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4 Ways Fear
Wreaks Havoc on Your Dream
and What to Do About It
by Kim Castle
Please take a moment before you read any further and answer these three
simple questions:
1. Are you making daily progress towards accomplishing your business
vision?
2. Do you find that despite a strong desire to make your vision happen,
obstacles always seems to pop up and slow you down?
3. Do you find that doubt is chipping away at your vision, keeping it
from ever becoming a reality?
Thank you. Now let's do something about it.
This lack of progression towards a desired accomplishment can rarely be
blamed on someone else because it is you who must believe in it to make
it happen. The root of the problem, often unseen and unnamed, comes
from you, or more specifically, one part of you.
No matter the level of success, every entrepreneur and small business
owner with whom I have worked has experienced barriers while making
their business dream a reality– even if they've already made millions.
The barrier to them or for them is ALWAYS some degree of concern,
procrastination, uncertainty, disconnection, lack of passion... fear.
Yes, I said it. Fear. The dreaded f-word.
Many of you may have immediately said, "I've worked through all of my
fears." You may even say that you don't really feel fear any more. Or
that you ignore fear's little twinges, or that you're good at feeling
fear and doing "it" anyway. Frankly, you're just really skilled at
pretending the thoughts don't exist. Don't worry, it's not you. It is
just fear protecting its turf.
Concerned about how tricky these thoughts can be? Let's see if fear is
woven into your inner dialogue without you even knowing it. Let's start
with your vision.
* You have an idea for a new business you want to create, or an idea to
expand the business you already have.
* You see it in your mind's eye and it gives you a rush of energy just
thinking about it.
* It starts to take shape when you tell a few people close to you your
idea and share emotionally how it's going to affect you. They feel it
because you feel it.
* With great gusto you make a plan, on paper or in thought, and you
look for people and information to help you accomplish it.
And then... things start to slow you down. Your path fills with some of
following variations of entrepreneurial fears:
* You start putting off the tasks that you have defined; you
procrastinate each time you schedule a task or have a call to make. A
clear example of this variation of an entrepreneurial fear is the
epidemic of 'Shelf Help': buying a book or information product to
assist you in making your business dream real. The product sits on the
shelf without you ever applying the information in which you decided to
invest. This dimension of fear will keep you in a feeling of a growing
black hole– it will always feed the following three variations.
Or
* Once the initial energy rush of telling people about your dream and
the plans to make it real starts to fade, a different feeling starts to
flood in. Every time you think about taking a step forward doubt and
second-guessing pop up. A clear example of this variation of fear is
that you start looking for more information or other tactics to try
without ever applying the ones you've already identified. This
dimension of fear will keep you in the chase– and will always hold your
dream like a carrot in front of you.
Or
* Despite painting a very clear emotional picture of your business
dream to yourself and others, the rest of the picture starts to become
cloudy. You become unable to see your way through to making it happen,
and become stuck in the feeling of the dream. You look for a guarantee
to make reaching for the dream worth it. A clear example of this
variation of fear is when you start saying "I don't know"... or "I need
some more validation," "if I could just find someone who has done the
very same thing." You say these things... a lot. This dimension of fear
ensures that you will never– know.
Or
* The buzz that you used to get from even thinking about your business
dream is replaced with a feeling of hopelessness, and despite the power
that once surged through your heart every time you thought about your
dream, you now feel like victim. A clear example of this variation is
when questioned about your progress you let yourself off the hook by
saying, "it was a neat idea, but it's really pointless to even try," "I
don't have the resources," etc. Even if you are never questioned, you
say this to yourself. This dimension of fear is deadly. It leads to
'dream atrophy'– it often causes people to stay in businesses or jobs
they don't love for their entire lives.
Do any of these seem familiar? Don't worry. You are not alone. Everyone
feels fear. Fear is a natural human reaction. Fear serves a function.
It gets you out of the way of a speeding train or a growling bear.
Don't strive to stop fear, you can't. Even if you are largely
successful in the short-term, it will always come back in some other
way and hit you harder because the stakes are bigger.
There is an easier and more dependable way to deal with fear so that
you can prevent these destructive energy leaks from taking the wind out
of you and your dream. To point you in the direction of assuring that
your dream becomes a reality, here are four insights into what is
really going on behind the scenes of when you're in action:
* First you must realize that each and every thought comes from your
brain. Yes, your brain alone. It has been put in the position of
looking out for you since you were born. In fact, YOU gave it the job.
It's the same manufacturing plant that gave you the ideas that became
your dream. Each limiting thought is the result of your brain capturing
things you experience, then projecting them onto the perceived
experiences on which you are to embark.
* You must also appreciate that your brain feeds you countless thoughts
every day, even if they never enter your awareness or interrupt you in
your daily tasks. They grow like unattended weeds in the fertile garden
of your mind forming barriers of disbelief that prevent you from ever
experiencing the fruits of your vision, sometimes from ever even
'seeing' them.
* It may seem hard to comprehend but your brain has no emotional
attachment to any of the thoughts it feeds you– none. It's simply doing
its job of looking out for you by providing you with the thoughts. Both
the thoughts of your dream AND the limiting thoughts are simply that–
thoughts. You then get to decide what to do with them. It only becomes
complicated because these thoughts trigger emotional reactions.
* You need to develop the new skill of recognizing each and every one
of the limiting thoughts, then create the habit of removing them before
they take you down. Your 'garden' must be free of these 'weeds' so that
you can actually plant the seeds of your business vision, which you can
then tend as they grow. You can only create the business of your dreams
if you have a fail-proof process for transforming fear and its
variations into the fuel for growth.
Embrace these simple understandings so you can take command over your
thoughts and their effects on your dream and your entire life. It is
far more powerful to make decisions from choice, instead of by
reacting. Don't react…choose. Your dream will then become a reality
faster than it is possible to imagine.
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©
Castle Montone, Limited All Rights Reserved.
Author
and Brand Visioneer, Kim Castle teaches entrepreneurs and small
business owners how to tap into the full power of their business – the
power behind the brand. Kim is the co-author of Why BrandU, the BrandU
Bible and It's a BrandU Day, the fear transformation process and
Journal.
To learn more
about her
step-by-step programs, receive her
FREE report 15 Mistakes That Kill Business Success, or sign up for her
e-zine Why You?!, visit her site : BrandU
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