The fear of "what if"

The fear of "what might happen" is a very strong deterrent for us and has the ability to stop us in our tracks, no matter how much we want something or know that we should move forward. Each of us has heard messages at some point in our childhood that can make us fear what "might happen" and they stay with us and serve as painful reminders of past pain, our shortcomings, our disappointments and our failures. Unless we address and disprove them, these messages stay with us and we unconsciously choose people, situations and even lifestyles that make them true.

(Jennifer Hoffman)

 

 I'll admit that the "what if" mentality plagues me.  I often wonder why, but I have few answers.

The main theory I have come up with, as in the quote, is simply relying on past experience.

In my younger adult days, I did not experience failure, therefore, there was no hesitation when it came to the pursuit of dreams.  

Failure and disappointments came later in life and it could be that is when the fears were born.

How we think and perceive those thoughts can be very powerful.

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Today's failures, tomorrow's success

"Be of good cheer. Do not think of today's failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere; and you will find joy in overcoming obstacles."

(Helen Keller)

It is so easy for us to get caught up in obstacles that get in the way.  At least it is for me.  Forward motion turns into procrastination.  

One of the most difficult things for me is turning it back around, which sometimes turns into variations of depression.

The secret to overcoming obstacles . . . learn perseverance.  That is what I take from the awesome quote.

The thought process must be "just do it!"

Easier said than done . . .

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Defeating the Doubt

Life is a journey.  We will encounter winding roads, rocky roads and forks in the road.  They are all phases we need to push through to another stepping stone on our journey.  Along the journey, one of the biggest challenges we will encounter is doubt.

Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt ~ William Shakespeare

When doubt creeps in, it is important to realize whether the doubt is a good thing and your intuition is stopping you from making the wrong choice or the traitor who brings on the fear to keep us from progressing.

Fear of failure is a strong fear that will keep you stuck in place for fear of moving on to the unknown.  Fear of success will also keep you stuck in place for fear of what that success means and how it will change your life.

Isn't it sometimes easier to deal with the known misery like an trusted old friend rather than move on with the unknown change that is like dealing with a stranger you must learn to trust?

That is when it is necessary to take a look back and access the journey, making note of those times you met the challenge, moved on to the next stage and the next and the next.  They were probably little steps. 

Remember how awesome it felt to reach the next stage?

Imagine how the next victory phase of success will change your life in positive ways.  Think of the little steps it will take to get there, not the whole phase of your journey.

Overwhelm can take over, put a stop to forward progress and possibly set you back a step or two.  It usually happens when we try to absorb the whole phase instead of a tiny part of it.

It is so important to continually access your progress and be proud of it, know that you can do it, rather than let doubt creep in and stop you in your tracks.

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Little steps

Those who would climb to a lofty height

 must go by steps, not leaps.

St. Gregory the Great

from a letter to Augustine of Canterbury




Baby steps is what is needed when a change in life circumstances reverts back to what is considered "normal" . . . normal being the perception of what it should be by the person making the changes.

The date of the following post was in October of 2007 and I still don't consider my life as "normal" even though I have moved on and have remarried.  Having said that, many of my goals have been met and I have moved closer to what I have considered normal even though I'm not there yet.

It has taken little changes . . . I call them incremental changes.  Changes so small that you barely feel them happening.  Sometimes that is all we can handle.  As stated in the quote, change cannot happen with leaps.  Leaps lead to overwhelm, feeling like a failure and giving up.

As I look back to the time the post was written, so many changes have taken place, however, the changes were so little at a time that it almost seems impossible that so much progress has been made on my journey to a "normal" life.  

I did try doing the leaps, but they led to me falling down and failing, making the progress move a step backward.

To recap some changes . . . I'm no longer agoraphobic (not able to leave the house),  I'M NOT A HERMIT ANYMORE!, I can drive again, I entered the workplace, I trusted another person to love again . . . enough to marry him.  I can be in a vehicle again as a passenger and not have panic attacks as I did in the beginning, although I still have a problem with it (and still working on it).

This post originally published on 10-5-07

It is turning out to be one of those days that aren't quite so positive.  Memories of when my life was happy and I had someone to share happy times with are haunting me. Now I'm alone in miserable times. Sometimes I wonder why bad things happen to good people. I'm fighting a pity party this morning and I can't go there, so I thought I would write about how I'm feeling.

