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The Fear of Failure The Fear of Inadequacy The Fear of Ridicule The Fear of the Unknown
Each one of these aspects of Fear is constantly working in our heads, individually and in combination, to keep us from living to our true potential. We have limitless abilities. (Ask any metaphysician!) Scientists say that we use only about 10% of our native brain power. So, we should have plenty of available mental resource to achieve our short-term goals and our long-term dreams. However, the insidious power of Fear crushes hope and leaves us sitting at our desks just wanting to curl into the fetal position and shut out the world. (Does anyone else assume this instinctive, protective position during stress, or is it just me?) Well, let's win our lives back from Fear, shall we? First off, let's deal with the biggest Fear most of my readers have on the wealth accumulation path, the Fear of Failure.
Numerous books have discussed the Fear of Failure. How to overcome it. How to live with it. How to feel it and live life anyway! I have chosen to address this topic in a slightly different vein. Rather than dealing with Fear head-on as most books do, we are going to sneak up on it by using the weapon of positive perspective. Okay? Fear and Creativity are tied together hand in hand. They both exist in balance. It makes sense, doesn't it? I mean, if the human race is to evolve, individuals and societies have got to try new stuff. However, it can't be so radical that it wipes out the whole clan with one stupid stunt, right? So, it is natural that Fear and Creativity are walking side-by-side. Because of this intimate relationship, one of the biggest barriers to humans achieving greatness in their lives has been produced.
Let me define a bit here so that we're understanding one another. Each person on this planet has a spectrum of gifts and talents that is totally unique. I don't care what your first-grade teacher told you or what your Uncle Clyde or Aunt Rosy says, you have a purpose on this Earth that only you can fulfill. Unfortunately, purpose alone does not achieve any prize. Such prizes are attained only when a powerful purpose is tackled with ambition, passion, and a willingness to accept some setbacks along the way. The road to success is paved in failure. The main difference between successful people and individuals who are viewed as failures is that the winners kept on trying until they succeeded, no matter how long it took or how hard the struggle seemed. Right now, it is your fear of failure that is likely the major obstacle keeping you from stepping out and grasping at that brass ring of "Purpose." Fear of Failure stops many people from even trying. Sad, isn't it? Many folks don't even try. They shrug their shoulders and walk away, accepting a life of getting by. Well, since you're still reading, I'm going to assume that you are in a different category.
Answer a question for me. When you first get an idea, what do you do? Right when you have had an inspiration that is so profound that you are in awe that such a concept even crossed your mind, what do you do with it? Do you write it down? Do you work out one or more ways to try to make it happen? Do you tell someone else about it? Do you ignore it until it goes away? Or are you going to be stubborn with me here and say, "Janine, I don't get ideas?" Seriously, here, come on, we all get ideas. Do you crush your flashes of brilliance before they have a chance to really bloom? Or do you give them time to warm up and get some momentum?
What you do with your everyday inspirations and creativity says a lot about how you will deal with your financial life and whether or not Fear is ruling / ruining your financial plans. How you handle ideas in general will show you where you might need to get to work in dealing with your ideas about money. Where you allow Fear to stop your creative process is where you have stopped your ability to get more money into your life. By thinking things like, "Oh that would NEVER work," or "I don't have time to do THAT," or "I could never get anyone to buy into this," you are stopping the flow of imagination, ideas and power behind your financial life (and all the other aspects of life as well) that will give you the necessary resources to reach your life's purpose. Read any book you like on a famous person and you will find within the pages a simple, elegant truth. They failed. Yes, they did! At some point, or more likely, many times in their famous lives, they failed at something and that failure launched them into the uncharted realms where they learned to achieve success of their life purpose. Julia Childs, Lee Iacocca, Steve Martin, Mother Teresa, Steve Jobs and John Lasseter are just a few of the many people I have studied. The list is varied on purpose. Each one of these folks have influenced my life. Because of the inspiration or idea that I garnered from some aspect of their life, I had to study them to learn more about what they had done to get where they were in life. I've used well-known people here, but there are hundreds of folks who never get into the newspaper that have and continue to inspire me as well. The best person I know on how to deal with the Fear/Creativity issue is Roger.
