Posts tagged ‘Fear of success’

January 20th, 2010

What are your dreams telling you?

I awoke from another symbolic dream a few days ago. I was fleeing from fear. A fear with no shape, no specific face or form. It was a compilation of every man’s fear-snakes, gun shots, and dark shadows. A long corridor led me to a door. I ran with heart pounding, beads of sweat racing down my face and an intensity so strong that I felt it in my every being.

The door was a way out. I opened it and slammed it quickly. Although I could still hear the sounds of fear getting close, I suddenly felt safe. I took a brief look around the room to get some bearing of where I was.

It was a cluttered space filled to the brim with everything you could need to survive-a bed, shelves, TV, clothes, etc. I felt warm and comfortable there but it was also stifling. There were just two windows which were frosted so I couldn’t see out of them. I felt claustrophobic and had an immediate urge to leave so I opened the door. As soon as I did, I saw fear lurking in the hallways and the sound of it took my breath away. I closed the door again and woke up panting.

It took me a few minutes in this waking world to feel safe again. And another few to decipher this nightmare of a dream.

I realized that the room was my comfort zone. It was safe. It had everything I needed to survive. It was devoid of fear and it was comfortable there. But there was no room to breathe. I knew the instant that I fled to it that it was safe to stay where I was, but in order to grow and be free, I needed to step outside my comfort zone and face my fears.

The message? My dreams were telling me, “Wake up and get moving! The world is waiting for you to tackle those fears.”

I love how my dreams talk to me, reminding me that no matter how scary they are, choosing to face my fears rather than hide from them is integral to fully living life. In the end, I realized that I didn’t want to choose a safe, but stagnant life. I didn’t just want to survive. I wanted to thrive.

I think we all have dreams (awake and asleep) that define our destinies. What’s key is setting an intention to remember them and prepare for it by keeping a journal nearby. I think that if you’re open to it, your dreams will be the bridge connecting you to the life you’ve been dreaming of, the authentic life you’ve been searching for.

CategoryFacing Fears | Comment2 Comments »

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September 24th, 2009

Staying the Course

Hawaii HikingPart of life’s challenge is staying happy in midst of struggle.  Pardon me while I use another hiking analogy.  Imagine you are on a rough trail with the heat beating down your back and the sun piercing your eyes.  Do you take a deep breath and enjoy the ride or do you speed up?

If you ask me, I’d try to get to the end as soon as possible.  The process is not enjoyable for me.

But neither is tolerating difficulty, boredom, uncertainty and the other valleys in our lives.

Our struggle is fighting the urge to rush to get to the top.  Maybe it’s an internal desire in us to believe that “bigger is better” or that winners are somehow more worthy than losers.  Whatever it is, sometimes we’re too much in a hurry to achieve greatness to be appreciative of what’s going on in the meantime.

Let’s role play for a minute.  I’ll imagine you asked me, “What’s the worst that can happen by wanting better for myself?”

Well like adrenaline, when there’s a right amount, you actually do better.  Adrenaline and dreaming of success are motivating.

But on the other hand, sometimes wanting too much too soon can have the opposite effect-it can be paralyzing.  Losing 20 pounds, for example, feels overwhelming but having a goal of losing a pound of week seems more doable.

This is why it’s better to do one small thing than to wait for a life changing moment to take action.  If you want to be a successful paid blogger, for example, start small by trying it out as a hobby before you quit your day job.  Or if you’re anxious for your small business to be a big success, focus first on your products and company before you decide to branch out to bigger and better things.

Every thing has its time and place.  Sometimes we try to rush our experience because the not knowing, or the feeling like we might never accomplish our dreams scares us and either paralyzes us or pushes us too quickly into unknown territory.

The cure?

Start small.  Take every moment as it comes.  Dream big but pursue it with baby steps.  You want to know how to get to the top?  Put one foot in front of the other and over time you will eventually get there.  Just be patient, wait and see!

CategoryFollowing your dreams | Comment1 Comment »

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July 27th, 2009

Overcome Fear With Faith and Doubt With Surrender

Fear, a common subject on 2inspired, is spreading like wildfire. Terreece Clarke, from Freelance Writing Gigs wrote about how it affects writing success. Life coach Jaqui Duvall said it was a common obstacle among dream chasers in Successful Dreamers. And now Dr. Oz? 

Oprah’s Radio Show host Dr. Oz interviewed Ariane de Bonvoisin, a change expert. In this short but powerful audio clip, he describes fear as “a change demon that prevents you from making change in your life.” Dr. Oz also says that “fear can be overcome by faith and doubt by surrender.”

Although this 8 min clip deals with change such as quitting smoking or losing weight rather than following your dreams, there is a common thread that unites the two. It is the challenge to get through all of our stuff to get to where we want to be. Ariane explains this as many things including acceptance and surrender of the unknown and having patience to get through the difficult times. This also applies to taking that big leap into living the life of our dreams. When doubt comes knocking, do we answer it with fear or with surrender? The way we answer may predict how likely we are to get to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Want to learn more? Take a listen to this short audio and be inspired. 

 http://www.oprah.com/media/20090721-radio-dr-oz-change

CategoryInspirational Stories | Comment1 Comment »

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July 22nd, 2009

Facing the Music

One of the greatest challenges to success is facing ones fears. You’ll notice it’s a reoccurring theme in my blog and seen here in my previous interview with Life Coach Jaqui Duvall. The real question then, is why are we so scared of success?

On LiveStrong.com and in a post titled, “Handling Fear of Success,” licensed psychologist James J Messina talks to Jake Lawson about what those fears are and why they prevent us from success.  Some of the reasons such as the fear of not being good enough, fear of not being happy once we achieve our goals and fear of being recognized when we do well, sound all too familiar to me. When someone compliments my writing, for example, I’m always scrounging around for words of critique versus praise.

But why? Why do we do this to ourselves? Isn’t the goal in life to be happy, to succeed, to accomplish all of our dreams? When we play video games or board games, how often are we worried about these same fears? We seldom think that we don’t deserve to win. But in the game of life, why is that we take ourselves out of the race, even before the competition has really begun?

It may be those self-sabotaging beliefs that motivated our actions as children such as, “nobody likes a winner” or “it’s best not to stand out from the crowd.” It could also be a deep, underlying belief that we are somehow unworthy of success because who are we really?!

The solution? Although there’s no easy solution, there are hope and love. Hope allows you to believe that dreams are possible and love involves loving yourself enough to believe that you can. Not everyone can make it to the top, but I truly believe that everyone deserves the chance to get there.

At the top of the mountain

CategoryInspirational Stories, Life | CommentNo Comments »

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