What is bothering me can't be fixed over night . . . I want what I had before. I miss my husband, I want my life as it was before he died. Why did he have to die? Having to deal with this was the last thing on my list of worries, which is always a very long list since I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders and worry about everything.

It isn't the loneliness since I keep myself busy. It is being alone . . . this is the first time in my life that I am alone and I hate it with a passion. Sometimes like this morning, it just gets to me. My mom is on her way over and we are gonna go shopping to keep my mind occupied. It helps momentarily.

I'm not always positive about life, sometimes life just sucks, but I try to deal with it optimistically.

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The sum of your choices

A life without challenges would be like going to school without lessons to learn. Challenges come not to depress or get you down; but to master, and to grow, and unfold your abilities. (Source) - www.pravsworld.com

Acknowledge that you failed, draw your lessons from it, and use it to your advantage to make sure it never happens again.
(Michael Johnson)

It seems like every time something perceived as
 "bad" happens, many of us ask "why?"


A long time ago, I came to the conclusion that everything, good and bad, happens for a reason.  Most of the time there is a lesson to be learned.

It doesn't always seem that way if you have followed my blog for any length of time.  The dark side of me tends to go negative first, then slowly transcends to positive mode after analyzing the situation.  There are times I will nearly drive myself crazy trying to figure out the reason, although there are not always specific reasons, just realizations of life that need to be learned.

Reactions to life circumstances are choices made by our God given gift of free will and intuition. 

All of those choices make up our life.

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Invincible Determination

"If you believe in yourself and have the courage, the determination, the dedication, the competitive drive and if you are willing to sacrifice the little things in life and pay the price for the things that are worthwhile, it can be done."

Vince Lombardi  

"Desire is the key to motivation, but it's determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal - a commitment to excellence - that will enable you to attain the success you seek."

Mario Andretti 

"The most essential factor is persistence - the determination never to allow your energy or enthusiasm to be dampened by the discouragement that must inevitably come."

James Whitcomb Riley

 

"An invincible determination can accomplish almost anything, and in this lies the great distinction between great men and little men."

Thomas Fuller

Determination is defined as the act of 
coming to a decision or of fixing
 or settling a purpose.


You could say that determination is the key to self-respect and confidence . . . it all works together.  

The need for success or attainment of a goal is the fuel for determination . . . you want it, it is a must . . . no matter what!

A strong-willed person with ambition will take a set back as a lesson in circumstance, developing discipline along the way which is also necessary in order to reach the desired goal.  Like everything in life, it is about balancing all the components of determination.

In times of dire circumstances, the determination to survive can either make or break a person.  If you fall down enough times, do you continue to dust yourself off and get back up or give up completely?

What makes the difference?  

At what point does one experience

 what I call a broken spirit?

All I know is this . . . in my times of experiencing a broken spirit, the thought of failure gives me the determination and a wild ambition to keep it going.  The balance of experiencing the broken spirit with the determination to not fail helps me get back up and keep on keeping on.  

Sometimes the broken spirit results in a greater determination to succeed . . . that is when balance and discipline enters into the mix.  At least that is the way I see it . . . 

The difference between success and failure is a state of mind.  What I have perceived as my greatest failures have led to the greatest times of happiness in my life.  

An excellent example is giving up on a job in a dysfunctional workplace that would have produced negative results no matter what the effort.  It is all in how you perceive the situation.  Success in sticking it out would never produce joy and happiness, which is the goal in my life. 

You have to know which battles to fight in order to find the success you are looking for in your life.

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Freedom and success . . . the other side of fear of failure

Fear of failure . . . despite rational thinking, education, talent and ability . . . makes the exhilaration of victory and success impossible. Fear can cause a potentially successful person to accept mediocrity . . . if you don’t take the risk, you’re guaranteed not to face failure.

The other side of that fear

is freedom and success . . .

Henry Ford stated, “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right.”


Thoughts are powerful and fear is irrational . . . it is the thought of the fear, not the actual experience or “failure,” but the dread it inspires. Obsessive dwelling on the matter reinforces one dark thought after another until success is no longer a reality.


The weight of the dread and fear builds and grows, slowing down progress and cluttering the mind. If the fear is thought of logically, we find they have no rational basis.

Just do it . . .

Smart educated engineers laughed at Henry Ford’s dream of building automobiles, who no doubt perceived him as illiterate and ignorant since he was just an uneducated man with a dream.


