I talk a lot about dreams, goals and chasing them! About using the life you have to your absolute fullest potential and not taking for granted everything/anything that you have.
I think the biggest factor in what stops us from achieving our dreams is fear. Fear of hurting ourselves or other people. Fear of failure.
The definition of fear: an unpleasant emotion caused by the threat of danger, pain, or harm.
So it’s an emotion, we can’t control our feelings very easily but we can control how we respond to them, and I think for fear this is a big one.
When we allow fear to choose/change our path; then we are making a choice for fear to turn us away from our true goals and dreams.
It is kinda like changing our path forwards because of something that ‘might’ happen. It does seem crazy that we would allow a ‘might happen’ to dictate the direction of our life.
Now don’t get me wrong; I think fear is a really important thing. It keeps us safe. Stops us from being too dangerous and thinking we are too invincible. (although some people definitely lost out on that one) But fear is a feeling and if we let it take power of everything we do then we aren’t doing things quite right. We all feel fear but the thing that makes the biggest difference is how we decide to respond to it.
People who are living life to their utmost potential respond to fear much differently to people who are letting fear control them.
Fear is the reason people don’t chase their dreams. It’s the reason people work crappy 9-5 jobs that they hate and don’t go become a writer or an astronaut or a dancer or ask that person out, or tell someone they love them or enter that running race or try something new.
Our biggest fear is the fear of failure; failure to do the right thing, or failing at making the ‘right’ decision. But there is no ‘right’ decision. Really we make the choice and it either fires us in the right direction or we learn from the thing that happens and we are still fired towards the right direction. Once you’ve made the choice you’ve taken a step and that is what life is filled with..taking steps.
If we let fear take over it can defeat everything. But we have a choice when it comes to facing it. We can allow it to consume us and prevent us from moving up our mountains or we can take a breathe acknowledge its existence and walk up that damn mountain anyway!
So i challenge you….go out and do something that terrifies you! It doesn’t have to be big and flash (bungee jumping/adrenaline filled adventure) it can be simple! You could go to a cafe and have a coffee by yourself, sign up for art class, join a gym, talk to a stranger, try something new on a menu, go on an unplanned adventure! The list is endless but figure something out that scares you a little bit, something that feels uncomfortable. and go do it! Notice how that makes you feel! Throwing yourself into something that is the ‘uncomfortable’ will 100% be huge personal growth even if you hate the thing you’ve done! Change is scary, new stuff is scary but taking control of your emotions and not letting fear defeat you is pretty powerful especially if it means doing something or taking a step towards doing something that makes you happy.
BE FEARLESS.