Jan 8 2012
When fear stops you from living
You decide based on your emotions. Why? Because emotions tell you what’s important to you.
You only feel strong emotions for something that you care about (whether good or bad).
However, it’s not always good to follow your emotions. You can’t always trust them. Sometimes, you have feelings that you misunderstand. And you start thinking that you love skydiving when, in truth, you actually love the rush it gives you. We’re pretty bad at understanding why we feel something.
Emotions can lead the way and point you toward things that make you feel alive. But then, it’s your job to use logic to figure out which part of that activity actually makes you feel that passion.
The opposite is also true. Sometimes your emotions and desires tell you that you don’t want to do something. But why don’t you want to do it?
Do you NOT want to do something because it hurts you? Or because you’re scared of it? It’s hard to figure out sometimes because our mind’s defences often just want to block out that we are weak. It’s called denial.
Have you ever said to yourself, “I didn’t really want it that much anyway“, when actually you were tearing up inside? Rather than confess that we’re weak/scared of something, we’d rather just say that we didn’t like it anyway.
There’s the problem though. Our mind has already associated fear with weakness. When you’re afraid, or scared of something, it means you’re weak, right? Wrong. When you’re afraid and give in to that fear, that is the problem; but only fears that stop you from living your life and achieving your dreams.
Don’t face your fears
People always say:
You should face your fears
However, I say that you should only face your fears when they stop you from living your dreams. That’s because some fears are fine. Some people are scared of cockroaches, or snakes or spiders. That’s fine; it’s not really a big deal.
For these people, I’d say that having fears is normal. Normal and even healthy. If you aren’t afraid of guns then there’s something wrong with you.
But sometimes… sometimes you’re scared of speaking in public when you really really want to be a good manager. Or you’re scared of publishing your writing even though you really want to share your ideas and make the world a better place. Or you’re scared of opening your own business even though you have a great service that you think will really help people.
THIS is when your fears stop you from living your life and achieving your dreams. And this is when you’ll feel internal conflict. ALL THE TIME. “Torn between two lovers” and all that. And the reason is because you yourself want to do something, and you yourself don’t want to do it.
In that case, the only solution is to change yourself to be yourself.
So what do you do when your fears and dreams conflict?
Priorities: Fears and Dreams
A lot of people have empty dreams. There’s a big discussion that’s going on about the difference between dreams, goals, resolutions, plans, etc. I was sucked into the debate for a time, but now I’ve realized I don’t really care about the definition of the words themselves. I care that people understand that when you want to achieve a goal (plan, dream, whatever), you have to have an extra step, which is to set out the way you’re going to achieve it.
But even before that, you have to know what you’re getting into, if not you’ll never have the motivation to even start. And if you push yourself to start anyway, you’ll lose that motivation before long. Haven’t you noticed how many people make New year’s resolutions and never follow through with them?
To know what you’re getting into, one of the ways is to look at your fears and dreams together, and see whether you’re willing to still chase that dream if you have to face your fears.
Take an afternoon to yourself. Sit somewhere that’s nice and lonely like your bedroom or a grassy field. Don’t do anything but let your mind wander and imagine. Imagine chasing your dream. Imagine what you would be doing on a typical day of you chasing your dream. Then imagine yourself facing your fears as you chase that dream. How would it look like?
Is it worth it? Would you be willing to go ahead with it?
I don’t know the answer to those questions. And neither do you. At least not until you sit yourself down and imagine for yourself whether you’re willing to go through 2 hours of training every day for the next year so that you can get better at basketball. Or whether you can spend 30 minutes a day, 4 times a week, to learn a new language. Or whether you can summon the courage to stand up in front of a small crowd to practice your public speaking skills.
You won’t know until you figure out how important that dream is compared to your fears. Once you figure it out and have your priorities straight, you’ll then have a good idea of which one wins. If your fears scare you more, don’t bother facing them. The dream wasn’t really that important to you anyway (or maybe that fear is just too deep). Or maybe… maybe you just have other more important things in life bigger than that dream. I can definitely respect that.
HOWEVER!, (and this is a big however), if that dream is worth it to you, it’s time to think about ways to face your fear, because that fear is what is keeping you from being a man who feels complete.
It’s not an issue of whether you achieve your dream, or even whether you’re good at it in the first place. You can chase a dream even if you know that you have a high chance of failure. The issue is about you chasing your dream. When you don’t; when you shy away from that thing in life that calls you like a beacon; you stop believing in yourself. You stop trusting yourself.
And that is something that breaks my heart every time I see it.
Let me put it another way.
How can you be a trustworthy man if you don’t stick to your principles?
Because that is what your dream is; it’s a way to realize your principles (what you truly believe in) and make sure that they happen in the real world.
If you don’t, all you’ll do is regret your life the whole way through and you’ll be one of those people who always talk about “one day” living your dream. Don’t be one of those people. I’m in the journey of moving away from this myself.
Conclusion
So to recap, it’s fine to be afraid of something, when it has nothing to do with your dreams. Because then, it doesn’t really bother your life or affect it in any way. But when fear stops you from living your dream, it’s time for you to work it out.
You don’t owe it to me or anyone else. You owe it to YOURSELF so that you can start living life and stop regretting it.
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