Is it Fear or Hindsight?

Is it Fear or Hindsight?
One of my favorite books is: Feel the Fear . . . and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers 

 She addresses the fundamental cause of fear the belief that “I can’t handle it!” Fear is doubtlessly a handicap with which we must learn to cope. 
“Remember that underlying all our fears is a lack of trust in ourselves.” – Susan Jeffers
When you find yourself in a new or scary situation it’s easy to begin to doubt yourself. But remember, you have accomplished more than you give yourself credit for. Believe in yourself and your abilities to become unstoppable and trust yourself. 
“Negative thoughts take away your power.” – Susan Jeffers
Negative thoughts can rid you of your personal power and happiness. Choose to think positive so you can manifest more of what you want in life.Use a daily mindful practice or meditation to constantly be aware of your thoughts. The more you can control your thoughts the more positive experiences you will attract into the Universe. “Security is not having things; it’s handling things.” – Susan JeffersDon’t fight fear, move towards it. Fear is an opportunity for you to grow into someone you are not currently.Often times, if you are going after a new goal you will feel fear and discomfort. But any big goal will require you to become someone new to attain it. Fear is an opportunity for you to get one step closer to achieving your biggest dreams.  As Jack Canfield said in his best-seller, The Success Principles, “Take 100% accountability for your life.” If you make other people responsible for anything in your life you are giving away the ability to fix how you are doing or feeling. Take full ownership of your life. 
FEAR TRUTH #1The fear will never go away as you continue to grow! Every time you take a step into the unknown, you will experience fear. There is no point in saying, “When I am no longer afraid, then I will do it.” You’ll be waiting for a very long time. Not only are you afraid when facing the unknown, so is everyone else! This should be a relief. You are not the only one out there feeling fear. Everyone feels fear when taking a step into the unknown. Yes, all those people who have succeeded in doing what they have wanted to do in life have felt their fear – and did it anyway. So, can you!I watched a movie called Yes Man! With Jim Carey. A very funny movie about fear and how it can affect one’s life. As I watched this movie, I thought to myself this was written as a comedy, but how true is this. I thought back at how many times I said no in my life. Mostly because I was afraid of the unknown. I thought to myself, I just didn’t want to be bothered at that time, but that wasn’t the truth. It amazes me how much we lie to ourselves. We lie so much; it starts to make sense to us. We start to believe we have some mystical powers that we can see or feel into the future. What a crock of manure we feed ourselves. I decided to say yes more often to see how things went. And behold, life got better and more interesting. I went to that party that I did not want to go to and met great people. I volunteered more, which made me feel fantastic. Can I say that every time, it will be a good experience, nope! I don’t have those mystical powers. But I’ll take the bad as it comes and enjoy the good when that also comes.Fear comes from many places.1. Parents2. Family members3. Friends4. Social media5. News media6. Our mystic powersParents – I will go into in more depth in chapter 7. I believe it deserves a full chapter (maybe an entire book) But the quick version of them is that most of them love their children. Most want the very best for their children. Most want their children to become successful and happy in life. That being said, they can also do a lot of harm in their children. Do you remember the old saying don’t eat and go swimming, you will get a cramp and drown? Or parents screaming at their basketball game and looking so upset when their 7 year does poorly. The children notice all that kind of behavior. Now a day’s parents go the other direction and tell their kids that winning isn’t important and that you will get a medal for 14th place. We want them to feel good about themselves. Right!All this does is put fear and self-doubt into the minds of our young. They will shy away from things not even knowing why, but somewhere in the back of their brain is saying you may drown if you do that. Think about it!Family members and friends can be thrown into the same hat. I lost several friends, realizing that they seem happier when things were not going so well for me. They wanted me to do good, but only up to an extent. If I surpassed them, it seemed they would disappear from my life. But here they come when life throws another fast ball at me. Unfortunately, most people do not want you to be more successful or have more stuff then them. That is where jealousy starts and it can be devastating if you let it get to you. You get all excited about life and ask those questions. I’m thinking about opening a business, this is my idea. (Here comes your first mistake) What do you think? Even though, we really are asking them, go ahead and tell me it’s great. But that won’t happen. Responses come in all forms, listen well to them, look at their body language. I know a friend’s uncles’ cousin who was married to someone who owned something like that. He lost everything and now lives on the streets. You are crazy to do that! Or I heard from a friend that it will be out of style in 1 year. Will that bring on fear? Oh yeah What do you do? Facts, facts and more facts, study, plan and believe in yourself.I’m not telling you not to speak to family and friends, but understand going into that question what might follow. Do you think family and other friends of Bill gates said, great idea, quit Harvard and start a computer software company? Luckily, he had friends who also went in on it with him. Just be ready not to hear those sweet words. What a great idea, you will do great!Have you ever run or jogged? The only way to get better and increase your mileage is to work past the pain. If you feel the pain and go further each time you run, you will achieve your goals. Fear is handled the same way. We all have it, but the people that feel the pain and work through it will be able to become the person that they want to be. Change is good, change challenges us to levels that we sometime can’t imagine. Give in to the pain and you can never achieve anything more then you have at this point.Social media and News mediaBoy how news coverage has changed since I was a young boy. Back in those days you had journalists that were admired and trusted. But now! Oh, my lord! Ratings, rating, and more ratings. You can’t trust a word that is being said on TV or any social media platforms. How much negativity and misinformation can they throw at you. Keep listening to this and yes, you will have a great fear of the world.I was speaking to my son the other day and we were talking about him and his fiancee and future plans. He said he doesn’t believe this is a good time to raise a child with all that’s going on. I wonder how many generations have said that. I know I did and I know that my parents said that. Once again, fear can be such a disabling disease that it can affect life times.One last thing about social media – Don’t believe it, don’t acknowledge it. We use social media because we don’t know what to do with ourselves. We sit In front of the TV with the remote in one hand and our phones in the other. OMG what would we do if these items weren’t available? Depression? Suicide? Violence? Maybe. Or maybe we would dream a little more about how life can really be with or without a business. Remember I am an advocate for business ownership, but I also believe it’s not right for everyone. As long as you make your decision on facts not fear.
My Mystic powersOh lord why haven’t you given me the foresight to see the future? We don’t know everything? Oh wait! I do know everything; I can feel when it will go bad. I can sense all danger. I can rain fire from the sky. Oh wait, that’s another book. OK you get my drift on this. We think so hard and then that feeling comes over us, it’s our mystic powers telling us no way no how. But all it really is self-doubt, fear again and all our insecurities rolled up into one. But I’m right most of the time they say. It’s not that you are right, it’s your past experience and life experiences that tell. Having life experiences, good and bad can also help you grow and help you make better decisions. But if you are only relying on those mystic powers then you get what you get. Ask the people who are always playing the lottery. Every week they dish out all this money to play. If you tell them it’s a waste of money, they will reply, oh know I’m up. I know will sound a little out there but think of this. Which is safer? Get that mystic powers working and put all your money on 7 red at the roulette table or put all your money on the blackjack table while you are counting cards (which is illegal). Both are a gamble, but one you are using your mystic powers and the other one you are studying and planning. Both have a chance to fail, but one is more likely than the other.

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