yes, but...

As I sat down to dinner the night before the start of the leadership programme that I was delivering, one of the participants said to me, "Your first two hours tomorrow morning are crucial. We’ll be judging you. The people who ran the last workshop were rubbish, so none of us want to be here. We have better things to do." One blessing was that those trainers came from another company, at least.

But, a few sentences over dinner, and the next morning, I felt that I might as well have been walking into a den of lions.

You know how young children imagine demons and monsters to materialise when the light goes out? As adults, we can often do the same. In as much as the young child thinks their demons are real, so too do we, that they can sometimes stop us completely in our tracks.

Whether it is investing in shares or property or your business, or taking that unfamiliar step, what is it that you fear? Is it that you fear that you’ll lose money? Is that you fear failure? Or success? What is it that causes you to procrastinate when you know you want to but still you don’t?

In working with many clients and seminar participants, and needless to say, from my own personal experience (!), it becomes clear that it is usually not about the lack of skills or knowledge that stops us. Acquiring a skill-set is, relatively speaking, easy. How many people do you know of who have attended a "Become a Property Millionaire" or a "How To Make Money from Stocks & Shares" seminar – they’ve also read the books, revised their notes, and know that they know the theory - but still, they don’t take action?

It’s our mindset that stops us.

You may have already heard the expression, "Feel the fear and do it anyway". It is not that we will never feel fear. Rather, it is about minimising the fear, so that it no longer stops us, but instead gives us the edgy feeling of healthy anticipation. It is about changing our perspective of our fear – re-framing our mindset.

"Yes, I was afraid, but I’ve turned it around. And now I feel good about stepping out, knowing that this feeling is the feeling of being alive!"

It was when I walked out from the training room, with a grin on my face - when the most challenging participant thanked me and said it had been a good day - that I knew that it wasn’t about surviving a den of lions, but living life to the full.

When was the last time you did that? You can’t win the game if you’re not in it.

Action Points

Take several sheets of paper and at the top of each, write down what you really really want – one goal for each sheet. Now, divide each sheet into three columns. In the left hand column, write down all the reasons why you want that goal; and in the middle column, write down all the fears that are keeping you from achieving your goal.

What do you notice and how do you feel? Have your fears overtaken the joy of what you want?

Now, play the positive "What if" game. Take each of the fears that you have written down, and turn it around, by asking yourself, "What if...[it works out the opposite way to what I fear]?" For example, "What if it works out? What if I enjoy the experience? What if I get a much better result than I think is possible?" and so on.

Keep playing with these positive aspects. Then visualise yourself achieving your goal as vividly as you can, to the point of feeling it in your bones.

Open your eyes, cross through the fears you had written in the middle column, and now write down what new thoughts you have about your goals in the right hand column.

Now, use what you have written in the right-hand column as a basis for reminding yourself of your new thoughts. Read them as often as you can, so that these new thoughts become dominant in your mindset.

Quote

"The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one." - Elbert Hubbard

"Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt." - William Shakespeare

"Don't fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have." - Louis E. Boone

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