This Is Your Life - Fear & Faith/Knowing

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[From The Book: THIS IS YOUR LIFE, NOT A DRESS REHEARSAL]CHAPTER 6 – FEAR & FAITH“You may be deceived if you trust too much, but youwill live in torment if you do not trust enoughâ€-DR. FRANK CRANEIf you are to have the kind of life you want and deserve, youmust learn to overcome your fears. Fear is the single biggestdestroyer of dreams and has prevented more people from havingwhat they want than any other factor. It prevents you fromtaking the actions necessary for your success and can keep youstuck right where you are.Operating from a position of fear we tense up, reducing theblood flow to our brain, which further complicates the situation.Now, not only are we in a fearful state, our thinking andability to solve

our problem is greatly hindered. I cannotemphasize enough how important it is to learn to breakthrough, go around, go over or under or whatever it takes tomove past fear and into action.One way to do this is to develop a strong unshakable faith inGod and know, that if we will simply do our part, everythingwill work out. Notice I said “do our part.†Because there areclearly actions we can take in any situation and we must bewilling to take them. I’ve always liked the statement that Godmoves mountains, but remember to bring a shovel.Natural fearsIt’s interesting to note that we are born with only two fears.The fear of loud noises and the fear of falling. All of the othersare learned. We often tell children not to do certain things forfear they could be hurt. Sometimes this is good. Like in the caseof teaching a child not to venture out into traffic. However,sometimes,

with the best of intentions, we become overly protectiveand can actually stifle the child’s natural curiosity. As wegrow from children into adults, we carry our fears with us andcan develop a habit of not trying new things, or of not deviatingfrom the status quo. As adults, our reluctance to try newthings is actually our fear of failure.RiskIf you never risk, you cannot fail. Unfortunately, you cannotsucceed either. In order to become the person you are capable ofbecoming, there will be times when you will need to take small,calculated risks. To live the kind of life you deserve, you willneed to face your fears and take action to overcome them.The three faces of fearFears tend to fall into one of three categories. The fear of failure,the fear of being hurt and the fear of not being perfect. Irealize the last one, the fear of not being perfect, may sound abit strange, but

many times we won’t attempt somethingbecause we are holding on to a belief that we must be perfect ineverything we do. We have been conditioned to be overly criticalof ourselves and to expect unrealistic performance andresults when, in fact, we are as the song so aptly pointsout, only human.How many of you don’t participate in an activity becauseyou feel you are “not good enough?†Do you avoid dancing,singing, playing a sport or public speaking simply because youfeel a need to be perfect before you even attempt it?Do what you fearThe irony is that the way people become great at these activitiesis by doing them. The easiest way to overcome the fear ofnot being perfect is by allowing yourself to be less than perfect.Give yourself permission to feel uncomfortable with an activityuntil you have done it long enough to have acquired the skillsneeded to do it

well. Don’t let your perfectionism prevent youfrom partaking in and enjoying the many activities life has tooffer. Do you really believe that everything Van Gogh, Dali orDaVinci painted was brilliant? It’s unlikely. I’m sure if you lookat their early attempts you will see less than great art.Did or Elton jump out of their cribs and startwriting hit songs? Their beginning efforts were probably notworth recording. As a matter of fact, once felt so mucha failure that he considered taking his own life. Fortunately, hesought help and has gone on to become one of the most successfulsong writers of our time. When you were a child, didyou just get up one day and start walking? I doubt it. You mostlikely crawled first, then began a ritual of standing, stumblingand falling. After a period of trial and error you finally succeeded.The fact that you can walk today is

only because youwere willing to be “less than perfect†in your early attempts. Sothe next time the music starts playing, come out dancing.Remember that when you do that whichyou fear, the death of fear is certain.Fear of failureIn Handbook to a Happier Life I wrote, “There is no such thingas failure. Every action produces a result.†Think about it.Whatever you are attempting to do, if you take an action, youwill produce a result. It may not be the result you were lookingfor, but it will be a result nonetheless.You cannot failToo many of us will let our fear of “failure†prevent us fromtaking any action at all. This is especially true for people whoare considering going into their own business. The question,“What if I fail?†pops up immediately. Somehow we convinceourselves we won’t succeed even before we begin. This is, however,understandable

because most of us have been conditionedto think like this.Most, if not all, successful entrepreneurs have had setbacksalong the way. The difference is that they view them as setbacks,while unsuccessful people consider the same outcomes as failuresand give up before they even have a chance to succeed.If you reframe so called “failure†and see it for what it reallyis — a temporary setback or learning experience — you willincrease your chances of success.Great failuresWhen Edison was asked, after finally succeeding ininventing the electric light after about 10,000 attempts, what itwas like to fail all those times he replied, “I did not fail. I simplydiscovered thousands of ways that wouldn’t produce electriclight.†On another occasion, he quipped that he succeededbecause he had exhausted all of the ways that wouldn’t work.Sometimes the result you

produce by overcoming your fearof failure can be even more than you expected. Columbus set out to find a shortcut to India only to discover aNew World. Was he a failure?Three step solutionTo break through your fear of failure, take action, gauge theresult and modify your action until you achieve the result youwant.An airplane flying from San Francisco to Maui is off courseabout 90 percent of the time. Comforting, isn’t it? In reality it’snot a problem since the plane’s computer is constantly makingminor corrections in the flight path until the plane lands safelyin Hawaii. Being off track is part of the process and is quite natural.You can do the same. By gauging the results of your actions,eliminating what is not working and emphasizing what works,you can produce the results you’re looking for. This applies asmuch to health and fitness or relationships as

