This is a republish of an article I wrote back in February 2017. I have updated some information and included a lecture I did at the American Hypnosis Association. While this article targets business owners the steps mentioned can be used by anyone experiencing anxiety, stress, or worries.
The nature of any business is up and down. The key to success whether in business or in our personal lives is staying up vibrationally when the numbers are down. So, what do you do when the clients aren’t calling? Find out how to deal with the dreaded “client drought”. As business owners, we will encounter slow periods throughout our careers. In this presentation, I go over 5 basic principles that help break through old patterns and clear the path for new beginnings and more success. These tools can help any entrepreneur, regardless of their profession, flow with unexpected changes instead of drowning under pressure. Click the image below to watch the full video.
The 5 strategies + a BONUS are Write It Down, Reach Out, Get Still, Rest, Become Aware, and Gratitude and Appreciation. These are not your typical business strategies like; networking, marketing, or promotion, and boosting sales. These are simple techniques that are guaranteed to reduce stress, anxiety, and depression during unexpected down periods in your business.
These techniques help to recalibrate your mind and body to a peace and calm state, raise your energetic frequency to match the vibration of success and abundance which creates an environment for something magical to take place.
In January 2017 I had my first experience of the “client drought” as a new hypnotherapist. Things had been going great since graduation from hypnotherapy school, The Hypnosis Motivation Institute. Clients were calling left and right, business was booming. I even had client sessions while I was traveling for the holidays. I spent Thanksgiving in Mississippi and Xmas in Washington D.C. and was completely booked.
It was great!
Then something happened. I came back to Los Angeles and a week went by. No clients. Week two comes around, one client. Week three brought just one more client. By week four I was losing my mind. I started feeling anxious, insecure, and uncertain about my new business. I thought LA was cursed. Then I kicked into flight/fight mode and I began the cycle of trying to “fix” the situation. We all know how well that doesn’t work.
In efforts to supplement my income, I scoured the internet for random part-time jobs. I even seriously considered a full-time hypnotherapy position at a rehab facility in another county that required a four-hour commute Monday through Friday. Let me just say there is nothing wrong with looking for or having a job while growing a business. However, taking any kind of action from a place of desperation and fear can be detrimental to the future and Spirit of the business and the business owner.
For example; if I had been offered and accepted that rehab position solely based on the idea of having financial security, I would have been sacrificing the time, energy and focus I needed to grow my own practice, which is my true desire. This would have led to burning out and possibly resentment toward the clients at the rehab facility.
After trying to fix it didn’t work, I went from fight/flight, high anxiety, to feeling defeated and then into depression. I felt I was going into overload mode fast and I knew I needed to get myself back into a neutral space before I lost total control of my thoughts. I did several things to help me regain my focus, get grounded, and quickly attract new opportunities and clients. If you ever experience a “client drought”, here are some suggestions on how to move through it and quickly turn things around.
1.Write It Down. Keep a journal. Keeping a journal is a great way to relieve stress and vent out anger and frustration. The Positive Opposite exercise is a great technique I use for myself and my clients.
Take a notebook with a blank page on the left and a blank page on the right. Write down every fear you have at that moment that is causing you distress. You’ll notice after venting out your frustrations on that page you feel a lot calmer.
Then, take a deep breath, get centered, and ask your higher self to reveal the Positive Opposite of the fears you wrote down.
In my case, one of my fears was “This is going to be another business that fails” because I had run three previous businesses that did not do very well.
The Positive Opposite that I received from my higher-self was “This business chose you. The previous businesses were not your purpose. They were stepping stones to your purpose.” That’s just one of many Positive Opposites. Each day, I would go back and read only the positive opposites which lifted my vibration, gave a sense of hope, and sparked some new ideas.
A study done by Dr. James Pennebaker at the University of Texas showed that writing is an important tool that allows a person to think about an experience as well as express emotions. This helps them to organize their thoughts and give meaning to a traumatic or stressful experience.
I keep different journals for different reasons. One for working through my emotions and thoughts, another for creative ideas and projects, a dream journal, a journal for my meditation downloads, and of course my Mental Bank Ledger to help rewrite my life script and track my personal and career goals.
