Here at the end of the calendar year, you may be reflecting on the year gone by.  This is a great practice as you complete this cycle, and as a foundation for the one now unfolding.

But if you are like most people, you are more highly attuned to the things you think you didn’t do well, then you are to the things you learned, let go of, or accomplished.

Those inner nay-sayers can be vicious, counting what you haven’t done, or pointing out what you did incorrectly, or just plain driving you with the mantra:  it’s never enough, or never good enough.

I find myself often reminding my clients to stop, step back, and notice how well they’re doing.  “Appreciate what you’ve done,” I’ll exclaim, “pay attention to all you’ve accomplished.  Don’t compare yourself to other people.  Compare yourself to where you were six months ago, or a year ago—really it’s remarkable.”

It’s great to have an excellent work ethic, and high standards.  These absolutely will contribute significantly to creating a successful business. But they are not helpful if they become ways to beat up on yourself.  Not helpful at all.

I recently learned the scientific reason for this.  (I have all kinds of metaphysical and psychological reasons, but this scientific one is cool.)

It’s called the Inverse Zeno Effect.  According to Kim Marcille, the Inverse Zeno Effect is a phenomenon in which processes can be slowed down or accelerated depending upon how you measure them.  How you measure them, and how frequently, will determine what the Zeno effect is.

Basically what this means is this: if you frequently measure what you haven’t done, or what you think you haven’t done well or correctly—you will put the brakes on your success.  But if you frequently measure even the smallest accomplishments, you will speed up the process toward your success.  Even better, says Kim, wrap your vision around how you praise your actions, and you will amplify the effect even more.

So this year, as you reflect on what you’ve done, use the Inverse Zeno effect to your advantage.  Like this:

Step One:  Make a list of everything you did to educate yourself about your business, and what you did to build your business.  Start with the big things, and work down to the smaller things.  Really take the time—a few hours maybe—to go back through your year, and map out your efforts and your accomplishments.  My experience tells me that you have probably either forgotten, neglected, or discounted much of what you did because it didn’t create the direct result that you hoped it would, or because your expectations were not informed by enough understanding about how business actually works.

~ > As one of my mentors, David Neagle, says:  “You have to remember that most things you do in business don’t work.  That’s why persistence is so important.”

Everything is an experiment and a test, even when you’re working with proven models.  So it’s important not to be too hard on yourself while you’re learning what works for you.

Step Two: Take your list and frame it with statements about how your actions helped to promote your vision and purpose for your business.  Here are a few examples:

You wrote a blog article once a week.  Frame it like this: In 2012 I wrote an article in my blog every week, which helped me to refine my message, identify my tribe, and reach out and provide value to my people.

You attended 1-2 events per month in the last quarter of 2012 to meet new people and expand your network.  Frame it like this:  Over the last three months, I reached out to new people, developed new relationships, and now have a broader network to work with in 2013. 

You filled your practice each week with clients.  Frame it like this:  In 2012 I created a strong foundation for my business with regular clients, and now I’m well positioned to leverage my expertise for greater rewards and income in 2013.

Step Three:  Step back, review your list, and acknowledge yourself for what you did do.  No matter how few or how small, focus on what you did do, and particularly on what you enjoyed and appreciate.  Discipline yourself to focus on what’s positive, not on the negative.  B r e a t h e and take it in.  Really take it in.

Step Four:  Develop a frequent practice—you can start with once a week, then build up to once a business day—of accounting for what you accomplished.  Don’t wait until the end of the year to add it all up!  You will accelerate your results if you frequently note your actions, and frame them as accomplishments.

For example, for today, I’m going to write:  Today I wrote an article for my Tribe about how appreciating yourself is good for your business.  This article helped me stay focused on what really matters, enables me to provide value to my people, and helps promote my overall purpose of upliftment through soul-inspired business development.  Ah, that feels good just to write and read it.

Your Turn! List out at least one of your accomplishments from 2012 that you want to celebrate and that we can celebrate with you.  The Inverse Zeno Effect is magnified even more when you share with others.

This week, and especially on Friday, Winter Solstice 2012, people are gathering all over the world in meditation and prayer.  During this time, our planet aligns with the center of our galaxy, ending and beginning cycles that are thousands of years long.

Although I have heard about the Age of Aquarius since I first saw the musical “Hair” as a child, I was not very tuned into the conversation about 2012 until I heard Gregg Braden speak about it at an “I Can Do It!” Hay House conference a couple of years ago.

What really struck me in his presentation was the astronomy (not the astrology) of this time, and how it relates to humanity’s history during other cycles.  If you want to know more, I highly recommend his book, Fractal Time, which is all about this.

I had a very powerful moment during his presentation when he was showing the alignment of Earth with the star at the center of the galaxy, when I realized:  “That’s the Spiritual Sun!!! That’s the Spiritual Sun!”

