What are you afraid of? Public speaking? Stepping out of your comfort zone? Taking the next step in your business? Failure? What would you do if you weren’t afraid of making a mistake, feeling rejected, looking foolish or being alone?
The truth is, whenever you’re on unfamiliar ground you’ll experience fear, and that little voice in your head that heralds doom, drama and misfortune will chatter away and instil doubt and uncertainty. Everyone experiences fear – even successful people – but some have learnt to tame and control it. Notice I said tame and not eliminate.
So, if everyone feels fear then it’s really our interpretation of what could go wrong that is the issue. For some people, fear creates a state of paralysis and inaction; for others, they face the fear from a position of power and take action regardless.
Common fears today have more to do with the impressions we make and how another person’s judgment affects our self- worth. This hyper-focus on image is exacerbated by the rise of the social media culture. Too many of us are so afraid of failure and looking silly or being embarrassed as a result, we often don’t take risks or seize opportunities. We think failure is a bad thing, but it isn’t.
Fear is a vital response to physical and emotional danger. Our brains are wired for fight or flight, which, in our ancestral world, helped us quickly evaluate life or death circumstances. Its aim is to keep us comfortable and stable so, in today’s world, any step into the unknown can cause us stress. When you decide to leap into a new business venture, for example, your brain starts sending out signals … whoa!
STRESS RESPONSE
Just thinking about some future worst-case scenario can activate a stress response that makes your body believe it’s actually in that experience. However, it is reported that over 90 per cent of what we worry about doesn’t actually come to fruition. That means there’s a less than 10 per cent chance of the imagined calamities that play out in our heads actually happening.
The actions you take each day create the results of your life. And since every action you take has been preceded by a thought, what you focus on does drive your reality. You will never act in a way bigger than your thoughts. Dream big and your behaviour will follow. Think small and you’ll play small. And what you dwell upon will most definitely determine your destiny.
So, what’s the secret to moving yourself from a position of fear and inaction to one where you are in control and in a position of power?
One of the first things to understand is that there can be no success without failure. It’s just part of the process.
Life’s most painful experiences are sometimes the very circumstances that introduce us to our best self. During easy times we can get caught up in shallow pursuits and pleasures. Hard times cause us to dig deep.
Remove the fear and you’ll move full speed ahead.
There are two acronyms for FEAR that I love:
False Evidence Appearing Real
Finding Excuses And Reasons
It can be amazing when you encounter a situation that makes you feel uneasy/insecure/scared, and instead of heading for that metaphorical exit, you stay focused and strong and do that thing you know you should do. Not only do you realise your fear was mostly a hallucination, you also get an unexpected reward for your bravery, because on the other side of every fear lies personal growth, confidence and wisdom.
Everything that has happened to you in your life – the good and the difficult – is actually a source of growth and is necessary to help you become the person you are now. Just don’t make the same mistake more than once. That shows you’re resisting the lesson available to you.
NO MORE EXCUSES
“My job is too hard.” “I don’t have time to exercise.” “I can’t do this project because it’s too hard/scary/impractical.” It’s only human to justify and fight for your excuses, and the more you fight for them, the more they will own you. Don’t feed what you don’t want. Step into your power.
Successful people don’t make excuses. They do what they have to do and create results. Most excuses are self-created delusions, designed to help you avoid doing the things you are afraid to do. Beneath every excuse lives a fear – a fear of the unknown, of change, of failure or success.
Let today be the day you burn the bridges that lead to your excuses. Step up to the possibilities that lie just off the beaten path and find your greatness.
THE MIRROR TEST
Just hoping you’ll get to great is nothing more than magical thinking.
Look into the mirror and ask yourself the following question: “What one small thing could I do today that would make a positive difference to my professional and personal life?”
Then think about that one thing. Visualise executing that step superbly. And go out and do it. Act with courage. Remember, small daily improvements over time lead to stunning results.
You may have heard the expression that ‘you can’t fly with the eagles if you hang around with the turkeys’. You become a lot like the five people you spend most of your time with, so it’s important to surround yourself with people who inspire and uplift you. People who see the world through a different set of eyes will challenge and push you.
HOLLYWOOD
You’ll never know if you don’t even try. All too often our internal chatter prevents us from taking the steps needed to get us to our own unique form of greatness. Our inner thoughts keep us small.
Authors and screenwriters get to write their own stories – so do you! Although we can’t predict how our lives will unfold, by writing our stories and then doing our best to act them out daily, we can get a lot closer to our own Hollywood endings than those who don’t. Many of our professional and personal desires really can come true – if we write the script. Daily affirmations, meditation and visualisation can all help with this.
YOUR STORY
The greatest growth can come through crises, and often the only thing keeping you from getting what you really want is the story you keep telling yourself. If you want to change your life, change your story.
As long as you continue to push out into the world and stretch your capabilities, you will experience fear, but as you build confidence your relationship with fear will dramatically alter.
Expand your comfort zone. For each of us that level is different but we make choices from the confines of our comfortable space. If you widen that space every day by doing something small that pushes that ‘fear’ button, it will give you that thrill of completion. Keep doing this and newer and braver patterns will start to take hold.
As Susan Jeffers says in her book Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, the only way to get rid of the fear of doing something is to go out and do it.
Here’s to being bold and fearless.