Make peace with your fears
For those of you who have attended any of our training programmes you will know I’m a great believer in setting yourself some goals, as having a clearly defined focus in your life, definitely helps you to achieve more overall, as does consistently applying yourself to move towards your goals. So if you haven’t already, then giving yourself 15mins to write down your goals for 2008 is a great exercise to do; however Goal Setting is not the topic of this months newsletter, instead I’m going to cover some of the reasons why even though people set themselves New Year’s Resolutions they then often ‘self-sabotage’.
The reason behind self-sabotage is quite simply fear. Unfortunately fear and fear driven behaviour is often at the very heart of our society. Fears are what stop us from closing those deals, what makes us eat too much, what makes us horde old junk, or even sabotage our relationships.
Think about the animal kingdom, when I feed my cats each day, they don’t over eat because they don’t know where their next meal is coming from; they only eat what they need in that moment, and they trust that their next meal will appear when they need it to.
So what is it most people of fearful of? In my experience here are the most common:
• Fear of rejection
• Fear of not having enough
• Fear of loneliness
• Fear of being poor
• Fear of failure
• Fear of death
So knowing this what can you do about your fears and bring a halt to the self-sabotage.
Susan Jeffers wrote the fabulous book ‘Feel the Fear and do it anyway’ which is a great read. However the way I suggest you deal with fear is in 3 simple steps.
Step 1: Identify the fear, that’s the real fear not the logical story you maybe telling yourself why you must, or why you can’t do something. Your answers may surprise you.
Step 2: Work out what is the worst that could happen. You can do this by continuing to ask the ‘Which if?’ question, until you reach a conclusion.
Step 3: With each conclusion you reach, make your pace with it. This dis-empowers the fear and gives you back your personal power. The fear can no longer control you.
For example, when I made the decision to start my first business back in 2004 everyone around me, particularly friends and family were advising me not to do it. I can remember one family member quite distinctly saying “Why on earth would you want to leave a well paid job, for absolutely no security, how will you pay your mortgage?” Fortunately for me, I recognised that what they were saying was reflections of their own fears not mine.
Before committing to resigning and starting the business I had asked the “What’s the worst that could happen?” question over and over in my head and every answer that came up with I made my peace with it until there were no reasons left. I had made my peace with the possibility that it could all fail and I could be forced to downsize my home, or that I could be left without any income; I figured I’m healthy I have 2 arms and 2 legs and I could always get a job at Tesco’s. That’s not being disrespectful to the people who work at Tesco’s, I’m pleased they do, it means I can shop there, but that for me was the absolute worst that could happen, and once I’d faced my worst fear it didn’t seem anywhere near as scary.
So here are some quick paradigms that could help you dis-arm some of your worst fears.
Fear of rejection – Get over it. People will reject you both in business and in life, but that’s because of their own personal reasons, not because you’re a bad person.
Fear of not having enough – What is enough? instead focus on what you do have. Have you eaten today, did you sleep in a warm bed last night if so I would argue you have what you need.
Fear of loneliness – If you are in a relationship, a fear of loneliness is enough to make your behaviour drive your partner away, trust me I’ve experienced that personally, so instead everyday focus on what you share together and accept the fact that you are indeed an individual. If you are lonely in a relationship or are not in a relationship and would like to be, be grateful that you are a human being and have the capacity to love unconditionally.
Fear of being poor – A fear of scarcity can be the driving factor behind being mean with money and infact this breeds more scarcity. That isn’t an invitation to start spending uncontrollably, but trusting that you will always have enough, draws more financial rewards to you.
Fear of failure – Failure is only failure if you choose to define it so, instead focus on what you will have learned and move on.
Fear of death – Well let’s face it does anyone really know for sure. As a wise man once said “There are only 2 certainties in life, death and taxes and you can’t avoid either!” The hard fact is that one day we will all pop our clogs and you can’t change the inevitable so instead celebrate life and focus each day on living life to the max!
Enjoy!
