Identity shifting and affiliate marketing are closely connected. Becoming a successful affiliate might mean you must change who you are at the core, rather than merely performing actions to “get” the money!
Here’s another reason why affiliates struggle. If you’re carrying a poor self image or identity of never being “good enough” this can dramatically hamper your progress as an affiliate. If so, it may be that you aren’t struggling with “affiliate marketing” as such, but rather reinforcing your self identity which doesn’t allow for success – someone who struggles because “life is hard” or because “you’re never good enough”.
How do you see yourself? Spend some time writing down how you really see yourself at the core level. Do you have some limiting ideas about who you are and what you’re capable of? Do you see yourself as the capable person that you actually are, or do you think you’re destined for mediocrity?
As Henry Ford is quoted as saying “Whether a man believes he can or cannot, he is right”.
“As a man thinketh, so he is” James Allen.
Identity Shifting And Affiliate Marketing – Self Identity/Self Image
Your self image is one of the largest pieces of your world view. How you see yourself, your self image or “identity” is something you continually give energy to, whether it be limiting or empowering. No one talks to you as much as you talk to yourself (whether in your head or out loud). You carry it around with you wherever you go. It’s the “rock” we all cling to in a world which is far too chaotic and unpredictable otherwise.
A plastic surgeon named Maxwell Maltz discovered that many of his patients were still unhappy after they had corrective surgery on an aspect of their face or body. He started working with them on their self image and found that many of them no longer even desired the surgery they once thought was so important once they had changed their self image.
He wrote a book on the topic called Psycho-cybernetics – psycho – meaning “of the mind”, and cybernetics means the science of communication and control theory. So psycho-cybernetics means the steering of the mind for a productive useful outcome/goal.
Identity Shifting And Affiliate Marketing – Changing The Way You See Yourself
Most of us have some limiting beliefs and/or inner “scars” which prevent us from becoming who we want to be. A simple way to observe your self image is by looking at the way you talk to yourself (in your head). This can be done through meditation. By practicing detachment through meditation, we can watch the mind from a detached viewpoint and uncover they way we talk to ourselves.
If you have a positive self image, you’re going to be saying good things to yourself most of the time. On the other hand, if you’re rather down on yourself and continually berate yourself, it’s likely that you have a poor self image and perhaps low self esteem.
When you’re trying to build an online business or learn affiliate marketing, your self image will have a lot to say about it. Particularly if you think of yourself as someone who never achieves anything, or isn’t worthy of success. If you’ve experienced a lot of frustration when attempting something, and nothing seems to work out, chances are strong that it’s your self image having its say!
Identity Shifting And Affiliate Marketing – The Upper Limit Problem
This is also referred to as the Upper Limit problem or glass ceiling. Gay Hendrick’s wrote a book on this called The Big Leap which is well worth a read if you’re experiencing this. Hendricks says that the upper limit is a human tendency to self-sabotage when we taste something great. Our subconscious mind will naturally rebel when things get too good because of subconscious beliefs systems. These might be ideas such as:
- “I don’t deserve all this success”,
- “Life in inherently difficult and troublesome”,
- “Nothing comes easily”,
- “Making money should be difficult and problematic”
- “I’m not good enough”.
If any of these statements ring true for you, it’s likely that the idea/belief is working behind the scenes sabotaging your success. This is seen in many celebrities after they achieve huge success when they get caught up in a scandal. Or when lottery winners lose their money, all their friends and go broke within a few years of their win.
What To Say When You Talk To Yourself
So how can you solve the upper limit problem and change your self image for the better? Firstly as I’ve mentioned you can start meditating. Meditation is a great practice to bring more conscious awareness into your inner dialogue by detaching yourself from your thoughts.
It’s also worth writing down some of your belief systems around self image, world view and making money too. If you have limiting beliefs around making money, the wealthy or what you’re capable of becoming, they are definitely going to sabotage all your efforts on the “outside”. By fine tuning your inner monologue and “feeding” yourself with more positive thoughts and intentions, you’ll be working both on the “outside” with your business and on the “inside” with your self image.
Firstly identify a limiting belief you hold. You might catch yourself thinking it during meditation or even say it out loud during a conversation:
- Rich people are greedy
- Life is hard
- Making money should be difficult
- I’m never good enough
Whatever it is, you must first identify the belief which is holding you back before you can uproot it and replace it with a more empowering and positive belief. See also money mindset coach for a free ebook on this topic.
Lets assume you identify with the last idea “I’m never good enough”. If you’ve discovered that this is one of your limiting beliefs, that’s a good start. You’ve probably been telling yourself this idea for years, if not decades. So it is likely that it’s become quite a powerful belief system. To change it is going to take some effort and time.
Creating A Powerful Mantra To Exchange For Your Old, Limiting Belief
Beliefs are super powerful. If you have a strong belief about yourself or the world, it’s likely that you will create an outcome which is congruent with that particular belief. So if you think “I’m never good enough“, you’ll perpetuate outcomes which align with that belief. How is that going to materialise when you’re attempting to build an online business? In all likelihood it’s going to be damaging to your chances of success.
A new more empowering belief could be “I’m a powerful man/woman on a mission”. Or “I’m a successful businessman/woman”.
Now when you tell yourself a new idea like one of these, you’re unlikely to believe it at first. If you’ve been carrying around a negative self image for decades you will have convinced yourself that what you said (and keep saying about yourself) is actually true. So it will take some practice at repeating your new mantra.
Pick something opposite to your old belief. So for “I’m never good enough” choose something like:
“I am more than enough”
or “I am enough”
“I am worthy”
“I love and approve of myself, just the way I am”
Writing Out Your New Belief
Ideally write out your new belief several times each day. Writing out your mantra is much more powerful than just saying it. Here’s a couple I use to program my mind for greater success:
“I am a powerful man on a mission” – write out 10-100 times each day
“I now make 10 or more affiliate sales every month” – write out 10-100 times each day
As you get better and these things start happening more and more, you’ll realise how powerful they are and you’ll change them accordingly. The second one here used to be “I now make 5 or more sales every month”. When I wrote out an intention I didn’t quite believe, it was more difficult repeating it every day, so I chose a smaller goal that I believed was more achievable and was easier to repeat every single day.
See also problems with affiliate marketing.
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