Ford was "ignorant" of the fear he overcame due to of his lack of education. His dream was greater than his fear and perceived “limitations” . . . positive thoughts of his dream drove him to success.


How unfortunate would it have been if he let his fear of failure conquer him?


Success is action and bold, courageous movement toward your goals and dreams. Action dispels fear . . . giving fear the time to occupy the thought process is giving it permission to paralyze any efforts and actions, leading to ultimate failure that was feared to begin with. Fear is not rational and is a vicious cycle!


Boldly moving toward your goals a little at a time, embracing the smallest of victories along the way, can start chipping away at that bondage of fear.

Success knows no boundaries!

Understanding how these fears affect us and learning how to cope and manage ourselves in the midst of the fear is one of the most important steps to freedom from fears.


When you miss out on an opportunity due to fear, you will never get that moment back . . . then the floodgates of regrets open up to mingle with the fears.  The pity party is then on its way . . . it is a vicious cycle.


We can’t prevent bad things from happening in our lives, but we can learn how to suppress or eliminate the obsessive focus fear places on us and not live a life of mediocrity with regrets.


We only have one life . . . and we CAN control the quality of that life through our thoughts and attitude.

You can conquer almost any fear if you

will only make up your mind to do so.

For remember, fear doesn’t exist 

anywhere except in the mind. 

~Dale Carnegie~

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Who sets the standards you live by?

“If I get to pick what I want to do, then it's play...

if someone else tells me that I have to do it, then it's work.”

-- Patricia Nourot

Are you continually struggling to accomplish what is expected of you?

If so, stop to think for a moment: who holds those expectations?

Perhaps you’re trying to meet the expectations of a parent or a teacher or other authority figures who may be long gone from your life. But many of us toil under the critical eyes of a vague ‘somebody’ who always judges that we’ve never done enough or done things well enough.

Who is this phantom judge?

And do we need to care about what they think any longer?

We find both our own power and happiness

when we begin to set our own standards around

what has heart and meaning for us.

“Doubt yourself and you doubt everything you see.

Judge yourself and you see judges everywhere.

But if you listen to the sound of your own voice,

you can rise above doubt and judgment.

And you can see forever.”

-- Nancy Lopez

As a child, that judge was my dad who ruled with an iron fist . . . strict and emotionally abusive. He set all the standards which constantly changed, making it impossible to attain the "ideal standard" . . . after constantly feeling the failure of attempting to conform to those standards, I became resentful and increasingly rebellious as I approached the age of becoming a young adult.

In the workplace, I set the standards . . . and often exceeded those standards. I set standards that were high, yet attainable . . . of course I would raise the bar as goals were met, but at least I let myself reach those goals before expecting more from myself. My dad taught me that lesson without realizing it.

My rebellious, resentful nature bought me the ticket of freedom . . . my dad kicked me out . . . his standards were still not being met and I didn't care since I was meeting my personal goals and had become successful enough in the workplace to live on my own.
I've always tried to be true to myself since then . . . and set my own standards, whether they are right or wrong . . . they are my mistakes to make.

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Survival mode

Finding Deep Strength

We have all have times in our lives
when we think we don’t have the
strength to carry on.

You do, and you can.

We have all faced moments in our lives when the pressure mounts beyond what we feel we can handle, and we find ourselves thinking that we do not have the strength to carry on. Sometimes we have just gotten through a major obstacle or illness only to find another one waiting for us the moment we finally catch our breath.

Sometimes we endure one loss after another, wondering when we will get a break from life’s travails. It does not seem fair or right that life should demand more of us when we feel we have given all we can, but sometimes this is the way life works. 

When we look back on our lives, we see that we have survived many trials and surmounted many obstacles, often to our own amazement. In each of those instances, we had to break through our ideas about how much we can handle and go deeper into our hidden reserves. The thought that we do not have the strength to handle what is before us can be likened to the hard surface of a frozen lake. It appears to be an impenetrable fact, but when we break through it, we find that a deep well of energy and inspiration was trapped beneath that icy barrier the whole time. 

Sometimes we break through by cutting a hole into our resistance with our willpower, and sometimes we melt the ice with compassion for our predicament and ourselves. Either way, each time we break through, we reach a new understanding of the strength we store within ourselves. 

