Take the Fear Challenge

Be Fearless and Fabulous

The past is a lesson, not a life sentence

“Fears are nothing more than a state of mind” -Napoleon Hill

“Fear comes from uncertainty, when we are absolutely certain of our worth we are impervious to fear”. William Congreve

“Everything you want is on the other side of fear”. Tony Robbins

Take out a sheet of paper:

• Write down what fear means to you?
• What are you afraid of?  Go deep inside yourself for some introspection to determine the source of your fear.  Is it someone or an incident from your past that made you feel insecure?
• Was it a past failure, was it someone in your life who told you that you were less than?  Forget them, Forget the past. Your future lies ahead. You are fearless and unstoppable. 
• Fear is learned.  Fear causes us to avoid risk and rejects opportunities when they present themselves. Fear sabotages hopes and dreams for success.  Fear paralyzes our ability to move forward, to act.

The only person that can stand in your way is you. There are individuals who may have had a negative impact on your life and you are still holding on to those negative beliefs or feeling and they are keeping you from reaching your full potential.  It’s time to put the past where it belongs, in the past. You now have a chance to live each new day of your life as if it were the last. This puts life in perspective. What will you do each day that will have the most impact for moving you forward towards your goals, life change, success and happiness. 

It’s time to face your fears and overcome them. In order to do that, you must do what you fear most. By doing so you will be empowered and unstoppable. You must be adaptable, flexible, open to new challenges, and trying and experiencing new things that will help you expand your horizons and open your eyes to the world that awaits you.

We are the culmination of everything that has gone on in our past, what we choose to do about it affects the happiness of our future. If we choose to dwell on our past mistakes and failures instead of viewing them as stepping stones towards our future, instead of learning from our past mistakes, then we are limiting our ability to create the future we want. Our past is what has made us strong and who we are today. Only you can choose who you want to become. Only you can choose to live a life you love.

Fail BIG  – Edison said I didn’t fail when making the light bulb I simply found 10,000 ways not to make a light bulb. Failure is not an outcome but involves a lack of trying — not stretching yourself far enough out of your comfort zone and attempting to be more than you were the day before. Failing big is a good thing.

7 Way to Overcome Fear

Shine the light on your fear

Pinpoint the fear that’s plaguing you the most, hold it up to the light of your awareness. Ask yourself honestly: Is this thought really true? Can I know for sure? Is there another way of looking at this? What would the highest version of me say about this? Remember, the word thought is not synonymous with the word truth. Your thoughts are not necessarily true.  Your true self is the ever-present observer who watches your fear-based thoughts as they pass by.

Reframe fear as excitement

Fear and excitement are almost indistinguishable. Feel your fear as excitement running up and down your body.  The most successful people in the world don’t feel fearless than everyone else — they just don’t interpret fear as a stop sign. They feel the fear and proceed anyway because they want their dream life more than they want to avoid the feeling of fear.

Use a mantra.

The phrase “this too shall pass” is a great mantra to use whenever you feel fear rising in your body making you hesitant to act. It can help you remember that fear is a natural and temporary response in your body which rises and falls away like a wave in the ocean. When you realize it will pass, you don’t have to feel so afraid of experiencing it anymore.

The bigger picture

Fear feels uncomfortable but, in most cases, it won’t cause harm. However, attempting to avoid the experience of fear will. You are robbing yourself of the chance to experience the deep satisfaction which comes with listening to your heart and soul and creating a better life full of passion and purpose. Remembering the bigger vision for life can help you step out of your comfort zone and into the unknown.

Take bold action

One of the quickest and most effective ways to overcome fear is to take one single bold step forward in the direction of your dreams, to prove to yourself you are willing to do what it takes.

Write a gains list

Our minds are often wired to focus on the ‘cons’ of our actions instead of the potential ‘pros’ or gains. To help counteract this negativity, write a list of all the things you stand to gain when you go after your goal or dream. For example, feelings of satisfaction and fulfillment, self-growth, being of service to the world and being an inspiration to others.

