Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Fear Nothing

Fear is the most powerful human emotion. It can be the greatest motivator or the greatest inhibitor. For years, we have been conditioned to listen to our internal fears. To run when being chased or to stop when seeing an obstacle. It is this conditioning that has prevented many of us from some potential life changing experiences.


Fear does not have to run your life. Remember, you always have a choice. You can listen to fear every time it gets in your face, or you can put fear back in its place and move forward. The most important thing to consider when you're about to decided whether to listen to fear or to dismiss it is consequence. Before you decide what to do, you have understand what the potential consequences of your actions could be. Only then can you make a conscious choice. For example, you are about to jump off a bridge with a giant bungee cord attached to your ankles. Fear is screaming in your ear not to jump! Now before you jump, you must be able to accept the potential consequence that you "could" fall to your death. Now the chances of this actually happening are very slim, the possibility still exists. So at this point, you either accept the possibility of death, push fear aside, and jump, or you let fear win and you turn back and step down of the platform. No matter what your choice is, you have to be willing to deal with the consequences and most of the time, if you break it down that way, you will see that they are not that intimidating.

Overcoming our conditioned fears will open the door to incredible life experiences. You are smarter than fear because you can rationalize. Fear doesn't rationalize consequence. It's an extremely simple and primitive defense mechanism designed to make you aware of "potential" danger. Don't let fear run your life. Take charge of it and use it as motivation!

As the old saying goes, you have nothing to fear but fear itself. It's okay to take some risks. The rewards will outweigh the consequences nine times out of ten.

So next time fear gets up in your face, push it aside and jump!

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