Today I want to share with you the kinds of questions or statements I get most often from clients who want to step up, or speak up, or occupy a bigger role in their lives in some way.
I don’t think I have what it takes.
What if I’m not ready yet?
What if they don’t like or get upset about what I say?
This has already been done before, there’s nothing unique about it.
These are all fear thoughts. Their only purpose is to keep us playing small. To keep us in our comfort zones. They’re about making sure we don’t fall, or fail, or get criticized.
They really aren’t interested is helping us live the best version of our lives. Try arguing with them, and they’ll only come up with new reasons to scare you. Their wiring goes back millions of years. Reason and rationality are newcomers in our collective human journey. Most times, we simply end up justifying the reasons we play small, avoid conversations, or wait for the “right time” to do what we need to start today.
The way to deal with these fear thoughts is to create distance from them. If your own fear thoughts are keeping you from living the life you want to live, and from making the impact you long to make, here’s a simple and somewhat fun technique you can try:
Check in with your body
You can recognize a fear thought by what’s going on in your body. If you feel tension, if the energy suddenly gets sucked from you, if your heart starts racing and you feel an urge to run for your life, you’re looking to protect yourself.
Question your thought
If it’s the first time you’re hearing a certain though, you may want to ask it: “What are you trying to protect me from?” You may want to go to the end-game with this question to get to the real fear. Or the very first answer may show you that you don’t need protection after all.
Walk it out the door
And this may be literally, by walking to the door pretending you’re holding your fear gently by the arm. If you feel that it’s still loud, you may want to pretend it’s on a flight to a different city altogether. Or a different planet if that feel better for you 😉
You may wonder what if the fear is pointing to something important. Fears don’t do that, trust me! They’re not connected with what we want for our lives because they don’t have that kind of vision. There’s a far deeper voice within that reminds us of what we may be missing. But we can’t access it as long as fear is holding our mental mike.
When Fear Runs Your Life
Today I want to share with you the kinds of questions or statements I get most often from clients who want to step up, or speak up, or occupy a bigger role in their lives in some way.
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