In this Edition
1. Facing Your Fears
2. Inspirational Quotes
3. Recommended Reading
Facing Your Fears
One of the biggest single factors holding people back from defining and achieving their personal and professional success is “fear”. Fear comes in all different forms, the fear of losing, the fear of rejection, the fear of the unknown, the fear of failure, the fear of disappointment, the fear of not living up to expectations, even sometimes the fear of success. Do you see a fear in this list that relates to you?
As I say in my best selling book, Success is Not a Spectator Sport, we have two choices with our fears. We can choose to ignore them and hope they will go away, which for most of us this will not happen and is a foolish exercise, or we can try to better understand our fears and find ways to get over them.
If we face fear instead of running away from it, if we confront what is holding us back, if we break each fear down step by step to try to understand the reason for it, if we are bold, courageous, confident and truly believe in ourselves and our abilities, we then replace, doubt with hope and confidence and a resilience that lets us try the things we think we could not do. But, it takes that first step and sometimes that first step is the hardest one to take
Take the first steps now and turn your fears in to freedom:
Write down the five greatest fears that are holding you back from your success
Identify them one by one and why you think these fears are holding you back.
Break the bigger theme into smaller, sub-fears. When you do this they do not seem so scary or overwhelming
Take decisive action. This means taking control of the fear and recognizing that fears are perceptions or possibilities, not reality.
Case in point: as most of you know from reading my book, or hearing me speak that I used to stutter. Because of this, every time I tried to speak, I used to be literally paralyzed with fear. Breaking this down, I suffered from the fear of speaking, the fear of embarrassing myself in public, the fear of being made to look foolish and being rejected, the fear of not being able to control my stuttering. All of these fears stopped me from doing so many things in my life, and held me back. But truth be told, they only held me back because I allowed my fears to rule my life.
It took me a very long time, over 25 years in fact, to confront my fears, to take that first step. By doing this, I finally sought help to take action on my stuttering. As a result, a strange thing happened. My fears became an opportunity rather than something that was holding me back. One by one, as I identified and broke each fear down, they became less daunting, not so scary. Sometimes I would even say, “what’s the big deal?”
Stephen Covey talks about “having the end in mind”. This means thinking of the end game, and that is exactly what I did and still do with every fear I have. I identify each fear and why it is holding me back. I confront it, break it down, take small, daily actions. I see the big picture, the light at the end of the tunnel, the rewards, and what my life could look like without that fear. My big picture was imagining myself speaking in public way back in the days when I could not even put together a sentence with all those smiling faces in the audience, and people actually listening to me instead of laughing at me.
Through the steps above and a lot of help from incredible people, I overcame my fears and achieved my dream. What is your biggest fear right now? What is holding you back from overcoming that fear? What is stopping you from taking action NOW?
I have always said that fear is a coward, like a bully, and if confronted will run away.
INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES
“The brave person is not the person without fears, but the person who acts in spite of fear” Brian Tracy
RECOMMENDED READING
The Moose on the Table by Jim Clemmer
Jim Clemmer is a popular speaker and terrific writer. I am a big fan of his books and this latest one is no exception. The author tells us an educating business fable, giving us realistic scenarios and solutions, some terrific gems and nuggets showing us how we can apply fundamental leadership principles in to our lives. Also visit Jim’s website at www.jimclemmer.net it is a treasure trail of information and great articles. Sign up for his free newsletter too.
