Don’t Let Fear Run Your Life
Fear has the power to control our life, our business, our relationships and our decision making. To conquer our fears one by one, we need to first develop an awareness of the life we have created for ourselves because of them.
Try the following exercise to shine a light on how fear is stopping you from creating the life you dream of and start taking steps towards your desires with confidence.
List it out
Take a piece of paper and divide it into three columns. In the first column, write out all your desires as if you had a magic wand and nothing was impossible. In the second column, next to each desire, write your “yeah but” reason why you believe you can’t have or achieve your desire. In the third column, for every “yeah but”, write a fact that disempowers that belief. This could be something you’ve experienced yourself, or something you have seen someone else accomplish. Here’s an example of how it could look:
Explore each area of your life from relationships, career, health, family, financial and social. List out as many desires for each area that you can think of. Once you have completed your list, you will have a clearer picture of what fears and limiting beliefs are stopping you from achieving your desires.
Awareness is key
The fears and limiting beliefs you hold, will be mirrored by your habitual thoughts. Awareness of these thoughts is the first step in changing them for better serving ones. You can get further clarity on them by setting the alarm on your phone to go off every couple of hours over the next seven days. Write down what you were thinking about each time the alarm goes off.
Quietening the negative chatter
After seven days, you will be able to see what your predominant thought patterns are and how they have been keeping hold of your “yeah buts”. Addressing these negative thoughts is where the real work begins.
Meditation is one way to do this, especially if done first thing in the morning as it sets the tone for the rest of the day. Meditation can be as simple as sitting down for 15 minutes and focussing on your breath. If your mind has something else to focus on, it will lessen the grip on all thoughts. It will create more mental space in your day for you to focus on your desires and what you actually want to manifest.
Consistency and persistence
Change won’t happen overnight. If you have been focussing on negative thoughts for years, you need to re-train your mind for empowering self-talk. However, with awareness, daily practice and persistence, you can start changing how you feel about your desires within a few short weeks.
Fear keeps us small and stops us from taking action, but now that we’re clear about our desires and have evidence they can be accomplished. In addition to working on reducing the negative self-talk that has been holding us back, it’s now time to start taking action.
Actions not goals
Often goals get listed and then forgotten. When we commit to taking action, we take practical steps towards our desires that we can see and feel. Review your list of desires and start making a list of actions you can take to move you towards making each one a reality.
In the example above, it could be to seek out a mentor who has already created a successful business, or to join an online entrepreneur mastermind group, so you can work through your ideas with like-minded people and receive the support you need on your journey.
Keep the actions simple and actionable, get excited about accomplishing them so you don’t feel resistance or overwhelm. Once achieved, move on to the next action step. You can work on multiple desires in parallel across the key areas of your life, there is no reason why you should focus on your career first and then only address your relationships once you have become a successful entrepreneur!
Change your life
Each step is an accomplishment, so make sure you congratulate yourself after completing each action. Visualise your desires daily, feel the emotions you will feel once the desire has manifested. The mind cannot differentiate between the present and future, so the feelings will inform your mind you already have your desire, which will make the manifestation process easier.
This work might not be easy, it may well bring up a lot of things you’ve buried, it certainly did for me! Use the opportunity to address and deal with the emotions that emerge once and for all. Just because it’s hard, is no reason to give up on your desires. Keep in mind that not challenging your fears now, will only lead to regrets later in life, and there’s nothing worth regret, EVER.
