I woke up one Sunday scared to check my email.

I had that nervous feeling I like to describe as squiggles in the pit of my stomach — the same sensation I used to get at Canada’s Wonderland in the ’90s, right after hearing “Please keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times” over the loudspeaker and right before Skyrider — the scariest ride of its time, at least for this 12-year-old — launched toward the clouds.

 

 

Except this wasn’t a roller coaster. This was my actual life.

I had just refreshed my Facebook ads for what appeared to be a dying product, and the thought of having to build yet another funnel from scratch just to make enough money to pay the bills and maybe eat out once a month at my favourte restaurant, Planta (try their fries with truffle almond parm…thank me later) felt daunting. More than that, actually. It felt downright impossible. I had been working seven days a week for as long as I could remember and still hadn’t cracked that elusive seven-figure code touted by online influencers who always made it sound like we smaller businesses were all just ONE pony trick away from having it all.

So on that gorgeous spring Sunday, with the sun shining, cool crisp air wafting through my window, I went to open my email and I paused to catch my breath, desperately wanting my inbox to match the soothing sounds of the birds chirping outside my window — that magical ThriveCart notification that reads, “Congratulations! You’ve made a sale.”

I clicked the email icon on my desktop and there it was.

My worst fear. Absolutely …nothing.

If you fancy yourself a lifelong entrepreneur like myself,  I don’t have to tell you that one of the worst feelings in the world is creating something fully — putting your heart and soul into it — and having it not work.

I began telling myself stories about my inability to succeed. The ones that go something like, “Of course the ads aren’t working. Nothing ever works for you.” Or the ever-popular, “It works for everyone else but me.” And then, finally, because my brain loves a dramatic finale: “Maybe it’s time to get a real job.”

It would have been easy to fall into the trap of victimhood and self-pity, but I’ve been around long enough to know that never works. Believing you are fundamentally flawed only leads to more things that make you feel fundamentally flawed. Disappointment ensues and life begins to unravel at an alarmingly predictable rate. Always.

So I’ve learned to do some mental CPR in those moments of doubt and self-deprecation. Basically, whenever I feel overwhelmed or like I’m starting a mind spiral into lack and despair, I stop. Stop the frantic fixing. Stop the manic manifestation techniques. Stop the efforting. I just stop.

I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and ask myself one deceptively simple question:

What do you want?

I know it might sound trite, or completely self-indulgent — like, how the hell can that question help you with your FB ads — and believe me when I say there was a time not very long ago when I would have laughed at the mere suggestion of such a thing. But after 16 years of being responsible for my own paycheck, I’ve learned that getting your mind right is 90% of the work. In fact I can attribute any real success in my business to doing the mental work first.

So I closed my eyes and did the work… what do you really want, Melanie? 

I want $25K months, easily, effortlessly, joyfully.

Then I always follow that question up with an equally powerful one…

Why?

Because knowing what you desire is irrelevant without the feeling behind it, without the specifics that make it real, without the energy shift…

So Melanie, why do you want $25K?

So I can feel fully supported. So I can give myself the space to create the things I want to create. So I can say yes to the things that bring me joy. And most importantly, so I can pay off all my credit cards, put money in savings, invest, and still have some left over to play. So I can live life fully.

Immediately, I felt like I could breathe again.

I felt expansion. Like everything I wanted wanted me back. It’s not that I thought I had it all in that moment, I’ve always been envious of those that can believe they have it now, without you know, actually having it now.

For me it’s the believing it was possible — and possible soon — that made all the little minutiae of the day-to-day seem almost irrelevant.

Like, of course I can figure out Facebook ads. I’m someone who makes $25K a month. Of course I can handle these little blips. I’m someone with disposable income like never before. Of course an inbox with zero sales doesn’t mean I’m horrible at what I do. It’s one f*cking day. It’s feedback. It’s all working to get me to the next step, the next level. It’s all for me and for my good. Period.

And when you can get there — when you can see the current situation as obviously temporary — that’s the goal.

And here’s the trick not enough people talk about, you must answer the question of what you want from a place of positive expectation, not lack.

If I had said “I want $25K months” but was currently making $5K a month, I would have said the words but felt, “yeah right, that’s never going to happen” — the jump would have been too great. But I was already making $18K a month steadily, so the jump felt doable. Scary, but not outside the realm of possibility. If I couldn’t get my belief behind the $25K, those squiggles would have remained firmly planted in the pit of my stomach. But when I let myself believe my desires are just around the corner it’s like what I want wants me right back. Like I swiped right and found my perfect match.

When I checked my email the next morning, I had made $496 overnight.

Not because I waved some magic wand called “positive thinking” or added a Thrivecart screenshot to my vision board (although I’ll never discount the power of a good vision board). But because I changed the energy with which I worked through the Facebook ads issue. I created something new from a place of expectation before I ever touched the problems of the day.

Editor’s Note:
As I was writing this, I discovered Skyrider has since shut down — retired to make room for something faster, more adrenaline-inducing. The scariest beast in the park, the ride I used to save for last because I could barely bring myself to board it, deemed no longer thrilling enough.

Which is kind of the perfect metaphor for all this, no?

The thing that caused all those squiggles in my stomach as a kid doesn’t even rank as thrilling enough anymore.

Sure Skyrider has since been replaced with Facebook ads. An empty inbox. A dying funnel. But none of them are the reason for the squiggles. It’s always what we’re telling ourselves about the things that creates the anxiety.

Change the story, change the feeling you have about the ride — before you ever board.