For the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing chapters from my new book (while I’m feverishly working on the final drafts, edits, formatting, promotion and all that guff!). I’ve been asking what’s getting in the way of you creating the life you want to live so I can share the most relevant chapters and help you get over, under, round or through those obstacles.
(Thank you to the lovely people who’ve shared what’s getting in their way…it’s not too late for you to share and influence which chapters I’ll be sharing in the next weeks – leave a comment below to let me know what’s in your way right now.)
The first chapter I want to share is on FEAR…this has been the most common obstacle people have shared.
Fear is a fabulous obstacle. It’s so big and scary and loud (and really common too, like so many obstacles…everyone has fears). I tell my clients to imagine their fears as a sleeping lion. You know that if you wake a sleeping lion, you’re likely to get your head bitten off.
If you wake the lion, he will roar.
And that’s not a good thing.
Your fears sleep. They are quiet and peaceful…as long as you stay in your comfort zone. But get out of that comfort zone, and your fears wake up and they roar, and they bite, and they’re scary.
Can you see how that might stop you from going for what you want?
Let’s say you want to write a book, but just the thought of sending a manuscript to a publisher terrifies you, and wakes the sleeping lion of your fears. The lion roars and bites and frightens you back into your comfort zone, and away from your dream of being a published author.
The mere thought of something that far out of your comfort zone can wake the sleeping lion.
So this means many of us don’t try, we don’t take any action, because we don’t want to get our heads bitten off.
We don’t want to wake that sleeping lion.
We don’t want to wake the fear, so we stay comfortable.
Or sometimes we try to take huge leaps into the future of our dreams…but if that huge leap falls just a little short, we end up scaring ourselves back into the centre of our comfort zone, and sometimes the roaring lion scares us so much that we never want to come out of the comfort zone again.
It’s totally understandable, right?
But that means our dreams stay as dreams, they can never become reality because we cannot take the scary action that would wake the sleeping lion…right?
Wrong.
There is another way.
Baby step and tiptoe past that sleeping lion.
You don’t have to take the big leap. You don’t have to make the grand gesture. In fact, when you break it down, the ‘send it to the publisher’ thought is really premature. Even if your manuscript is written, it’s premature. Most times the manuscript isn’t even written yet, so it’s laughably early to start getting scared by the roar of the lion.
If you find yourself getting stuck at making your Big Dream come true because of fear, try this: Baby step. A baby step is something that can be done in just a few minutes. It’s ‘research which publishers I might contact’; it’s ‘write a draft of my cover letter’; it’s ‘buy some envelopes’; it’s ‘write the address on the envelope’; it’s ‘buy a stamp’; it’s ‘give it to a friend to put in the mail’.
A baby step isn’t scary in and of itself. You’re just researching, or buying an envelope, or writing a draft…that’s not as scary as “send my beloved book to a terrifying publisher“. It won’t make the lion roar…he may open one eye and glare at you, but if you whistle and look nonchalant, he won’t realise what you’re up to until the latter steps…by which time you’ve already done the hard work, and the roaring is less effective, because your momentum has carried you 95% of the way…and once you’ve got that far the last and scariest steps lose some of their potential to frighten you.
(And that last, very scary step can be delegated to a friend who has no problem putting an envelope in the post!)
Sometimes it can be very effective to dive into your fears – to let them speak to you, let them explain what it is they fear. This way you can see what exactly it is you’re scared of. And if baby-stepping isn’t working very well, try exploring what your fears are exactly – unexpressed fear can act as an excellent brake to stop you moving forward. Write them out or talk them out. Find out exactly what you’re fearing.
Sometimes you’ll find that the fear is ridiculous, or hugely unlikely, or a monster under the bed that turns out to be a sock when you switch on the light and take a look. Sometimes it’ll be one of those ‘what if it all goes wrong’ type fears…and my favourite response to that is to say ‘what if it all goes right’ and carry on regardless…because we can’t predict the future. Who knows what will happen? Try it and see! It might just work out to perfection. It might go horribly wrong…but if it does, you’ll have learned something and you’ll have tried. It’s all good.
Occasionally you’ll find your fear is raising a good point – and you can do some contingency planning to ensure that the effects aren’t as bad as you fear. Like making sure your bills are paid for 6 months or more before you jump into a new business venture, or taking on a side job to pay the bills so you can do the thing that’s calling your heart and soul. Sometimes, even just knowing that if things don’t work out, you’ll crash on a friend’s couch will ease the fear enough to just get on and do what you want to do with your life.
Whatever you do, don’t let fear freeze you in place. It can, and it often does…but fear of something that might happen is usually scarier than the reality. Whatever fears you have, you’ll deal with them if they happen. A lot of the time we’re just borrowing trouble from tomorrow and fearing things that will never come to pass…but if they do, you’ll figure out how to sort it out.
It’s what you do. Life happens and you figure out how to deal with whatever comes up. So keep taking action despite any fears you might have and trust yourself to manage whatever consequences occur…and you’ll probably find that 90% of your fear is totally unfounded. Isn’t that what you’ve found up until now? Most of the things you fear never come to pass?
So don’t give those fears so much weight and significance.
Don’t give them so much houseroom. Baby step round them, process them if necessary, but mostly, treat them as the illusions they are and keep moving towards the life you want anyway, despite your fears.
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