As a student of Orin and Sanaya Roman for many years now, I have been attuning myself to what they call “the Spiritual Sun.”  But I didn’t have a “location” for that Sun, not physically anyway.  When I saw the film he had, I experienced a dropping into alignment and awareness that was new and oh so affirming.  And that made me tap into the conversation around 2012 in an entirely new way.

That experience prodded me to do that work that I do now.  Because I realized in that moment, how critically important it is for visionary entrepreneurs—those engaged in the business of positive transformation and spiritual growth—to become successful in business and financially empowered.

Why?  Because this is turning point.  It’s not a moment in time—not just this Friday.  It’s been building for years, and will continue to unfold for as long as I am alive.

We are seeding the energy—the qualities, values, terms of engagement—of the New World Age now emerging.

That’s the next 5126 years, or the next 26,000 depending on how you look at it.  Either way, it’s an f***ing long time!

We have an enormous opportunity—and an enormous responsibility.  What you focus on now, and how you respond to challenging situations, sets the tone for the rest of your life—and contributing to the global whole.  What will you choose?

I want to share a few words from a channeling I did for one of my clients this morning.  I hope it provides YOU with inspiration and guidance.

“Many of you have been in training in your work of service, with children, with friends, with clients and students.  Your service connects you to a deep place inside yourself, your Soul Self, your Sovereign Self.  There you experience power, clarity, wisdom and insight.  This is one reason you love to be in service.  Because it pulls you out of your conditioning and ancestral beliefs, into a deeper knowing.

You are at a threshold where the task is to take this training and turn it toward yourself.  To be able to bless yourself as you have blessed others.  To be able to love and serve yourself as you have loved others.  Because you have often had the habit of turning away from your deeper self when you are not in service to others.  And you have been the one to suffer the most.  This serves no one.

Make use of your training now, as you step over this threshold, go through the portal, into a new place of unknowing and unpredictability.  This may generate fear—but it need not.

You are in exactly the right place, at the right time, with everything you need to live your life as you most wish to.  You are never alone.  You are always supported.  But you need to ask—and open to receive.

Blessed Be.” 

This is kind of a personal article today.

Many different conversations flow about the meaning of today.

December 12^th is the feast day of the Virgin de Guadalupe. Around the global more people worship a female deity on this day than any other day of the year. The sheer magnitude of prayer and attention to the Divine Feminine reshapes our consciousness–if we pay attention. Although this festival happens every year, no doubt it is particularly celebrated and auspicious this year.

This is the last time we will experience three numbers lining up in our calendar as they do today. Not again until 1-1-01, which is a very long way away. Not in my lifetime (I don’t think . . .).

12-12-12 is also the twin of 12-21-12, which of course is the Winter Solstice and the day that the Mayan Calendar ends. Much has been and is being said about this portal, this threshold into a New World Age. 12-12-12 is the beginning of a nine day cycle, some predict, that comes to fruition on 12-21-12.

For many people these days will pass unremarked.

I hope not for you.

In the midst of my busy life, with clients, business, and family, I find space to acknowledge. To pause, breathe, go inside, feel within the stirring of much that is beyond me, yet is undeniable.

This has been a year of increasing extremes. The up is higher, the down is lower. Both are strong. But the upward spiral is SO MUCH STRONGER when you tap into it. Are you? Every moment brings a choice of where to focus.

For me today, and 12-21-12 are about focus and intention. I believe that through the eye of this needle much may appear to be the same. Or all may appear to be utterly different. The choice will be there–it will be obvious, unprecedented, and also easy to ignore if you choose.

I often speak about opening to a new and widening field of possibilities.

Two years ago I saw before me quite dramatically two movies. In one I lost my marriage, my child, my business, my home. Everything fell apart, and I was alone. With nothing and no one. A nightmare.

In the other, one step at a time, my life began to make sense. I could see a few steps in front of me. I had the sense that everything would work out okay. I might feel like I had scraped my knees, but I made it through the darkness. I knew I would get to the other side. I could feel I was guided and protected, even though on my own I couldn’t see the way.

Each day, each moment, I had the choice of which movie to live inside of. It was like I had a remote control and at the click of a button I could be in either reality.

I chose the one in which everything worked out okay.

Today I no longer see the options of having everything fall apart. That is not a possibility in my current reality.

Why? Because I decided that it wouldn’t be.

I took actions inside of my own mind every day to ensure that this would be the case. I took actions in my outer world every day premised on the assumption that support was available, and that I could rely on it.

Is the path clear?

Absolutely not.

Are the next steps clear? Yes.

Today I bow to 12-12-12 as the portal through which all of us may enter the world in which everything works out okay. Better than okay. Great may even be possible.

