There are a number of popular techniques designed to help you ground yourself which you’ve likely heard:

• Visualizing chords connecting the center of the earth with your spine and the bottom of your feet
• Just setting the intention of grounding yourself
• Walking barefoot on the ground
• Sitting against a tree
• Doing a walking meditation
• Walking in nature

Here’s a couple more that you might not have heard as often:

• Imagine spurs coming out of your heels, and visualize them grinding themselves in the soil while you take a sumo wrestler stance. (OK, you don’t have to exaggerate the posture that much, but it’s fun to visualize you doing it. The point is to get our gravity center lower to the ground.)
• Look around you and start counting how many kinds of shapes you can see. For example, the street light is one shape, a leaf is another, the tree trunk a third, the cloud a fourth, and so on. Doing this brings your mind back to the physical world while keeping it happy counting things.

Now when asking you to be more grounded, some people are really talking about wishing that your ideas were more practical. That’s not quite the same as what I’m talking about, though it is often an outcome of grounding yourself.

First, you have to bring your attention back to your body because that is the vehicle through which you experience the world. When your thoughts and your body work together, you have a much better chance of being an entrepreneur that makes good decisions, practical plans, and successful actions.

And if you don’t implement something it either means that you haven’t made it a priority or you don’t know how. That’s certainly been the case with me.

So why haven’t I always made it a priority?

• Sometimes it’s because I’ve overwhelmed with so many things on my plate, which is precisely the time when I would benefit the most from grounding myself.
• Sometimes it’s because my monkey mind just forgets how important being grounded is so maybe it would be useful for me (and you) to explore that one a bit.

Grounding, by definition, helps me get out of my head and into my body. It helps me land my ideals into physical reality. It gives me a better perspective on my priorities, on how to get things done. It’s a reality check on whether I really want something or whether it’s meant to remain in fantasy-land.

If I don’t ground myself, I’m much more likely to:

• Not accomplish things because I’m too much in theory, not enough in practical steps
• Deny reality
• Be vulnerable to others’ opinions because I’m not solid in my own
• Be overwhelmed as I’m not sure what’s a priority, and I don’t have a clear picture of what must be done to get to where I want to go
• Not know what I want
• Be indecisive

It’s a paradox; being grounded means paying more attention to my physical world, which sounds more superficial than my deeper thoughts. Yet if I’m not grounded, I’m much more likely to circle around “frothy thoughts” that are not solid enough to allow the creation of what I want (or think I want).

Hum…these are great reasons for an entrepreneur to remember to ground him or herself; practical, having a direct impact on business success, and well, grounded!

For some of us, it matters a lot because it changes how we make decisions. Let’s see if you recognize this pattern:

• You’ve been wanting to decide on something relatively important: your business niche or direction, whether to leave a job, accept a job, where to move, etc.
• You’re frustrated because you can’t seem to make a decision. You made lists of pros and cons, talked it over with others, asked for guidance…and you’re still hesitating
• Even worse, when you’re asked how you feel about it, or what you really want, you’re not sure which frustrates you even more; how can you not know?

The reason you don’t know how you feel about it is that you’re stuck going around in circles in your head. You’re thinking about the feelings which is no where near as accurate as experiencing them.

For some people, that works ok but for me and many others, it means being out of touch with our inner GPS system.

If you’ve been stuck lately, try reviving that inner guidance system first rather than spending time analyzing your options over and over again.

Ask yourself many times a day: what am I feeling and find the answer in your body. Where is it and what are the sensations? If you come up with a mental analysis of the feeling, stop and look again.

After a while, you’ll be reconnected to your feelings on a more primal level without all the rationalizing layers and that will help you identify what you really want and whether one option feels better than another.

Yes, it takes some time, but staying in your head hasn’t worked, has it, so maybe it’s time to try something different.

Sure, we needed to do some tweaking and planning, but their desires were pointing them in the right direction.

So why did they feel the need for my input?

• For some of them, their desires meant a fairly radical life change and they knew that it was unwise to proceed without getting an opinion outside of their usual circles from a person that could objectively advise both on business and personal issues
• Others, interestingly enough, just didn’t know that they knew what they wanted to do. Until they were asked the right kinds of questions that is. Then it all came spurting out ready to be shaped into a workable plan.
• Still some others had an inkling that their proposed direction was right for them but needed to bounce it off a competent third party and especially needed help in sorting out the implications of their choices, as well as in making a plan (is there a theme forming here ?)

As I said in a recent post about using human mirrors to help with decision-making, our thoughts seem to become concrete only when they are externalized. Writing helps because of the alchemy that happens when thought energy turns into written words. Brainstorming with another human being brings another level of transformation to our ideas.

Given the impact that life direction decisions have on our finances, our time, our energy and our life, it’s amazing that we would even consider making them on our own or with the help of just our immediate circle of friends and family.

If you don’t want to or feel you can’t afford the services of a coach or advisor, find other ways to get a new perspective such as:

• Brainstorming with mastermind group buddies
• Reading books and doing exercises that come from a different angle than you’ve previously tried
• Listening to free or low-cost teleseminars on the topic and joining their group programs.

Whatever you do, make sure you’re not being penny-wise and pound foolish. You know how costly it would be to choose an unwise direction. That’s one of the reasons why you might have been stuck in the first place.

She tried “feeling into” each possibility, imagining herself in each situation to sense which one felt better. That didn’t work either.

I’m sure you remember how uncomfortable that kind of uncertainty is. Sometimes, you end up making any decision just to relieve the tension and that doesn’t always turn out to be a good idea (though granted, it can be better than making no decision).

Anyway, while we were having lunch she talked her options…and knew within minutes exactly what she wanted to do. And, by the way, it turned out fabulously well.

So what happened that made it all so easy?

• There was complete trust in the relationship, which means she was free to be her true self while wasting none of her energy subconsciously protecting her image.
• Vocalizing her options helped clarify them even further.
• It also externalized her energy and got her out of the vicious mental cycle that she was in.
• By telling me about her options, she was better able to place herself in an observer’s role which gave her another perspective.
• I was able to reflect to her what I observed: which option left her more energized, which clouded her voice or facial expressions, which one left her looking powerful and free rather than restricted.

Notice I haven’t even yet touched on the fact that I asked insightful questions (a natural talent further honed through life experience and my training as a Life Coach) and summarized the logical impact of her options (ditto). Or that I have an unusual intuitive ability to hear the unsaid and uncover her true desire, which she then recognizes with relief (“Of course, why didn’t I see that all along?”)

Even if the people in your life aren’t highly intuitive life coaches, you will still really benefit from asking one of them to be your living mirror as they witness your decision-making process. I’ve listed 5 reasons why that is so, but the best proof is in the pudding.

Try it next time and you’ll be amazed.