When we find ourselves up against that frozen barrier of thinking we cannot handle our situation, we may find that the kindest choice is to love ourselves and our resistance too. We can simply accept that we are overwhelmed, exhausted, and stretched, and we can offer ourselves loving kindness and compassion. If we can extend to ourselves the unconditional warmth of a mother’s love, before we know it, the ice will begin to break.

Source: The Daily Om

In retrospect, the strength I found inside of me when my husband died amazes me to this day. My sincere belief is that we all possess a deep strength that we can't even imagine until we actually need it. It is what I call survival mode.

There have been many times that I have reached deep down inside to tap into my survival mode. Many people give into the life obstacle, not knowing that the survival mode even exists, maybe it is too much trouble. It is the equivalent of falling down and not getting back up.

I love this quote . . . it is so important to remember . . .

"Failure is not falling down, it's staying down."

Renee Yohe

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From thinking to doing

Human behavior expert Theodore Bryant, author of the book “Self-Discipline in 10 Days: How to Go from Thinking to Doing”, has conducted self-discipline courses, workshops, and seminars for over a decade. He explains that everyone is made up of different selves. Often, your different sides want to go in different directions, which causes inner conflict. While part of you wants to clean the kitchen and balance the check book, another part of you wants to grab a bag of chips and a diet coke and veg out in front of the TV.

Bryant calls the side of you that tries to sabotage your efforts to be self-disciplined, Hyde. And, yes, the part of you that wants to be self-disciplined is Dr. Jekyll. The author cautions not to think of Hyde as an enemy, but, instead, he advises that you regard Hyde as a part of you which you’ll want to recruit to help you in your efforts to achieve your goals, resolutions, and objectives.

Here are some of the strategies you can use to overcome the resistance which Hyde will put up whenever you try to take action toward achieving your goals:


Excuses and Action Oriented Self-Talk

Whenever you hear yourself coming up with an excuse as to why you can’t take the steps necessary in order to accomplish a goal you’ve set for yourself, remind yourself that it’s just a tactic being used by Hyde to avoid doing the work. In order to counteract Hyde’s negativism, use action oriented self-talk.

Action oriented self-talk is positive, specific, and present tense. Suppose you tell yourself that you’re going to spend the next two hours organizing your closet. However, you get distracted by other things and, two hours later, you haven’t accomplished anything productive. What happened? Hyde started working on your subconscious to get you to do anything but clean your closet. What you need to do is replace Hyde’s self-defeating subconscious messages with positive, specific, present tense messages.

Once you make the decision to organize your closet, begin saying the following out loud: “I am now organizing my closet.” When you do this, the subconscious mind will turn all of its attention to organizing the closet, regardless of what you may actually be doing at the time. Your subconscious mind will begin sending messages to your motor functions, emotions, and other members of your physical and psychological network that will be in line with organizing your closet. In addition, it will begin to look for ways to organize your closet.

Here’s an example used by Bryant: You’re sitting in your favorite chair reading a magazine. Part of you begins to think that your time could be used more productively by working on that eBook you’ve been meaning to write. However, Hyde begins to say: “I’m reading a magazine.” Therefore, your subconscious turns all of its resources toward reading the magazine. At this point, Dr. Jekyll needs to say: “I’m working on my eBook.” Now, your subconscious will begin to point its resources toward working on your eBook:

* You’ll begin to feel agitated as you sit there leafing through the magazine.
* You’ll start getting ideas for things to include in your eBook.
* You’ll feel like getting up, sitting at your desk, turning on your computer, and getting to work on your eBook.
* As long as you keep repeating your positive, specific, present tense message, you’ll feel compelled to work on your eBook. Repetition is the key to success.
* If you say it out loud, it will be even more powerful than simply repeating it silently.


Hyde might try to convince you that you will take action to achieve your goals; you’ll just do it later. After all, if you want to start exercising you’ll need a new jogging outfit. You can’t possibly be seen in any of the old work out pants and ratty t-shirts you have in your closet. And in order to buy new exercise clothes, you first have to pay off your credit card balance in full. After all, getting out of debt is another one of your goals. So, you see, exercising is not something you can do at the moment. But you’ll do it later. (Hyde is quite devious.)

The tactic to use here is to question whether there’s a legitimate reason to delay getting started, or if it sounds suspiciously like one of Hyde’s clever excuses. Remember, Hyde is like a little kid who will come up with all sorts of ruses to avoid his parents’ orders to clean his room. It’s perfectly fine for you to exercise in the clothes you already have; the perceived obstacle of needing a new jogging suit is just Hyde trying to trick you into spending an hour surfing the Internet instead of exercising.


