Feel The Fear, Do It Anyways...
Happy Monday, friends! What are your goals for the week? What are your goals for the remainder of the year? It's crazy to think that 2018 is nearly over. Have you taken time to reflect on everything that has changed for you this year? How about everything that has stayed the same?
Did you know, the reality is that nothing stays the same. Everything around us is constantly changing, second to second. The Universe is in constant motion. So, when you are stuck in that "comfortable" space, the one that stems from your fear of growth and fear of change, you are actually causing yourself to be left behind. So, to break it down for you...whatever it is you fear, maybe outgrowing friends, relationships, jobs, well it's bound to change and shift regardless. WITH OR WITHOUT YOU! When you're main focus is avoiding the realization of your fears, those fears make it a point to come and find you.
Have you ever been to a haunted house? If you are like me, the idea of people dressed in scary costumes jumping out at you is absolutely terrifying. I'm that girl that screams at every corner. People ask me why I don't like going to these haunted houses and my response is this... the minute I walk into those places, the minute that first scream exits my mouth. They know, they've found their target. It always results in me getting chased through these dark hallways by someone dressed as a deformed goblin, while my friends are somewhere laughing about how it was more entertaining than terrifying. You see, instead of being a rational thinking human being and reminding myself that it's just a man in a costume, I fully feed into the fear, which in turn amplifies this terrifying experience.
Life can be a bit like a haunted house if you allow it to be. Imagine if in that house I were to turn around and tell the goblin man, "Hey, I'm not afraid of you...you're just a man in a mask." He would probably lose interest and go find someone else to scare. While our everyday fears may not be dressed up in horrifying costumes, they still behave in the same manner. When we choose not to confront them, they are constantly lurking behind you, waiting for the right time to come in and sabotage whatever forward progression you might have. Causing you to stay stuck in the same continuous cycles that bring you pain and misery.
Here's the thing, Fear, whatever form it may come to you in, is ALWAYS an irrational thought. Yeah, I said it. ALWAYS. You can always break down fear. Fear will never hurt you, but the way we react to it most definitely will. There is a quote from Chasing Mavericks that I absolutely love, He says, "Fear is healthy. Panic is DEADLY." You are never going to live a life free from fear, but if you learn to address that fear, you feel it. Accept it. and motherf*ckin do it anyways!
I get terrible anxiety attacks on airplanes, which is a bit of an inconvenience because I love to travel. Now, I would never ever let fear dictate my life so I get on that plane and fully anticipate when the fear kicks in, that I know the process I must go through in order to calm myself down.
STEP 1:
Addressing what the underlying fear might be...
Ok, fear of flying, fear of heights, fear of falling from the sky. Is it a fear of death? Well, when that time comes, that time comes. Ya know? So you can't live your whole life fearing death because then you'll never truly live. But nooo, that's not my fear when it comes to flying. It's a fear of not knowing what is happening in the cockpit when we start hitting those bumps, not having control. Fearing the unknown. Bingo! Interesting when you find that underlying fear, you can connect it to every aspect of your life. Like my fear of haunted houses, because I never know when something is going to jump out at me. Or, that fear of walking away from a job that you hate because it makes you feel safe, and you're not sure if you'll have success away from it. Or, shutting others out, because you are afraid to give up control or risk getting hurt in relationships. It is all connected. Once you realize this, you begin to see all the ways this one big fear, hides behind all these small even more irrational fears in order to attack you and keep you from being happy.
STEP 2:
The minute you dissect the fear and face the reality of it, you have already won the majority of the battle. By admitting this to yourself, you've stripped it of its power over you. Stared the beast in the face and realized, it's the one that is scared. Scared you are going to stop feeding into it, scared that you will no longer give it life, scared that you might go off and do something like actually moving forward in life and being happy. The horror.
Being in Real Estate, I have to be honest. I roll my eyes when people claim to have a "Fear of Commitment". Do you know what the quickest way to get over a fear is? To just f*cking do it. If you were signing away your life for a billion years, I might stop you and say, hun, think about this for a second, mmk? But, you are buying a home, and the beauty of this is that come a year from now, if you don't like it...you can sell it. Fear of committing to a job? You have an out, you can always quit. When it comes to my Fear of The Unknown, the bravest thing I ever did was walk away from playing golf competitively, something I have been passionate about my whole life and the only thing I've really ever known to be consistent. The pressure and travel were making me miserable, but I was more afraid of that looming fear of if not this, then what? Fast forward to a year later and I make more money now playing golf than I did when I was actually competing because I'm actually f*cking HAPPY!
To sum it all up, fear is self-created. It doesn't really exist, it only exists because in our minds we have allowed it to exist. Pull the plug. Don't wait until January 1st, 2019 to start making changes. Start now. Be Afraid. Be lost. Go forth into that unknown. Fear is healthy. But, do not give those fears the control to dictate how to live your life. I LOVE fear. You know why? Because every time I overcome something that I'm afraid of, the more I prove to myself what a badass I really am. Big or small. Own that shit. Don't let it own you. Look it in the face and just say, "Hey, I'm not scared of you, you are just some ridiculous thought that I created." Instead of wasting time trying to be fearless, go out into the world and be brave.
