The Sneaky Type Of Fear That Is Blocking Your Potential
We all know what fear feels like. You hear footsteps in a dark alley, you’re about to speak in front of an audience, or you’re getting ready to ask your boss for a raise.
Your heart starts racing, you feel a little bit out of your body, your thoughts are all over the place and your nervous system is in fight or flight. When you feel that kind of fear, there is no denying what’s happening.
It’s certainly inconvenient, but that’s actually not the kind of fear that is primarily responsible for sabotaging your life. There is a type of fear that is much more insidious. It is sneaky, hidden and wears a disguise.
It makes you feel validated and justified when you give into it. The people around you will even congratulate you when you obey it!
Intriguing, right? So what is this fear?
The fear that is responsible for causing the most damage to our dreams and goals is what we call “practicality.”
Anytime that you have a dream or a goal and you hold yourself back in order to be “practical” about it, you may as well set that dream on fire and kiss it goodbye.
Imagine you want to start a dog grooming business. You would love to quit your job and be with animals every day.
But a voice comes up in your head that says, “Who are you kidding? You have two kids to send to college. You’ve never run a business before. How do you know you’ll even get any clients? You barely have time as it is, you think you have time to start a business?”
“You have a good job with a pension. Be practical. Maybe you can start that business someday, but now isn't a good time. People aren’t going to support a new business right now. You’d be crazy to start something new.”
That all sounds very practical, right?
Being practical is what we settle for when we don’t believe we can succeed at our dreams.
That way at least we can feel like a good, unselfish person because we are sacrificing our own desires and suppressing our true purpose.
But isn’t that incredibly disingenuous? Why is living your passion and purpose mutually exclusive to your family being safe and happy? Why can’t you live your dreams without being labeled selfish or unreasonable?
If practicality was the path to getting massive results there never would have been a Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Rosa Parks or Amelia Earhart.
If you did a case study on every highly successful person in the world not one of them would tell you that if you want to live your dreams you should be more practical.
What if Thomas Edison would have been practical and given up his dream of giving light to the world?
He failed for nearly a decade before he succeeded and that was certainly impractical. But he chose to live his dream rather than give into the fear that he would never accomplish it.
When JFK decided that he would send a crew to the moon and back safely before the end of the decade that was wildly impractical.
But practicality would have never gotten him there. He decided to do whatever it took, rather than let fear influence him into being mediocre.
Any highly successful person will tell you that they didn’t proceed with caution.
They had a clear vision and they pursued it incessantly. Period.
They went for it against all odds, knowing that there would be obstacles and failures along the way, and did it anyway. They decided that they would be an even better provider and role model for their loved ones by being courageous and taking risks.
They trusted themselves to come out on top no matter what life threw at them along the way.
This is the mentality that separates highly successful people from practical people.
Fear will also tell you that you can’t afford to be reckless, as if holding yourself back or being reckless are the only two choices. Choosing not to be limited by practicality doesn’t mean you are reckless.
Highly successful people are focused, strategic and smart about their decisions. There’s nothing reckless about that.
I invite you to notice where practicality seems to be defining what you are allowed to do. Notice when an idea pops into your head of something you would love to do, and your first instinct is to tell yourself why it isn’t reasonable to have it right now.
Notice when you have the thought “I would love to do this - if I wasn’t married, didn’t have kids, or had more money.”
Notice when you listen to the advice of people who tell you to be “practical.” They mean well, but are those the people you would love to model your own life after?
Also notice if you feel bad, greedy or selfish for even wanting more, rather than being content with what you already have.
Notice all of that.
Not only are those instincts self-defeating and totally impractical when it comes to living a vision, that seemingly “practical” thinking ensures that your vision never comes to fruition.
The good news? It doesn’t have to be that way.
I teach my clients how to change their mindset to discover the highly successful person that lives inside of all of us.
I have made some room in my calendar over the next several days to speak with a handful of people who know they are sick and tired of holding themselves back and playing small.
If you would love to explore your vision and discuss how I help my clients bring their visions to life, I would love to talk to you.
Here's the link to schedule your appointment.
You are more than you’ve been taught to believe you are.