Fear of Failure

Bryant points out that study after study has shown that the greatest obstacle to personal success is fear of failure. The pain of past failures lingers in the shadows of your subconscious, reminding you of how awful you felt the last time you failed. Why would you want to set yourself up to feeling like that again by pursuing a new goal? Just sit back and enjoy your TV show. Go ahead, put your feet up on the coffee table. You could even grab that pint of Rocky Road ice cream you have in the freezer. That feels nice and safe, doesn’t it?

We’ve been trained by society that failing is shameful. Is it any mystery, then, that we’re so reluctant to attempt anything at which we can’t be sure of succeeding? When part of us wants to do something, and part of us is dragging its feet because it’s terrified of failing, it’s like trying to drive a car with the handbrake on. In order to succeed at achieving your goals, you have to fully invest yourself in the task at hand.

The trick here is to separate your performance on a given task from how you feel about yourself. You probably have a tendency to say to yourself: “If I fail at this, I’m a failure.” You need to begin regarding failure as evidence of experimentation and attempts at self-growth, instead of seeing it as a blow to your self-esteem. Refuse to link failure to how you feel about yourself. As Bryant points out, failure is not a tombstone, but a stepping stone to success.


Conclusion

You’ve known for a while that you have a Hyde lurking around in your subconscious, haven’t you? After all, how many times have you made goals and resolutions with the best of intentions to follow through, only to find that you never get started, or that you leave things half-finished? Bryant offers many more clues in “Self-Discipline in 10 Days” on how to recognize Hyde’s attempts at sabotaging your efforts, and what to do about it.

What types of things have you caught Hyde doing to try and prevent you from getting things done, or to stop you from taking the risks you need to take in order to accomplish your dreams?


This article is a reprint from one of my favorite blogs . . .

http://abundance-blog.marelisa-online.com/

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Fear of moving on

Either you decide to stay in the shallow end

of the pool or you go out in the ocean.

Christopher Reeve

If you listen to your fears, you will die
never knowing what a great person
you might have been

Robert H. Schuller

It is close to a year since I originally wrote this post,

although it seems like a lifetime ago.

My life has come full circle and I am finally where I truly want to be.

The moral of my life experience is to NEVER give up on your dreams, aspirations and desires . . . when you least expect it, destiny will call you and everything that was foggy will be as clear as a bright sunny day.

ORIGINALLY POSTED APRIL 2009

What would you do if you weren't at all afraid?

For someone who has way too many fears, I often ask myself that question. Most of my life I've been fearless in pursuit of what strikes my fancy, however, in past years my fearless nature has been tamed to the extreme.


There seems to be an inordinate need to be "safe" . . . staying in my comfort zone prevents me from living a truly satisfying life as I once experienced with such a zest for life.


Perhaps this is all a result of the grief process . . . the extreme life changes . . . and hopefully my "normal" zest for life will return. Fear of failure has gripped my heart and soul where I once followed every dream after making the plan, I now analyze everything to death before making any significant move . . . fearful of the outcome rather than approaching the situation in my usual carefree but cautious manner.


Moments of attaining my ying/yang life balance are coming back with regularity, but leave me with that "fear of failing mentality" with as much regularity. Time heals all wounds and I see this as one of the most important areas of my life to gain control over.


The fear is like a security blanket that I have found difficult to let go of . . . why? It doesn't really keep me safe and keeps me from moving on with my life. Did I just hit on the answer? Is it a fear of moving on and letting go of life as it was? Still feeling the guilt of moving on?


Fate and destiny brings people into our lives at different times for various reasons. Someone from my past has come back into my life who I have always loved, respected, have an extreme comfort with, passion for and would trust with my life. TRUST AND LOVE . . . isn't that what my major relationship problems have been in recent past?

Why am I still not ready?

My thoughts of moving on are becoming more realistic. There is no doubt in my mind why he is back in my life . . . to cross that huge bridge in my path with me . . . it scares me.


There are times when people drift out of my life and at the time I wonder why, yet always find the answer with the passage of time. The reasons are always for my benefit whether I consciously agree or not. One door closes and another opens . . . the biggest obstacle is walking through that door. Perhaps there is a reason why . . .

Is there anything you would change about your life?

Has fear kept you from doing something you want to do?

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