This is the last step in uncovering the hidden barriers hindering us from having what we desire. Do you have any resentments, regrets or guilt concerning your hair?

List all of your resentments, regrets and guilt about hair.
Do you resent your parents for mating and giving you your unique, but hard to manage hair type? Have you ever resented a stylist for screwing up your hair? Do you regret ever getting a relaxer? Do you regret cutting off all of your hair as an impulse? Do you regret not going natural sooner? Do you feel guilty for wearing wigs, weaves and other hair augmentations? Feel guilty about not fully embracing your natural hair texture?

Now, read over them and let them go.
Were they really that bad? Did you learn something from the experiences? Find a positive spin to each of the items you listed. What can you do now to make the situation better? Forgive yourself, your parents, your stylists, your well-meaning friends and whoever else you mentioned in your list. All of that needed to happen to get you to a better place. Make a decision to consciously release all of your negative feelings about your hair.  

Now, that we’ve discovered all of our negative thinking and feelings about our hair, (or whatever area of your life you’re focusing on) it’s time to get to the fun positive stuff ― goal-setting.

First, make a list of all the stuff you do want.


Example:

My New Hair Is…

• Healthy
• Full
• Shiny
• Waist-Length
• Sexy
• Chic

This is the last step in uncovering the hidden barriers hindering us from having what we desire. Do you have any resentments, regrets or guilt concerning your hair?

List all of your resentments, regrets and guilt about hair.
Do you resent your parents for mating and giving you your unique, but hard to manage hair type? Have you ever resented a stylist for screwing up your hair? Do you regret ever getting a relaxer? Do you regret cutting off all of your hair as an impulse? Do you regret not going natural sooner? Do you feel guilty for wearing wigs, weaves and other hair augmentations? Feel guilty about not fully embracing your natural hair texture?

Now, read over them and let them go.
Were they really that bad? Did you learn something from the experiences? Find a positive spin to each of the items you listed. What can you do now to make the situation better? Forgive yourself, your parents, your stylists, your well-meaning friends and whoever else you mentioned in your list. All of that needed to happen to get you to a better place. Make a decision to consciously release all of your negative feelings about your hair.  

In reaching our goals or in working hard to achieve our goals, we sometimes feel like we are hitting a brick wall. It’s really important to uncover the hidden barriers hindering us from reaching our goals. Using your hair literally or as a metaphor for a bigger life goal, let’s think about what we’ve been expecting from our hair and make a list. Some people will have negative or positive expectations. Be brutally honest with yourself.

Are you really expecting your hair to be thicker, longer, healthier or whatever it is that you want? Are your expectations limiting? If you really think about it, can you exceed some of your expectations? Are you expecting to have setbacks? What are you expecting from your hair? Your life? Your money? Your love life? Your career? Or whatever area you want to work on? Make the list. If you want you can break it up into time frames: what you’ve been expect 6 months from now, 1 year from now, 2 years from now, 5 years from now, etc.

Next, cross of the expectations you want to exceed. Review the list later and frequently to see which expectations you’ve met. Work on ways to raise your expectations.

Have The Hair You Want Series is based on the book, How to Attract Money Using Mind Power by James Goi Jr.

In reaching our goals or in working hard to achieve our goals, we sometimes feel like we are hitting a brick wall. It’s really important to uncover the hidden barriers hindering us from reaching our goals. Using your hair literally or as a metaphor for a bigger life goal, let’s think about what we’ve been expecting from our hair and make a list. Some people will have negative or positive expectations. Be brutally honest with yourself.

Are you really expecting your hair to be thicker, longer, healthier or whatever it is that you want? Are your expectations limiting? If you really think about it, can you exceed some of your expectations? Are you expecting to have setbacks? What are you expecting from your hair? Your life? Your money? Your love life? Your career? Or whatever area you want to work on? Make the list. If you want you can break it up into time frames: what you’ve been expect 6 months from now, 1 year from now, 2 years from now, 5 years from now, etc.

Next, cross of the expectations you want to exceed. Review the list later and frequently to see which expectations you’ve met. Work on ways to raise your expectations.

Have The Hair You Want Series is based on the book, How to Attract Money Using Mind Power by James Goi Jr.

The next step in having the hair you want is to uncover your negative beliefs, so that you can open yourself up to more positive beliefs. Again, you can use this on all areas of your life. Use hair care literally or figuratively.

What are all the beliefs that you have about hair? Make a list.

Here are some examples of prevalent beliefs that some women have:

• I have difficult to manage hair.
• I need to trim my hair a lot and often in order for it to grow
• I can’t transition because my hair will shed excessively.
• I will have to cut off all of my hair to go natural.
• I won’t be confident with natural hair.
• My hair will grow fast because everyone in my family has fast-growing hair.
• I need a stylist to help me transition.
• My hair will always be frizzy.
• My hair is always dry.
• I know my hair will be healthy because I take care of it.
• I control my hair, my hair doesn’t control me.
• It takes a long time to grow long hair.

• L  -  I have difficult to manage hair.
• L  -  I need to trim my hair a lot and often in order for it to grow.
• L  -  I can’t transition because my hair will shed excessively.
• L  -  I will have to cut off all of my hair to go natural.
• L  -  I won’t be confident with natural hair.
• P  -  My hair will grow fast because everyone in my family has fast-growing hair.
• L  -  I need a stylist to help me transition.
• L  -  My hair will always be frizzy.
• L  -  My hair is always dry.
• P  -  I know my hair will be healthy because I take care of it.
• P  -  I control my hair, my hair doesn’t control me.

