Yesterday, we talked about some of the ways that the fear of failure will prevent us from pursuing our dreams. Fear is one of those things you can’t avoid. There’s nothing that will take it away. The only thing you can do is to feel the fear and then take action anyway. A great example of this for me is I don’t like heights. I have done rock climbing, mountain climbing, and riding amusement rides. These all involve going pretty high up and in many cases, with no life lines. I have found that the more I do these type of activities, the easier it becomes, however, I still lose my breath and have to force myself to get past the fear of doing it.
Another good example is related to my insurance business and my marketing company. In both cases, I’m calling people. Some I know, some I don’t know. Sometimes, it gets very difficult to pick up that phone because of call reluctance or the fear of rejection. One thing I have proven to myself time and time again is that if I just get into action and do it, then it gets easier and easier. Harvard psychologist Jerome Bruner says, “You’re more likely to act yourself into feeling than feel yourself into action.” So just get into action. Whatever it is you know you should be doing, just do it.
The real cure for dealing with a fear of rejection or failure is to just get moving. As you get moving, you will build momentum and along the way, you will make mistakes that you can learn from and then just keep moving on. The experience we gain from making mistakes eventually builds competence, and you make less mistakes. Making less mistakes results in more confidence and less fear. This African parable states this idea pretty well:
Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows that it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows that it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle: When the sun comes up you had better be running.
It doesn’t matter what has prevented you before from pursuing your dreams, or has kept you inactive. What does matter is that you can change all that by just getting into action. Even high achievers get stuck from time to time. The only thing that matters is that we face our fears and get moving.
Have an awesome day.
