I thought I would write about an event that occurred this week that got me thinking about the power of positive thinking, letting go and the power of alignment.

A client that owed me money paid me today. I had chased the client for a couple of weeks, sending several emails and today the payment was made without me having to resort to debt collection or court action. I made a deliberate decision when I began my business (and after a sour experience with a non paying client - more on this in a minute) to embrace the power of positive thinking and alignment. That is, my thoughts should be in alignment with my actions. This has always become most evident when being paid by clients. I have only ever NOT been paid once in the four years I have been operating my practice. It was only a relatively small amount (under $100) and because I was so new in the business, I failed to put in place an Agreement between the client and myself and ask for progress payments (it was a big ongoing job entering information onto a website shopping cart). I did pursue the client but he ended up disappearing and left a few other VA’s out of pocket also. About a year after that, I encountered another potential non-paying client. It was at this stage that I started getting really stressed out about the possibility of not being paid and nearly threw it all away at that point. I then decided to “let go”. I was tired of investing so much energy and stress into the situation and I thought “She is either going to pay me or she isn’t and the outcome is beyond my control. I’m going to give this one up to the Universe and just let go” - and she paid me the next day!

I now ensure I always have in place Agreements with all my clients, and make sure that my thoughts are aligned with my actions - I do everything I can on my side to ensure a positive outcome (i.e. delivering a quality service on time, and being paid for it!). If I do encounter a difficult payer, I have a 3 step procedure I follow before it gets to debt collection and as I mentioned, I have always been paid eventually. I also “let it go” - it keeps me from being so invested in the outcome and stressing out, when really that outcome will happen regardless of how upset I get about it.  It is very liberating and at the end of the day, I know I can sleep at night.

I would be interested in hearing other comments about how other business owners deal with situations such as this.

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