Roger, a friend of mine, was an inventor. It wasn't his occupation, but there was no doubt from anyone that ever met this guy that he was one of those creative minds who constantly was tinkering and trying stuff to just see if it worked. He had junk piled all around the garage, back yard, and one large pasture. It was a mess with no visible organization until you asked him, "Hey, Roger, what've you been up to?" Then he'd hop up from the dinner table and say, "Come look!" In no time you would find yourself in the back yard being shown all the marvelous things that he was working on. He had windmills he was modifying to make more efficient, small plastic pipes he was using to make hamster trails for a neighbor's child, short lengths of PVC pipe for dry ice "cannons" for his Boy Scout troop's science project, and three different prototypes of solar ovens. The point is, this guy had loads of ideas, and he went out and put them to use each and every day. Even if his idea failed the first time, he found a modification or a different approach to eventually make it work. He tried. He failed. He tried again, and most of the time, he was successful in his projects.I was chatting with him once about the Fear/Creativity balance, and he started laughing. "I don't have Fear anymore. I've been working my ideas for so long, I ignore Fear." Guess what happens when you ignore Fear? Eventually it loses its power over you and your ideas. And in the absence of paralyzing Fear, you unleash so much creativity that you're unstoppable. Then you have the reverse problem. You have more ideas than you have time to undertake them. Isn't that a much better "problem" to have? When you have too many ideas, you're really DOING something with your life. You know? You're making your little corner of the world a better place. That is what matters. Isn't it? Focusing on what we can do right here and right now to aid our fellow humans. It beats sitting around, right?
The point is this. If you have an idea on money (or anything, really), does it swim despondently in your mind for a few minutes and then dissolve back into the nothingness due to lack of use? Is your Fear of Failure so strong that you don't even give your ideas a chance to see the light of day? Do you even remember how to give an idea a chance? You write it down. By doing nothing, Fear of Failure has won and you don't allow your mental money model the possibility of change. You stay as you are, stagnant. However, by writing down your idea, good or bad, you bring it out of the ether and put it into this world for potential use. You may or may not decide to implement it, but at least it has a chance to be remembered and have its merits studied before its fate is sealed. Now, you may have already had a few dozen thoughts of rebuttal flit through your mind as you read this section. Let's see if we can capture a few of the more unproductive ones:
etc., etc., etc.
You see where I'm going with this? You limit yourself through your Fears. Having the Fear of Failure rule your life rather than you being the master of your money matters keeps you blinded to the beauty, skills and talents that you really do possess. Others see it in you, and not just your mom! Yes, they do, all the time. (Don't argue with me here.) Ask your friends (if you have the nerve) about what skills and talents they see in you. You will be quite surprised by what they see that you don't see in yourself. This is the first exercise that most successful business people do as they start their careers, or new positions. They ask folks who know them what their strengths and weaknesses might be, and then they work on diminishing them or hire others who have strengths in their areas of weakness to help balance the business. The same model will work wonders in your own life.
So, how do you deal with the Fear of Failure so that it cannot work so strongly in your life? First, write your ideas down. All of them, not just on money matters. Good, bad, or ugly, scribble them down. Decide today you are going to start doing something with the ideas that pop into your head. For me, I seem to always get my best ideas while I'm in the shower. How inconvenient! My husband bought me one of those voice recorders and now when I have an idea, my family knows. The water stops, Mom jumps out of the tub and runs for the recorder on the counter to get her idea captured before it evaporates with the steam.
Next, do not judge your ideas. Just write them down no matter how quirky they are. This is a technique, called "brainstorming," that Walt Disney used routinely and asked all his artists to employ as well. You never know what will come from that weird inspiration. The idea itself may not seem like much, but maybe you tell it to a buddy who starts brainstorming with you and the next thing you know you've got Post-It Notes (from a glue that wouldn't stick) or Teflon (from a failed chemistry experiment.)
Finally, make a goal to test one new idea a week (or pick a quicker time frame if appropriate) It might be a new recipe, or a letter to the editor, or a new investment. It doesn't matter what, as long as you act on it. The point here is to get you in the habit of paying attention to your brilliant ideas rather than allowing Fear of Failure to constantly put the brakes on before the luster can be seen. As we all know, Fear likes to stop action, and the best way to counter it is to actually do something! Anything. Why? Simple physics, my friend. A body in motion tends to stay in motion (Newton's 1st law of thermodynamics). And in this case, what works in the physical world is also appropriate for the money mind. At this point, testing an idea about using dryer lint for making fire starters is better than sitting around in Fear. (It works beautifully, by the way.) Any idea that gets the mental juices flowing is the first step forward in conquering the Fear of Failure and unleashing the power of new ideas to begin building (or rebuilding) your financial reserves.
To read more of this book please follow this link:
(http://curingyourcashcrisis.com/index.php?title=Chapter_Four:_Fear)
so that you can add your comments and ideas. I'm in the middle of working on book number five on money issues called, Curing Your Cash Crisis, where the issues of money must be dealt with first and then your money issues fall into place. I would appreciate your participation. Thanks!
Have an abundant summer,
Janine
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