Why you need to get over that little thing called “fear.”
Far too often, people don’t follow through on chasing their dreams because they are too busy hiding from fear.
When I say ‘fear’ I don’t mean of spiders or heights—I mean the internal fears that we rarely even know exist. Like the subconscious fear of failing, for example. Or of disappointing someone. Of not being able to accomplish something, or of how difficult it may be. We often don’t admit to fearing these things aloud, and a majority of the time we don’t admit them internally to ourselves, either. We tell ourselves that we are fine just where we are in the safe zone, that nothing is wrong, that everything is good. But here’s the thing: staying where you feel safe is your mind’s subconscious way of getting away with cowering in fear.
Guess what fear stands for?
F alse
E vidence
A ppearing
R eal
Fear is littttterally (name the show) pertaining to things that have not occurred yet. The things you fear are things that your mind imagined could happen, but are not actually real in existence. When you give in to fear, you are letting yourself become scared of false things that appear real to you because of your thoughts.
“Right now, you are in THIS moment. You are not thinking about what has happened up until now, you are not thinking about what is to come. You are HERE, NOW.” --- Me during every Spinning class I coach
^^ Yes, I always say that in spin class, but I want you to use that in life as well. Why waste time worrying about what has happened when it has already passed? And, more importantly… why on earth should you waste time NOW worrying about what MAY happen in the future?
Stop fearing. Let your dreams in, and chase them.
Just today, I was in the middle of the quite vast Cayuga Lake, sculling in a single with one of my best friends. I took an off stroke and flipped the boat completely over. That’s some scary shit when you are in the middle of a vast body of water not knowing what is in there with you. After about 15 failed attempts of trying to get back in, I had two thoughts:
- Okay I am going to be eaten alive by some fresh water shark like thing.
- This is going to be one long @$$ swim home.
“Kat, I can’t do it, I’m too tired” (ok maybe a few curse words thrown in there)
While a smile on her face: “Colb come on, YOUMAKEYOU (not kidding—she said it), ‘can’t’ literally isn’t in your vocabulary, get up there”
I let the fear of failing (and of a shark attack LOL) take over my mind and body, so that was all I could do. For just a few minutes I lost my YouMakeYou® mindset and there I was treading water in the middle of a ginormous lake.
Fear and ‘can’t’ are synonymous. You think you can’t do something because you are scared that you can’t, scared that you will fail, scared that it will be too hard, scared you will disappoint someone. But those fears are not real—they’re all things that haven’t happened yet! Stop focusing on fear, and start focusing on your dreams. Remove “can’t” from your vocabulary. NEVER believe that you can’t or won’t accomplish something because it’s only when you believe it that you are right—you can’t.
Moral of the story: keep that YouMakeYou® mindset. It is amazing what you can accomplish with something as simple as thoughts.
Original article via YouMakeYou.