The first step in getting the hair you want is first identifying what you want. It might help to briefly make a list of what you don’t want. By the way, you can use this as a Step 1 to change any area of your life including your career, money, relationships and fitness goals.

Here are some examples of the negative statements some women tell themselves (and others) about what they don’t want.

EXAMPLE:

THINGS I DON’T WANT

• I don’t want to wear weaves to have fuller longer hair.
• I don’t want to get relaxers.
• I don’t want heat damage.
• I don’t want to go to scissor happy stylist.
• I don’t want people to judge me based on how I wear my hair.
• I don’t want to spend a lot of money on products.
• I don’t want to blend in with the crowd.
• I don’t want to go through an awkward phase.
• I don’t want to spend a lot of time doing my hair.
• I don’t want split ends.
• I don’t want excessive shedding or breakage.

What if I told you that deciding to grow out my relaxer and growing my hair to bra strap length was more mental than anything I’ve ever done? It was. After reading the book,  Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill back in 2007, I was inspired to utilize what I’d gleaned from the book and applied it to various other areas of my life including transitioning and growing out my hair. 

It’s 2011, here are 11 things you can do to improve the health of your hair for the New Year…

1. Love your hair now! Stop having “I hate my hair” days. When you learn to appreciate your hair in all it’s glory, you begin to care for it more consciously and you will see dramatic changes. If you’re feeling a little blah about your hair, focus on what you love about it: the color, the shape, it’s bounce, it’s sheen, the fact that it can hold a style or that’s it unique. Find something dope about your hair to focus on and watch it flourish.
2. Stop over-processing your hair, fall back on the chemicals like dyes and relaxers.  They can really ruin your hair.
3. Cut back on heat.  If you’re using a flat iron every week, try cutting back to every other week, perhaps once a month, once a quarter or maybe never.  Try alternatives to get the straight look like wraps, roller sets, and low wattage hot air brushes (do no use a boar bristle attachment… that’s bad news… look for the plastic bristles). 
4. Shampoo your scalp not your hair.  If you’re going to use a sulfate shampoo, try diluting it with filtered water and use a color applicator bottle so that the shampoo only gets to your scalp.  
5. Stay away from Scissor Happy Stylists.  Unless you’re using a lot of heat on your ends, there’s no need to get a trim every 6 weeks.  I’ve gone a whole year without a trim, some people go longer. I’ve decided 6 months is my threshold for full on trims, but you have to decide your own threshold, but don’t feel like you absolutely have to trim every 6-8 weeks. Long hair is not for everyone, in which case, trim trim trim away. 
6. Watch how you’re combing and brushing you hair.  If you can’t devote 10-20 minutes to detangle your hair,  I strongly suggest you just pop on a hat, scarf, wig or whatever and do it later when you do have time.  Trying to comb your hair in a rush is the reason why most women with curly kinky hair don’t retain length.  Unless you’re sectioning your hair and being very careful, every time you’re raking that fine tooth comb or boar bristle brush through your hair, you’re basically giving yourself a daily hair cut.
7. Stop wearing too-tight ponytails, braids, etc.  You’re causing strain to your hairline and this can lead to Traction Alopecia.
8. Stop sleeping on cotton pillowcases bare headed.  The friction is bad news for naturally curly hair.  Instead, try a satin or silk pillowcase or satin bonnets/scarves and satin pillowcases just in case the bonnet/scarf slips off or you can’t do satin pillowcases. A few years ago my esthetician recommended I change my pillowcases everyday to avoid breakouts. I have a few sets, so I am able to change everyday or every other day. I also have several scarves and bonnets that I rotate during the week and wash weekly. Using a clean satin/silk pillowcase and scarf everyday would be optimal.
9. Stop ignoring your scalp.  I recommend you give yourself (or have someone else give you) a 10-15 minute massage at least once a week using good hair oils. 
10. Spoil your hair with moisture! Splurge on luxurious deep treatments and nutritive oils. Do weekly steam treatments, hot oil treatments, deep treatments or steam towel wraps. 
11. Subscribe to Mane & Chic!

Back in May 2008 I posted this step-by-step animation and instruction on how to make a growth chart made from a tape measure and ribbon. If you’re an avid reader then you know this is my main method for measuring my hair. You can see from the images that my hair was near the 5″ mark. Now, it’s somewhere near 13″. (I’m not sure, we will find out on October 4, 2010). Honestly if I didn’t have this method of measuring my hair, I wouldn’t really know if my hair was growing or not and I probably would have given up and cut it a long time ago. It may be a little obsessive for some people who don’t care about length, but for people who like to visualize there goals, this is a game changer. My goal now is about 15″ and that would put me at waist length when my hair is straight, but it will probably only be a little past my shoulder blades in a natural state.

We all are different; I have a really long back. What’s waist length on me might be hip length on you. Make your own custom growth chart using my technique to chart your future hair.

1. Get a tape measure, they usually have holes at the top.
2. Thread a ribbon through the hole of tape measure.
3. Tie ribbon around your neck (if your hair is shorter… go higher up to tie the ribbon… wrap around your ears/face).
4. Make sure the tape measure is running vertically straight down your spine.
5. Tie another ribbon around waist to keep it straight.
6. Have someone photograph your back.
7. Upload photo to your computer.
8. Print it out and track your hair goals using the assumption that your hair will grow 1/2″ per month.

Now you can see how many inches you have to go to reach your length goals!