Fear Factor Part 1

What are you afraid of? I could list quite a few things that scare the living crap out of me…..clowns, heights and spiders to name a few. These are things that I can avoid for the most part and don’t exert a large effect on my day to day life. But what if there was a fear that was lurking behind the scenes that you may not even be aware is there? How much damage could that do? This is something I want to explore over the next few days.

Many years ago my boss, who is also like a mentor to me and knows me too well, said to me that he felt I had a fear of success. At the time I didn’t get it or maybe I didn’t WANT to get it. I just tucked that observation away and didn’t think about it for a long time. If anything I thought I might have a fear of failure. At least that was a term I was familiar with! The idea of fearing success was foreign to me. WHY would anyone fear success? Isn’t that what we all work our asses off trying to attain? In my mind I was one of the hardest working people I knew. I certainly filled my time well and always looked busy but appearances can be deceiving; I spent much of my time doing things that were of little importance to the outcome I was looking for:

·         I spent countless hours READING about how to increase my sales or lose weight.

·         I spent countless hours LISTENING to experts talk about finances and health.

·         I spent countless hours TALKING to people about how to succeed in relationships.

·         I spent countless hours WRITING plans and to-do lists.

·         I spent more time than I care to admit DREAMING about what I wanted in life.

All this is good but where I was lacking was in ACTION. Don’t get me wrong, I was always a success when it came to my job. That is one area where I really put a lot of my energy. Could I have been more successful? Of course but I am happy with myself in that regard. It was in the other areas in my life that I never quite got there.  I never achieved the same success in my health, finances, relationships and personal life. I would make progress in an area and then something would happen. Looking back now I see it is self-sabotage but at the time it felt like “life” kept getting in the way. I would pay off a pile of debt and then my car would break down. I would put the repair on my credit card, feel discouraged and shop some more. If I was successful in finances I would have had a little bit of money stashed away for those sorts of emergencies instead of having to rely on my credit cards. Another example is in relationships. I never had issues meeting men but I ended up in less than ideal relationships. I was meeting the same types of men, moving too quickly and ending up with the same outcome. It felt like even though I was “trying” my life was in a vicious cycle. All the self-help books in the world couldn’t open my eyes until I read a quote that changed my life and it all started to make sense. More on that tomorrow J