Are you with me?

Let me know . . . so we can experience this together.

Today’s article focuses on one of the three key puzzles pieces to creating money—your offers.  Your offerings, along with your outreach and your invitations, make up the core of your business model.  Read further as I zero in on this critical piece to your financial empowerment and business success.

What are you offering?

Being clear, concise, and compelling about your offerings is critical to your business success.  It’s one of the areas that I see visionary entrepreneurs struggle with the most.  Shifting your thinking on this one subject will change your entire outlook, your income, and the stability of your business.

I could go on about this all day, but today I want to outline three key strategies for you to consider regarding your offerings.

• Shift from thinking in terms of your modality to thinking in terms of the value that you truly provide—how someone transforms as a result of working with you. 

To do that you usually need to emphasize consistent work over a period of time rather than individual or even packaged sessions.

Most service providers are trained (if they are trained in business at all) to offer sessions in the field in which they were certified.  These might be individual sessions, or they might also include a package of sessions, usually with a discount for a package.

I know I was, and so are so many of you that I speak and work with.  As a Certified Clarity Breathworker, I was trained to offer a package of ten sessions, providing a 10% discount when someone pays in full for that package, or to offer individual sessions.  Many holistic healers—acupuncturists, massage therapists, Reiki practitioners, hypnotherapists, and so on—were trained similarly to offer individual sessions even though very often the true value of their work comes with consistent treatment over time.

Transformation does not (generally) happen in a day, or a session (although it can). 

By not emphasizing the significance of a longer term commitment, and not creating a structure that makes it easy for your clients to make this commitment, you are actually inhibiting their care and the rate of their transformation. 

The biggest hindrance for the business owner is that as long as you say “I’m a massage therapist” or “an NLP practitioner” you will always be fit into that box.  The result is that you will only be thought of in terms of that modality (not in terms of either you or the evolution you provide), and what you can charge will be determined largely by the going rate for that modality.  There is some flexibility here, but not very much.

When you shift your thinking from sessions to value and transformation, everything changes.  You will create programs that draw upon all of the different areas of expertise that you have to bring about the evolution you are capable of facilitating.  It’s the outcome and your ability to provide that that you are then promoting, and the entire conversation changes.  More on this in the next note.

The other huge benefit for you is that you create programs that continue over a period of months, and this provides you with more consistent, recurring income.  That is income which is committed for a period of time that you do not need to generate anew every month.  Instead of starting your month at zero, you start at $1000, $5000 or $15,000 or more and you build from there.  Nice, huh?

• Create simple, clear, and concise offerings that are described in terms of benefits and outcomes.

This becomes easier once you begin thinking about the transformation that you provide.  I was speaking with one new client yesterday about exactly this issue. She has been in the mode as I describe above, of individually selling her massage sessions and packages, and her yoga classes.  When I asked her what her offerings are, her answer was difficult to understand because she has so many different rates and packages depending on frequency that I could not understand what she’s offering.

When I asked her what the primary benefit is that most of her clients get from working with her, she named several intangible experiences, like greater awareness and more choices.  When I continued to probe, I discovered that relieving pain is the first thing that people come to her for.  She’s an expert at helping people recover from injury and dysfunction so that they lead a pain-free life.  Wow!  Now that’s clear—and it’s exciting.

In our conversation, I guided her to create a program that supports a life without pain.  Her clients will get the benefit of a customized plan spanning a period of time that is designed specifically to help them first relieve the pain they’ve been experiencing and then develop a lifestyle that prevents the cause of pain from recurring in the future.

So rather than have a series of packages that are difficult to understand, she will now streamline her offerings to focus everyone toward this longer term, super high value program that is best for her clients, and much more stable and lucrative for her.

• Create a clear progression of offerings.

You want to have a progression of offerings, not just a set of packages.  When you begin to focus on evolution, you begin to see that you start with someone in one place and take them on journey with you through your offerings.

This gives your clients options for how to work with you, and it gives them a sense that they can grow and evolve with you.  They aren’t just coming to you for one session (to make them feel better).  They are getting to know you and taking steps along a path to having the life they truly want in relation to what is your area of expertise.

For example, maybe you offer a free introductory evening in which you give participants a taste of what it’s like to work with you.  From there you invite them to a complementary session (a strategy session, discovery session, a vitality session) in which you personalize your approach to them, and invite them to take the next step by working with you.

When you have a few simple, clear, and concise paid offerings, you can advise them which of your offerings is right for them based on their desires and needs.  And as your business matures and grows, you will have a number of offerings at increasing price points with increasing levels of value and commitment so that you have something that is right for anyone who is an important member of your Tribe.

Learn something from today’s article? Have a question?  Leave a comment!  I’d be happy to give you feedback on your offers—just let me know.