I just finished powering through a book called Turning It On by Robin Speculand, which is basically a collection of stories for the business world meant to be fables of sorts – they all have a specific point and lesson to be learned.  There were some great points I took from it, though I feel at this point in my development, nothing is new except the way and how well it is presented to me.  I mean, I know all this information, but hearing it again and again is what will help grill it into my life and make good habits out of them.  As the 7X7 Rule of Communication states, tell it 7 different times in 7 different ways!  So, though sometimes it feels repetitive, I push on in the hopes that these constant reminders will guide my behavior down a good path.

Fear makes my heart hurt!

Now what I came across that did intrigue me was a new way of putting an old idea: FEAR.  In this case, it’s “False Evidence which Appears Real” and the four most common ones that are identified are fear of failure, rejection, being wrong, and emotional discomfort.  Funny, I was just talking about this with Starfish yesterday, because I often hold myself back, too afraid to jump for fear of all but the last one, pretty much.  I spend so much time thinking and analyzing, but my fear is what keeps me from putting everything into action.  It’s also what creates a lot of self-doubt, which otherwise is really not justified.  I don’t horrible feedback and I haven’t had a traumatic experience, yet I worry about so many things and how they are wrong, wrong, wrong.  And I hate to be wrong!

Part of the reason I believe in reminding myself is because for something like this that is so ingrained in my way of thinking and framing things, it’s very challenging to change.  But of course, I must strive for nothing but, since it’s obvious that I’m missing out on a lot, whether actually accomplishing what I dream of or learning valuable lessons from my stumbles, falls, and the resulting bruises.  I’m fine with physically tripping and messing up, but I dread doing so professionally and personally in the work that I do and the ways that I handle things.  Alas, so much of life is learning from your experiences (which inevitably include mistakes).  Just knowing I need to work on this doesn’t make it any easier and doesn’t make it happen any faster, but at least I am aware and trying right?  Right?

So, reading about this new way of putting fear really struck a chord with me since this is the very thing I am struggling the most to overcome internally.  After all, I can get a lot of outside support, but I need to change my mentality to truly stop behaving in a timid, fearful manner.  I’m not very good at it, but I think I’m better or at least more willing to consider facing and overcoming my fears.  It’s so strange that I am so hesitant when I’ve had certain failures that I have put behind me and nothing so terrible has happened because of them.  So why, why is it still such a challenge?!