Have you ever been afraid of something? I have been working very hard to make changes in my life. Today marks the beginning of the last hundred days of 2012. So I am going to use these 100 days as a sort of bootcamp. Really examine what I am doing, where I am going wrong, and really stepping up into my life. But as I write that the fear starts rolling in. How can I actually use that fear as fuel to make those changes?
In many cases fear can actually save your life. Walking in a dark area known for crime or deep in the woods it’s good to have that fear so you’ll pay extra close attention to your surroundings in case of a criminal or a bear.
I have always been terrified of sharks. This is an irrational fear because I have never lived near the ocean or ever really had any connection with sharks at all. But it is not irrational to have a healthy fear of sharks. I mean can you ever hear that music “Da dum da dum da dum” without thinking of “Jaws”! Being appropriately scared of sharks is a good thing. Sharks, violent criminals and bears… oh my. These are all very valid fears.
But what happens when fears aren’t so valid… fears that won’t save your life… fears that actually rule and ruin your life. Those unrealistic fears that are basically destroying your life … what do you do about that?
Letting that kind of fear run you … is like sleeping through life while continually having a really frightening nightmare. That type of fear bores its way into your brain playing these horrible fabricated scenarios over and over while adding more and more ghastly details each time.
The irrational fears that might ruin your life like choosing not to do something because of a fear of what people will think. “I can’t do that…what will they think of me?” The funny thing is that those people whose judgement we worry about are usually more worried about what we think about them. So I’m worried about what you think of me but you’re worried what I think of you. It’s like that old joke, “That’s enough about me. Let’s talk about you… What do you think of me?”
Okay so can we all agree … Let’s let that fear go. That fear is off the table
What else is there to fear? How about failure? What if I fail? Failure. Now, that is a huge fear. Fear of failure keeps people from trying things. Who wants to try things if they’re going to fail? But the real question is what if you don’t fail? What then?
If you only succeed all the time won’t that get boring? You'd like to give constant success a try.
But even if you did succeed you would still keep trying something new. Because that is how humans are wired. We’re always looking for something more… how to improve, how to do it better. That is our way. We have to do it. So if you’re afraid to try because you fear failure… that’s natural… that’s human… embrace it and hope for it. That is where the magic lies.
Thomas Edison, the great innovator was asked how he kept going after failing to invent the light bulb over 10,000 times. His retort, “I never failed I just discovered all the ways not to invent the light bulb.”
So what fears are keeping the light out of your life? Consider that fear is the pressure applied to the raw materials of your life to create something new. Like the pressure applied on a lump of coal to create a diamond. Or the way extreme heat is used to turn base elements into steel; The steel it takes to bring buildings into existence; Buildings that began as a single thought in some ones mind; the mind of a person who might have been afraid of what people might think of them or their idea; Or maybe they feared that they would fail But that building made of steel stands as proof that fear is not the place to stop.
So the next time that fear rears its ugly head and tries to silence your passions… Consider the magic you will make for yourself and the world by not bending to the fear.
Mark Twain said, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, NOT absence of fear.”
So I am going to have to stop being afraid of the changes that will transpire over these next 100 days.