Be in the present

The feeling of fear in our body is often triggered by thoughts in our mind, remembering past failures.  We worry about what may happen in the future. We create our own negative stories about something that happened in the past. Nothing is actually threatening or disturbing us in the present moment.

You can take your focus away from your thoughts by switching your focus to what is going on in the present moment. Pay attention to the sounds, sights and smells around you. Feel the energy that emanates from your body. Notice the sensation of the air on your skin or the clothing against your body. Take a few deep breaths. You will immediately experience a sense of relief, relaxation, and growing inner peace. You can use the present moment as a safe haven throughout the day, whenever you experience fear

Getting real with one’s self requires a great deal of personal, strength, and commitment along with a willingness to be wrong about how you have defined yourself and your life to date.  Getting real takes honesty, being honest with yourself requires opening yourself up to your most intimate and vulnerable thoughts and fears that we carry deep within the hidden vaults of our mind, body, and soul. 

Fear comes in many disguises.  Whether you are afraid of public speaking, heights, spiders, snakes, water, failure, they all link back to the fear of death.  Death of the ego self, on a mental, emotional or spiritual level, or the ultimate death of the physical. Our fears are so great that most of us have become creatures of fight or flight where our instinctive response to a threatening situation causes us to resist what is upon us or to run

  6 Tips on How to Face Your Fears

• Visualize yourself as unafraid – visualize your success – create a story board of your wish list dreams and success, think of a situation in which you are afraid of failure. Visualize yourself now hitting an obstacle, allow yourself to feel the fear, and then see yourself moving forward. Next, spend a few minutes planning how to overcome whatever obstacles may stand in your way. Then see yourself succeeding despite these obstacles write a gains list of the positive outcomes of pursuing your course of action
• Practice acting as if you’ve already achieved your dreams goals and success and practice acting as if you are not afraid, don’t ask for the advice of others, they are acting out of fear themselves
• Confront your fears – acknowledge your fears, expose yourself to what you fear, tackle your fears head on, take the fear challenge do the thing you fear the most – move towards your fear, look at the bigger picture, envision your life a year from now
• Deal with fear directly – get specific on what exactly you are afraid of- then write down the reverse of what you fear, what is the worst that can happen and how will you deal with that? What will happen if you don’t act?
• Stop overthinking, if you feel panicked about deciding or moving forward take deep breathes, meditate, consider all the pros and cons of moving forward what do you have to lose, what is the worst thing that could happen?
• Before you act do your research, so you feel comfortable and well informed about the decision you are making

Take the Fear Challenge Today and Don’t let your Fears Define You

It can be challenging to overcome the grips of fear.  We are taught from a very early age that fear is somehow equal to self-preservation. We taught by others at a young age, or take it upon ourselves to be afraid of the dog, the cat , the neighbor or uncle Joe, the boogeyman, crime, losing our job or failing in a chosen area of interest, those that look or act differently from us, being penalized or told we might end up in a place called hell if we did not conform to the norm.  The biggest fear on the list for the majority of us is our fear of not being loved.  All these apprehensions are then magnified through the government, our peers, advertising, slanted news channels, corporations, organizations and those preaching the words of “God”.  With all these influences from birth we really never stood a chance of naturally living a fearless life.  Please don’t waste any more of your precious remaining life beating yourself up for where you are.  Acknowledge it, embrace it and use it as a springboard of strength to face the fears you have hiding within you so that you can set yourself free.

When fear has its hold on us, we lose our ability to enjoy life fully, limits our ability to love, clips our wings of freedom and prevents us from experiencing our full potential in life. It takes courage and the desire to have your life be more than it is today.  Step back for a moment and think about when you were young.  When you first risked getting on that bike, roller skates, riding a horse, running for school office or trying out for cheerleader or how about that first kiss? Now look at the person you are today and how taking those risks added value to you and your development.  

If we let fear control us, we risk it all.  A life only partially lived, a dream only partially dreamt a mind only partially freed, a heart with our wings to fly.  

Success Strategies by Andrea Swensen, CEO of SuccessStrategies4U.com and HelloBeautifulLadies.com a website for the empowerment of women. Author, Award Winning International Speaker, Sales & Success Strategist.