Personally, writing things down help me to get out any frustrations, work through issues, and plan strategically. I strongly advise journaling and to check out the Mental Bank Program, it has made a significant change in my life.
2.Reach out. I have several friends, mentors, and counselors in my field, who I look to for advice on personal and business issues. I think it is important to talk to people who have been in your situation before and have moved through it successfully. They can provide you with helpful advice, resources, insights and even assist you with work opportunities if it is available. You must ask for it. Remember the saying, “The squeaky wheel gets the oil.” Putting it out into the Universe can yield some awesome results and rather quickly if you stay open and trust the process. One of my mentors told me this profound thing that has stuck with me and helped me through this process. She said, “Just be on the path. Don’t try to make anything happen. Observe what’s on the path.” Her words helped me to let go and take a step back.
3.Get still. Breathe, and Be Silent. Take a few moments throughout the day and just be still, take some deep breaths, and be quiet. Doing this helps to get you centered and grounded so that you can regain some clarity and focus on the positive. Ask for guidance on your path and for your next steps to be revealed. Then just listen and pay attention to the signs and answers that come to you. They come in many forms. Sometimes as an idea, a dream, through conversations you have or overhear, you might even be inspired by something you see on t.v. or hear in a song. I suggest meditating or self-hypnosis while you are in a calm state. Going into a trance state while depressed, or highly anxious can make you feel worse because meditation and hypnosis open us up to other dimensions. If we are vibrating at a low frequency, then we can attract other low vibrating energies or entities. Remember like attracts like. This is why we use misdirection and overload, then take our clients through a progressive relaxation before taking them through a hypnotic journey. Before you go into meditation or self-hypnosis, imagine a golden shield or bubble all around you. This can protect you while you are on your journey through other dimensions.
4.Get some rest. What I found to be helpful during this time was to simply relax and rest. I got the most sleep I’ve had in months and it really helped. I also spent a lot of time outside in nature. Literally laying down in the grass under a tree every day, sometimes I would fall asleep and wake up feeling totally rejuvenated.
Dr. Danielle Shanahan, a researcher at the University of Queensland, suggested that spending just 30 minutes a week in nature can reduce stress, anxiety, and depression. Imagine what 30 minutes to an hour a day could do for you.
Another study done at Stanford University found that time spent in nature not only reduces stress, anxiety, and depression but decreases rumination – repetitive thought focused on negative emotions.) This is why we often take our clients through a scene in nature during hypnosis.
As I rested and just let go, I recalibrated my mind and body to a calmer state, and I went from a place of what I presumed to be stagnation to a flood of ideas for new projects and opportunities coming my way.
I was asked to be featured in an online magazine, and I ran a promotion that got me five new clients in one week. Once I let go of trying to fix my situation, I cleared a channel for creativity and opportunities to flow. The creativity came once I got into a relaxed state where fear and doubt could not reside. This is when solutions show up. During a meditation, recently I asked the question to my higher self, “How can I manifest my desire more quickly?” It answered, “Raise your vibration to that of joy and love, that’s the seed of all creation.”
5.Become Aware. I now realize I was going through my own personal Mercury Retrograde. My body and mind needed to be nurtured, rejuvenated, and re-energized from all the work I had been doing the past year and a half. I was having so much fun learning and building my business, I forgot to just rest. My subconscious mind knew I needed this downtime and therefore created this “client drought” so I could rest. The tricky thing about the subconscious is it will create a situation that is meant to help us and find a way to also identify it with a known association that can trigger memories tied to a certain emotion. In this case, that emotion was fear and anxiety because I tend to associate downtime in business with dried up resources or a “drought” because that was something I experienced in the past with a previous business that didn’t work out. Once I became aware of the cycle, I could change my perspective.
BONUS! Gratitude and appreciation. The most powerful process during that time was replacing the fear and anxiety with gratitude and appreciation for the downtime and space to rest. I started seeing the “drought” as a gift instead of a stressful situation. This simple change in perspective shifted things tremendously.
Shara Prophet, C. Ht. is a Vitality Coach, Certified Hypnotherapist and Certified Master in Therapeutic Imagery. She specializes in anxiety relief, stress management, and removing energetic blocks in the mind and body. Shara can be contacted at shara@opendoorhypnosis.com.
