We are constantly plagued with feelings of fear. We might associate the feeling of fear with thoughts that we are not good enough, do not have enough money, and no one will listen to us. These are only the symptoms of a larger problem. That problem being, that we will not fulfill the vision we have for our lives. Personally, I am constantly bombard with the thought that I will not fulfill the vision for my life–even in the midst seeing some aspects come to fruition. Fear of the unknown can take hold of even the most intellectual and confident person. Fortunately, those who are are brave enough to conquer fear by taking the risk will be the ones to see whether or not the vision will come to fruition.
Making the decision to take risks is the first step to breaking down what seems to be a barrier between your present situation and your goals! Unfortunately, we get stuck at actually making the decision to take the risk. How then do we overcome this? Tony Robbins says it the best, “take massive action”. I know this is hard, but it is hard only because we make it hard. First, too many times we focus on the negative aspects of making a decision, while neglecting the positive. Second, we take up so much time to ruminate over both pros and cons that we end up creating unnecessary anxiety. Third, we mistake the energy we feel as fear of taking the risk instead of energy to move forward.
Tony is correct. We must take massive action, but we must train ourselves to rename the energy that we feel. For example, you must give a presentation. Your heart is about to beat out of your chest, palms are sweaty, mouth is dry, and you are beginning to get a headache. You immediately say name the feeling as being “Scared”. You create an entire novel around what you feel: “They are going to laugh at me; people will walk out; I’m going to faint.” Instead, what I realized is you must rename this energy your experiencing. Instead say that your are excited about the presentation that you are giving, that you are happy to have the opportunity to share your knowledge. This does not happen overnight; it takes a few tries, but believe me it works. But each time, you must press through the feeling and take action.
But what if taking the risk does not work? If the risk does turn out negatively, it will: a) provide an opportunity to discover a new path. b) only be detrimental if you never planned for the most negative outcomes. First, sometimes just taking the risk we will show you that your initial plan is inadequate; however, if you just tweak A or B, then it will work out perfectly. Sometimes we have to give it a go to discover the most effective action. Second, any risk that you take should take into consideration the both extremes–the most positive outcome and the most negative outcome. You should embrace the most positive outcome with open arms. However, the most negative outcome should be identified as something that you could not live with. For example, if you are 25 years old and decide to start a business, the most negative outcome is you lose all of your money and run out of funding sources. At 25, can you live with that decision? More than likely because you have 40 more years to build up your wealth. However, if you are 55 and you decide to start a business, you might not be able to recover everything lost by 65. So, my point is if you can live with the most negative outcome, go for it! If you absolutely cannot then do not! 9 times out of 10 you will be able to live with it.
So to most effectively conquer fear, you must identify the pros and cons and quickly decide on an action, proceed or not. With whatever decision you make, make sure that you can live with the most negative outcome. If you can’t, the answer is simple, do not proceed. If it is not the end of the world, then take massive action!
