As you move forward on your journey from where you are to where you want to be, you are going to have to confront some of your fears. Fear is a just a natural part of living.
Whenever you start a new project, take on a new venture, or put yourself out there, there’s usually some fear involved. Unfortunately, most people let fear stop them from taking the necessary steps to achieve their dreams.
Confronting your fears is a very necessary step in achieving success.
There is simply no other way.
Fear can be a helpful emotion, as it tells you when you need to be extra careful, keenly aware, and cautious. Fear is not an emotion that is telling you to stop. In fact, it’s telling you just the opposite!
Acknowledging your feelings of fear helps you know when you are stepping out of your comfort zone. It points your awareness to areas where you could improve and grow.
Successful people also feel fear. Yet they don’t let it get in the way of anything they want to do–or have to do. They understand that fear is something to be acknowledged, experienced, and taken along for the ride. They have learned, as author Susan Jeffers suggests in her must-read book, to “Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway®.”
Fear is more of a signal that we should stay alert and cautious. We can feel fear, but we can still move forward anyway.
Think of fear as a 2-year-old child who doesn’t want to go grocery shopping with you. Because you must buy groceries, you’ll just have to take the two year old with you. Fear is no different. In other words, acknowledge that fear exists but don’t let it keep you from doing important tasks.
Also realize that so many of our fears are self-created. We might frighten ourselves by fantasizing negative outcomes to any activity we might peruse or experience. Luckily, because we are the ones doing the fantasizing, we are also the ones who can stop the fear and bring ourselves into a state of clarity and peace by facing the actual facts, rather than giving in to our imaginations.
If a fear is too great for you to overcome, try breaking it down into smaller challenges.
Try starting out by doing the parts of the project that don’t scare you so much. You need to give a speech in front of a large group? Try giving your speech in front of a small group of people who care for you. Work your way up until you are able to feel the fear but still move forward. As you do you will build your confidence and eventually you won’t feel fear surrounding those issues because you’ll have done them enough to count it as a skill.
As you move toward your goal, don’t attach yourself so much to the outcomes.
Keep moving toward your dream doing everything you can to create what you want, then let it go and see what shows up. Sometimes the universe will have a better idea in mind for you and present a better opportunity when you were expecting something completely different. Don’t let fear keep you from moving forward. Even if the horrible outcome that you imagined happens, the universe will always provide for you another way to succeed. So be on the look out!
Trust that no matter what occurs, you are smart enough and strong enough to keep looking for, and attracting, opportunities.
If you are willing to try new experiences in spite of your fears, then more new experiences will present themselves for you to try. And the more you try, the more you are likely to succeed!
Jack Canfield, America’s #1 Success Coach, is founder of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul© and a leading authority on Peak Performance and Life Success. If you’re ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get your FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at: www.FreeSuccessStrategies.com
Great post!
I’ve been making soap since I was a kid, but I’m just
starting to open up a shop. I have a lot of insecurities which I’m sure stems from fear, but I’m trying to concur them. Great post! I’d love to hear any success stories from you all!
You can do it! We do a lot of success stories here on the blog – they’re usually tagged under https://www.brambleberry.com/Soap-Making-Success-Stories-W14.aspx or on the blog, I usually have them under my Personal Ramblings section: http://www.soapqueen.com/category/personal-ramblings/ You can do it and butterflies and insecurities are totally normal =)
Always a great read and this is always an ongoing thing for me. Fear of success, failure, rejection etc all means you are going in the right direction. I move forward in the face of fear which is a thought, I conjure up in my mind. Once I disassociate the thought, I move on.
Words of wisdom came at a good time. Didn’t tag the feelings as fear before this second, but perhaps, I should take a deeper look and really examine….
I’ve always had a hard time approaching customers and enticing them into my booth. I become tongue tied and break out into a sweat. Don’t know why since if they start the talking, it’s hard to shut me up.
Yesterday I took your blog about harnessing my fear to heart. I stepped out from behind the table with some soap samples and started talking to customers who would otherwise have walked past.
Many people stopped to talk and quite a few bought some soaps. Almost all were very happy for the free sample.
Now it’ll be easier and easier each time…Thanks!
Excellent post, Anne-Marie! I’ve always told my son, since he was very little, that we often feel afraid of something simply because it’s new, not because it can really harm us. In those new situations, I try to think “What’s the worst that could happen, literally?” That can sometimes help me realize that I will survive it, whatever comes.
Thanks for posting this! I am totally in the midst of fear I suppose.. that is why I am loosing momentum and motivation… I really hope that I can soon get over it and feel much better. I suppose my fear is always concerned about under delivering or not performing to my best. A perfectionist in heart which I am trying to get better at.
http://be-a-glitzer.blogspot.com/
kat, Wow… on the face of it, it does seem like bad timing. Then on the other hand, maybe the microwave catching fire now saved you some heartache in the future if it had caught fire at a different and worse time?
My Mastermind Group has a saying:
“It is neither good nor bad. It simply is. Our job is to look for the silver lining.”
Great job getting your mojo back so soon – and for acting calmly to put the fire out.
This is the week for kitchen fires. I caught a dish towel on fire cooking halibut this week.
Whoops. =)
I knew I would like this post the moment I saw the title.
Facing fear is no more than allowing ourselves to take on a challenge. That is my motto, anyhow. When fearful, it is best to think about why we have the fear, in case we need to rethink what it is that we do not want to do, but in most cases we need to jump through “the ring of fire,” to accomplish what we need to do. We learn from it, and we grow from it!
Good post!
This is a great post, thank you! Fear can be completely immobilizing if we let it. Good reminder not to let it take over 🙂
Anne-Marie, thanks for another great post and oh so timely.
my microwave caught fire yesterday while making my first wholesale order.
after calmly throwing handfulls of baking soda inside the flaming, over the range, deluxe Kenmore oven, i quickly realized that the damages exceeded the total sale. cost of sale now bigger than net.
usually i kick myself in the backside, and go into a state of extreme agitation/fear/worry/self doubt.
i tried a new tactic. i laughed. i so realized that it would take alot more than this to dissuade me; for the horizon is only just beginning to lighten before me.
actually, it was so very freeing. fear will come. and fear is not welcome to march in and dictate any longer, for it is a hard taskmaster and a squatter who not easily leaves.
i really liked this article. thanks so much for posting!!!!!
Excellent, one of the best on this subject that I’ve seen. Thank you very much, I’ll be spreading this around.