Fear is NOT a pre-requisite for success

Here are 3 concepts to keep in mind.

When you read autobiographies and listen to interviews of successful people, be it sport, entertainment, or financial fields, somewhere they will tell you how they had to overcome their inner battle. 

They all might have their own theory or method of how to reach the top in their individual areas of expertise and hope to inspire you by following their philosophy so you may reach your true potential. And these philosophies are many. They will very likely tell you that they came from unfavorable backgrounds and that the odds were often against them. With many of them there is a point where they decided to no longer allow anything to hold them back from achieving their ultimate dream. It all relates to a choice they made in that moment. And then the journey started in earnest.

The one thing they all had to battle was the voice in their head - without fail. That voice that said: Who do you think you are? Are you even remotely ready? You will never manage this; it is too huge. The world is unfair, and I am behind the competition. There are as many versions of these beliefs as there are people on this planet - nearly eight billion. And for many of them they battled that voice for a very long time and for some of them they still do. The inner little boy or girl still jumps up and shouts in fear. For others, the fear now turns to something else - the loss of their success, the fear for their family, the fear of not making the right decisions. And at the end of it all, it still comes back to not believing in themselves.

I want to tell you that you are special, but not that special. Your version of the belief of “I am not good enough”, already exists in perhaps 1000 different ways in 10 million people. Because of our own unique circumstances, our own needs and interpretations of those needs and the learning blocks we stumble upon during our life, we each have a personal mantra that we love to hear of how we are not good enough.

This does not mean that your internal mantra has a less destructive impact on your life. 

I always believe that anger can be a good motivator. And with many of these top achievers, their choice of a different path happened in a moment of anger. The trick is to use it and not to unpack and live there. Use it to motivate you to move forward. Get angry with yourself. Get angry because you feel that people do not respect you. Get angry because you are not appreciated or recognized. Get angry because you work hard, and you are just not achieving your dream. Get angry because you feel that people control you. Get angry at any of these reasons and use them to motivate you towards following your unique dream.

The moment you are angry enough that you turn to yourself and say this is my journey, this is my gig, this is my make or break, is the second you start to break free, and you can start building your future. Until then, you live in the lap of excuse luxury, and you will always be controlled by other people. Your boss, your spouse, your parent, your children, the government, you name any entity outside of yourself that you feel prevents you from achieving your goals. Get angry that you allowed them to influence you and that you were a willing participant. 

Having lived that game of blaming everyone and everything outside of myself I can tell you that forgiving yourself is one of the most important and difficult tasks you will master in your life. That recognition that I was a willing participant, no matter what I think or thought. I allowed it. It is through this acknowledgement that you step into power, and you can start facing that fear of failing, of not being good enough.

Our fear drives us to anxiety. This results in a constant fight for survival because we are fighting against our own unique greatness. 

Dr. M.T. Morter had a saying: There is no wrong way, there is only a long way. You may choose to fight against yourself for the rest of your life, limiting your greatness and watching how your goals disappear like sand through your fingers. OR, you can be angry enough that you look for guidance and help for yourself first before you walk out on the long road. Imagine facing yourself and conquering your internal battles and walking out on the other side more motivated and focused with all your energy working towards your desires and goals, understanding why you believed that you were not good enough, and now you know the true self?

We don’t all want to be mega millionaires, but we all want to be successful in that what makes us excited. We all want to get up in the morning filled with anticipation of the amazing day that awaits us. We all want to experience loving relationships filled with laughter and joy. Now imagine that it is all already waiting for you, it is only your internal narrative that prevents you from unlocking the door. What are you prepared to pay for that key? How long are you prepared to search and struggle for the door to open?

Three things to consider as you search:

1. Duality is important. We live in a world of duality. That is how we make sense of the world around us. However, we are not supposed to get caught in the spider’s web of fear. We have our senses so we may experience the world - the sunsets or the smile of a loved one, the taste of a gourmet meal or a good dark chocolate. For us to hear a beautiful melody or the happy chirping of a bird. It is for us to experience the warmth and love we feel in the embrace of our family or the warmth of the sun. It is for us to smell the memories in the baking of biscuits or the freshness of the sea. 

