The Fear Factor

Hi, its great to see you back!

No. 3 of Series: Success Factors.

Picture this scene which I sure you have experienced at least a few times in your life:

It is a beautiful sunny day, not too hot yet not too cold. Everything in your world is going along fine; in fact it couldn’t be better. You are even singing your favorite song as you drive along the road towards your favorite meeting place for breakfast.

Suddenly a flash thought crosses your mind. It is a negative thought about something you were concerned about the other week, and then had forgotten about it. Now it comes back to haunt you, and immediately a sinking feeling hits your stomach.

A flood of thoughts hit your mind, what if this thing does happen? Or what if I don’t get that job or doubts related to your concerns of the previous week.

Now you are feeling terrible, your body starts to tense up, you can’t even think of the words of the song you were singing and you are not even sure if the sun is still shining.

What happened? Nothing in your circumstances changed.

A tiny flashing thought changed the whole day for you. How come? When you last put that concern out of your mind, you left it with a seed of fear.

Instead of facing the “what if” scenarios’ and solving them, you simply put the situation out of your mind and went on with the daily activities.

What you really did was transfer it from your conscious mind, to your subconscious mind. There it was carefully stored waiting to jump out and haunt you at any given moment to ruin your day, and that is exactly what it did.

Facing Our Fears:
I am sure you are familiar with Job of the Bible, the one who went through some severe trials and ended up doubly blessed when it was all over. In the midst of his tribulations, he made an interesting declaration: “That which I feared has come upon me”. Wow!

Remember, in a previous article, I shared a situation that happened in my own family, I had an uncle, my father’s only brother whom I vaguely remember (I was 3 years old when I last saw him). His one fear in life was he would get sick with polio which at the time was an epidemic. He died of polio at the age of 21.

So fear is a dangerous thing to allow staying in our lives.
Molly Gordon describes fear as Fantasy Expectations Appearing Real. Michael Pritchard quotes fear as being that little darkroom where negatives are developed

Negative fantasies incubated in the darkroom of our conscious and subconscious minds create fears.

So how in the world can we uproot these fears from our lives?

First thing to do is to take a few moments in a quiet place, with a blank sheet of paper and a pen/pencil.

Write down all the things you fear.
Write fast, and note down everything that comes to mind, whether you think you fear it or not.
Now read them back one at a time and face them.

If there is something you can do to avoid the “worst case scenario” do it! (If you read the Bible you will know that James tells us that faith without works is dead, in other words, real faith, or the law of attraction has to have ACTION to be complete.)

They won’t work without ACTION. The ones that are out of your control will take faith to eliminate.

Now it is time for POSITIVE ACTION. As Karen McMillan so aptly expresses it in her article Mastery path – From unconscious incompetence” to unconscious competence “This is the time to keep on going. Knowing that f.e.a.r. can be the sign that you are Feeling Excited And Ready.”

With an attitude like that, fear cannot prevail.

Let’s step out of the world of fantasy expectations and and start creating a positive reality.

Today’s Checklist:
1. Am I conscious of fears hiding in the recesses of my mind?
2. Have I taken time to discover these fears and face them?
3. Am I really prepared to face these fears?
4. What conscious ACTION am I taking to ensure that only good things can come my way?

Declaration for Today:
I believe I will have success and I AM working my plan for success, therefore SUCCESS IS MINE!