can boil them down to their essence to get your four Core Values. Say you listed nice car, big house, money to travel, these could all boil down to luxury or financial security or success. Get very clear on why you listed what you did. For instance, I boiled financial independence, travel, and being outdoors down to Freedom.
Keep journaling on the aspects until your four Core Values become crystal clear!