it does to yourventuring into your own business.The fear of being hurtYour fear of being hurt, bumped, bruised, embarrassed,laughed at or just having your ego dented is another fear thatyou’ll need to overcome if you want to become all you are capableof becoming.You’ll never know your true potential or live your life to thefullest if you’re not willing to risk some small hurts, real orimagined. I’m not suggesting that you put yourself in danger ofbeing physically harmed or that you gamble everything youhave and risk financial ruin.I’m referring to those “little†hurts — usually to our egos —that come from stepping out of our comfort zone and takingrisks. Here’s an examples from my own experience as anauthor. When I was writing my first book, I was in a very comfortable,non-threatening space called writing a book. I could tellpeople, “I’m writing a

book.†It was safe and secure. I couldn’tfail or be rejected as long as I remained in the writing stage.Unfortunately, unless I was willing to risk rejection, I wouldbe the only person who would ever read it!In order to experience all of the wonderful feelings and victoriesthat come from being a successful author, I had to step outof my comfort zone, publish the book, and then sell it.As long as I was in the “writing†stage, I was very safe.However, in order to succeed, I had to risk. Fortunately for me,Handbook to a Happier Life has been a huge success, and I haveexperienced that wonderful feeling that comes from knowingthat people are using something I wrote to make positivechanges in their own lives.Breaking through fearFeel your fear and move on. To simplify the process, let mesuggest the following:1. Face your fears. You cannot deny your fear. If you

have afear of calling people you don’t know, a definite disadvantagein your own business, you need to acknowledge it.2. Analyze the fear.What fear is stopping you from having what you want?What is the worst that can happen if you go for it?How likely is that to happen?Can you live with it if it did?3. Visualize success. See your action producing a successfuloutcome.4. Break the pattern. Do something. Get up and move aroundthe room. Chant, jump up and down, do something physical fora few minutes to get your energy up.5. Go for it. Once you are feeling more powerful, pick up thephone and start dialing. Once you’re in the process, the fear willdissipate. While you may never learn to enjoy calling totalstrangers on the telephone (few people do), you will have interruptedthe fear long enough to get past it.You can’t lose what you don’t haveOne last

thought on the subject of fear. Many times peoplewill avoid doing something for fear they won’t succeed when,in reality, if they did not succeed, they would be no worse off thanthey are.Let me explain. You’re at a party and, across the room, yousee that “perfect†person. You want to go over and ask them todance but hesitate because you’re afraid they’ll say no. Thinkabout this for a moment. If you were to go over and ask the personto dance and they said no, where would you be? You’d beexactly where you are — not dancing! You wouldn’t have lostanything. You can’t lose what you don’t have.In business, when you let your fears prevent you from askingfor an order, the situation is the same. If I’m not your customernow and you ask me for an order and I say no, I’m still not yourcustomer. You haven’t given up anything other than a slightbump to your ego, which

you’ll get over.FAITH“If you believe, you will receive whateveryou ask for in prayer â€MATTHEW 21:22The best way to overcome fear is to develop a strong, unshakablefaith. There is a wonderful little story that goes:Fear knocked on the door. When faith answered, there wasno one there.Develop a strong faithFaith is that sense of knowing, even though you cannot yetsee the result, that everything will work out for your own highestgood. As the above quote from the Bible says “If you havefaith, everything you ask for in prayer you will receive.†It doesnot say some of what you ask for. It does not say, “Up to a certainlevel you will receive,†It says “Everything.â€Faith is the inner “knowing†that you will achieve yourdesired result in any undertaking. It’s believing even thoughyou have no proof. It’s trusting and “becoming as a

child†inyour trust.Trusting your inner guidanceThere have been many times in my past when I was stuckand didn’t know what to do next. At these times perhaps, we allexperience a test of our faith.When faced with these challenges, I focus on my goal, takeaction and “let go and let God.†This is very similar to what theBible says, that “faith without works is dead.†It seems clear tome that the message is have faith, take action and trust that itwill all work out.Sometimes we may feel we don’t have enough faith or any atall for that matter. That is nonsense. Think about all the acts offaith you perform each day. In it’s simplest form, you demonstratefaith each time you exhale. You don’t worry about whereyour next breath will come from, do you? Yet, we worry aboutwhere the rent money or car payment will come from.I have been in that situation more

times than I’d like toremember, and, looking back, I now realize that wheneverthings didn’t work out, it was because I wasn’t taking action onmy faith.When I became willing to act and did what I intuitively feltwas the right action, everything worked out fine.We don’t fret that the sun will rise tomorrow. We have thetrust and faith that it will. We drive our automobiles down two laneroads at 60 miles per hour and trust that the other cars willremain on their side of the dividing line. We don’t question. Wejust have faith that it will all work out, and it usually does. Whythen do you worry needlessly about the rest of your life?Trust in God/Universe/If you are doing what you feel in your heart is right, and youare taking care of your part in the play (as Shakespeare said),then simply trust in God and know that all is well.What I have found to be fascinating is

that what we ask forbecomes manifest because of our faith that it will.If you set out to achieve a result, whether it’s in health, business,relationships, finance, education or your spiritual life, andyou know deep in your heart that something will occur and youhold to that unshakable faith, it must, as is promised in theBible, come to pass.Your success is directly proportional toyour faith in your ability to succeedFrom The Book: THIS IS YOUR LIFE, NOT A DRESS REHEARSAL KnightCreate Your BadgeOver 10,000 Digital Books, Courses, Newsletters, Magazines & MoreEssence EdenCreate Your Badge