As of writing this, I live in Toronto, Canada. I sometimes work at a café called Café chez Hélène. When I was talking to the owner about doing a webinar, I was trying to brainstorm what to do it on. She told me that whenever she is struggling to find an idea of what to write or sing about, she’ll ask “What do I need to read or hear?”, and then creates based off that.
It’s something that I’ve tried to take into this site. While I write for you, I also write to dispel my own ideas of what I’d like to take into my life or need support on.
Fear Of The Unknown Causes Us To Create “Rules” And Doubt Ourselves
Today – I want to discuss how many rules we have in life and that unfortunately, many of these rules are self-created and stem from FEAR. These rules cage and shackle us down to keep us safe and comfortable. But growth can’t happen in comfort. Can you envision a newborn bird growing into a mighty falcon while still in its original baby cage? I can’t.
Fear is something I constantly struggle with, but everyday I am proving my limiting beliefs to be false, and these fears to be nothing but figments of my imagination.
I’ve talked before about my issues with control, and that’s where a great deal of your fears come from – you are afraid to let go, you have the fear of the unknown. You only want positive results, but such is a paradise that is impossible. Life isn’t perfect or smooth.
Let’s take a brief look at the why behind your fears, and what you should remember about them.
How can you be braver today to face the challenges in life?
There Is Nothing Wrong With “Failing”
Arnold Scharzennager said,
We have so many rules in life. I say break the rules, not the law, but the rules.
We have so many social protocols about what is “proper”, procedures about how to live life best, what jobs to take, how to keep others happy… Sometimes it seems that we have forgotten about the most important questions we should be asking:
- How can I make myself happiest?
- Am I happy?
You may have eschewed your true authentic self in favour of some phantom that stays safe and keeps you closed off from the amazing things in life, which only come from favouring a bit of chaos. Life must be guided, not strangled. It must be lived with strength, courage, and being OK with “failing”. I use quotations because there are no failures, only results from what you did. It’s all how you look at it, and what you learn.
The fear of things going wrong… it needs to be left behind so you can “fail”, learn, and keep moving forward.
You aren’t afraid to say what you want, you’re just afraid of another person’s reaction being negative and them possibly shaming you.
You aren’t afraid to talk to someone, you’re just afraid of them not wanting to talk to you, of feeling rejected.
You aren’t afraid to create your own online business, you’re just afraid of the possibility of your ego being bruised if the business doesn’t take off.
So go ahead, “fail”. “Fail” so fast that you learn at break neck speed to see what works, and smile as you do it. Learn to laugh at the silly thoughts you mind spits at you, about how you will spontaneously combust if you go talk to that hot guy. Learn to objectively see that when you’ve done it in the past, you’ve been fine. Learn about how you’ve done MUCH harder things and survived.
Learn to use your logic to override those emotions, to see through them.
Stop Worrying, Start Living
As Virgil said,
Fortune favours the brave.
Ask yourself – how many times have you wanted to do something and worried about the repercussions? What were they? Were they those that would get you in legal trouble, thrown in jail? Or, were they things that might make someone upset. Maybe you’d fail. Maybe things wouldn’t go too well. What ideas did you tell yourself to say that it was impossible? What excuses did you use?
Usually, the worst case is often not that bad. But, the best case is often REALLY good.
Stop holding on.
Let go.
Let this writing be to always remind you that it’s normal. I have fears, your friends have fears, and it’s normal. It sucks, but you can get through them. You can conquer fear, you just need to know how to strategically approach it, and you’ve found a great resource to do so. You can’t strangle life, you can only learn to put out what you want and how to react to events that occur.
Take these things to heart for the weeks to come. Tell yourself:
I can only make myself happy. How can I do that? What do I want?
I can only control what I think about myself.
There is no failure, only a result to show me how to proceed next. What did I learn from this?
Let’s forget about what the worst case is. What’s the best case?
Because limits, like fears, are often just an illusion. – Michael Jordan
Inspired from when I was in Europe on a date with an Italian girl. I felt so nervous to go in for a kiss – it eventually went fine :).