Are you being held back by fear?
Whay Are We Afraid?
What we don't know or understand we are by instinct afraid of and this can serve us very well. The positive side of fear of the unknown can protect us from physical and emotional harm but it can also hold us back and create upset...the key, as to everything in life, is balance.
Leading an unfulfilled life, being a wage slave, discrimination, hatred and even wars all stem from fear. The worst people in history used fear as a weapon and themselves were afraid of not have respect, power...ultimately they lacked significance and gained it in the most drastic ways.
Fear Held Me Back
Most people don't realise but fear rules most aspects of their lives. How do I look? What will they think? What if I'm late? What will happen? How can I get through this? I myself still struggle with the daily fear of failure and used this to self-sabotage myself when it came to making money. I kept myself busy but I wasn't productive...
Self Sabotage
I tried all-sorts! I spent most of my childhood developing my design skills and had a portfolio of (pretty okayish & some downright weird) cross stitch designs. I'd competed and won a couple of national competitions run by magazines and felt this was the way I should go.
I contacted a publisher, put together some little kits from materials my mum kindly invested in for me and took out an advert in one of the top cross-stitch magazines in the country. I got little response, sent of home-designed and printed brochures and I didn't sell a thing. Not a one!
So after a while I moved on. Over the years I tried logo design, knitting, web design, natural cosmetics, pixies and even tarot readings and I had the same pattern every time...spend ages on the setup, have a feeble attempt, move on to the next idea, all the time wondering why I was such a failure and couldn't get a break, not realising my lack of focus, confidence and determination were the only things stopping me, but then hindsight is a wonderful thing ;)
It all came down to fear. Every time it came to the crunch and I faced success or failure I backed off and started all over again. I was scared of the unknown and how to deal with whatever happened next whether good or bad.
What's the Worst That Could Happen?
To be truly happy, fulfilled and successful you have to be fearless! Most people have had hard times in their life and it's scary the thought of having in any way to relive those times, but the next time you feel things aren't going your way ask yourself 'What am I afraid of here?'.
Are you scared what people might think? Why? I'm sure they'll be the first ones to congratulate you when it works.
Are you scared of failing? Why? Is there any reason you couldn't start again? Who's to say you will fail anyway and imagine how wonderful the success will be!
Run through the worst and best case scenarios of the consequences of taking action- more often than not the best outweighs the worst and remember you're strong and have probably been through worse before and came out the other side. If you do make a mistake the biggest failure would be not to learn from it.
