Experience Your Fear and Take Action Anyway
AFFIRMATIONS
for
Meditation and Reflection
I am confidently and courageously confronting my fears and moving forward.
I am growing and feeling liberated by doing the very things I was afraid to do.
I am replacing my self-created, imaginary images and sensations of fear with positive images and sensations of my desired outcome.
We come this way but once. We can either tiptoe through life and hope that we get to death without being too badly bruised, or we can live a full, complete life, achieving our goals and realizing our wildest dreams.
—BOB PROCTOR
Self-made millionaire and featured teacher
in the book and movie, The Secret
As you move forward on your journey from where you are to where you want to be, you are going to have to face your fears. Fear is normal. And it keeps you on your toes.
If you are one of those people who run the other way when you feel a pang of fear, be aware that there’s something far more scary: never really living the life you want. The truth is, people do lose their footing, they do lose their jobs, they do forget their lines. William G. T. Shedd once said, “A ship is safe in the harbor, but that’s not what it’s for.”
You have already clarified why you’re here on this Earth. And you’ve made a commitment to reach your goals. The only way you will be successful and eventually become who you were meant to be is to leave your safe zone and trust that you will make it.
I am confidently and courageously confronting my fears and moving forward.
In my book The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be, I talk about F.E.A.R., which is an acronym for Fantasized Experiences Appearing Real. It’s one of the primary reasons we fail to achieve our goals and fail to find true happiness. We make incorrect assumptions about what’s required to be successful and then we actually believe these assumptions. Sadly, the limits we put on ourselves because of our erroneous beliefs prevent us from being as happy as we could be, or achieving a great measure of success.
It’s important to remember that almost all of your fears are self-created, but once you decide that an idea is true, you attach yourself to it even though it has little or no merit at all. Freeing yourself from your erroneous beliefs can be difficult. Yet, because you are the one doing the fantasizing, you also have the ability to end the fear by facing the real facts and not giving into your negative images.
Here’s a little exercise that can help you overcome fear: Write down something you are afraid to do—like asking your boss for a raise. Then, write down why you are afraid to do it—e.g., I want to ask my boss for a raise, but I keep imagining he will say no and get angry. See? That kind of fear is not even real—you’re imagining a response that may never happen, and you may never get that raise if you don’t overcome your self-created fear and ASK!
I am growing and feeling liberated by doing the very things I was afraid to do.
C
elebrated American author and humorist Mark Twain once said, “I have lived a long life and had many troubles, most of which never happened.”
Think about that. Are you living your life worrying about and avoiding imaginary troubles, many of which actually never happen? We all do that from time to time—some of us more than others. The solution to this problem is to train our internal eyes to recognize the limits we put on ourselves by worrying and entertaining negative thoughts—then deal with them.
Here are four very effective approaches to overcoming unfounded fears:
1) Identify what you’re imagining that frightens you, then replace that image with its positive opposite. Write it
in the form of an affirmation.
2) Focus on the physical sensations of your fear, then focus on the feelings you would like to be experiencing instead.
3) Remember a time when you triumphed in the face of fear—like giving a speech or passing an important exam.
4) If your fear is so big that it’s paralyzing, scale down the risk. Take small steps first, then take on the bigger
challenges at a later time.
I am replacing my self-created, imaginary images and sensations of fear with positive images and sensations of my desired outcome.