Have the Courage to Follow Dreams
Rather than talking yourself out of your ambitions, replace fears of failure with hopes of success.
May 3, 2006
Has fear shattered your dreams? Have you had great ideas, terrific dreams for your future, only to have the cold chill of fear shatter your dreams and paralyze you into inaction? Fear is holding you back, preventing you from becoming all that you can be. If you're serious about personal development, at some point you will need to overcome fear to make your dreams come true.
The scenario usually goes like this: You have a dream, a great idea and you're immediately excited and energized. You feel alive and highly motivated. The dream for your future seems right for you and calls you to it.
But you stop. Sometime very soon after the initial excitement you become afraid. You start thinking about all the things that could go wrong, the time and money involved, and the many aspects of your dream for which you have no experience. And you stop cold. (See Beliefs Limit Development for more general information on limiting beliefs.)
Sadly, most of us have had this same experience. We tell ourselves we are just being realistic and cautious. Perhaps we convince ourselves the timing isn't right, so we put it on hold for now. And we never get to it. Because the real reason is that we're afraid. We're afraid to fail, afraid to be humiliated, afraid to be ridiculed, afraid that we're incompetent.
Remember when you learned to ride a bicycle? You were afraid of falling. You probably did fall, but eventually, if you kept at it, you learned to ride and it was fun. Remember when you were learning to swim? You were scared; humans can't breathe under water. But if you persisted and learned to swim you felt the joy of overcoming a fear and joining your friends in the pool.
Use these past experiences at facing and overcoming fear to help you move forward through fear again. One thing for sure when it comes to big dreams, you will experience bouts of fear. As if you can't think of enough reasons to be afraid, friends will help you with even more terrifying possibilities.
What can you do if you are seriously committed to personal development? Face your fears. Embrace them. Look them square in the face and admit that you're afraid. Voice your fears out loud or on paper, capturing what you're afraid could happen and how you'll feel as a result. Now decide to overcome each fear. What can you do to minimize the chances of the feared event? Recognizing that most fears don't materialize, decide how likely it is that this feared event will occur. If it does occur, can you live with it?
You'll find that getting your fears out in the open diminishes their power over you. And you'll realize that the choice you make to move forward is a first step toward your dream. For your dream to become reality, you must choose to step forward over your fears. Focus on your dream. Let your fears dissipate by refusing to pay them further attention. Join me on May 18th in a discussion of more ways to overcome fear.