Our senses are there to show us what we like and what we do not like. It has the purpose of bringing the duality of life to our consciousness and then for us to decide what we like and what we want to fill our lives with.

So when that dreaded feeling came the first time when you felt unloved, unrecognized, or an underachiever, the purpose was to show you that you are better. The fish does not feel a failure because it cannot climb a tree, so it is content. If you did not feel “less” in the moment, how would you know that you can be more? It is simply because you hold that within you, and you are denying your greatness that you experience “less.” You might not believe me, but most people are scared of their greatness. They have been conditioned from a young age to be less, not to be over-confident, or not to crash-and-burn. 

Duality is in your life to show you what you want and what not. It is to show you where you are limiting yourself. The feeling we experience of fear, is a response to the fears of others which we now have internalized. And now, you have a choice to make.

2. Focus on what you want. If we think between 60 000 to 70 000 thoughts per day, what would you say your thoughts are mostly about?

I would hedge my bet that it is on something you do not want. You do not want to fail, you do not want to get hurt, you do not want to lose, you do not want to disappoint. Your constant internal narrative will be on how to avoid any of these outcomes.

So sit for a moment and tell me what you want. Do you know that many people cannot tell you that? That is one of the first exercises my clients must do, even before we start a session, and 95% of them tell me “I do not know.” I am stuck, I feel trapped, and I do not want to think about the future and what the most amazing outcome might be.

And right here, in our thousands of thoughts every day, lies our greatest enemy. The fear that accompanies all these thoughts of failure.

Albert Einstein said: Match the frequency of the outcome you desire, and it cannot not happen. It is not philosophy, it is physics. (Paraphrase). If you constantly live in fear and your thoughts are around fear and your actions are to counter the fear, you are not working towards your goals. You are killing fires that are blown by the easterly wind while you are going north. 

3. Invest in yourself. Whatever your field of expertise, you are expecting people to approach you for guidance and advice. I will definitely not sell myself as a financial advisor, an architect, or a doctor. I would not expect you to come to me to give you any advice or guidance on childbirth, running a marathon, or putting a podcast together.

So why are we so willing to ask for expert advice on any of the above matters, but when it gets to ourselves, we would rather take the long road? It could be any of many factors or a combination of them. 

I would say it is a combination. I live with myself, I know myself, nobody could tell me anything I do not already know about myself. Do you know how you program yourself daily through those thousands of thoughts? Do you know how you affect your world at large through your limiting beliefs and thoughts? Do you know where those limiting beliefs stem from and how they have ruled your life for 30, 40 or 60 years. 

Secondly there is the fear of facing ourselves because deep within we know that we have actually been limiting ourselves. No person out there did it, I did it myself. To face yourself, to acknowledge your participation is the most powerful and important tool to finding your freedom.

And lastly, we believe that we must invest everything in our dream, forgetting that we are the driving force, the engine, of this dream. You are the most important link in your future, can you afford to shortchange you?

Find a coach or therapist that will not be a cheerleader, but rather one that will drill down to the core of the problem, support you with techniques to release those old limiting beliefs and provide you with tools to build a future beyond your current dreams. Find a personal coach that will be an advisor and mentor, that will hold you accountable to yourself, and who will motivate you to awaken the magic and uniqueness that is you.

Do you want to have the one thing in common with all successful people, or is your time limited and you have a driving fire to achieve your ultimate goal? Are you going to take the long path or are you going to master your limiting internal chatter?

At the end of the day, you can learn many tricks from all the successful people, but only you can master yourself. If you will, is the question.

(Sue can be contacted for a free one-hour consultation when you are ready to master yourself.)

Sue Leppan
Master Transformation Life Coach
NLP Practitioner
Qualified Energy Codes® Facilitator
Qualified BEST® Practitioner