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Get ready to identify your fears, find out the key ingredient to facing them, and take actionable steps to move through them. We got this and we can do it together!
MM557 – Battle Fear – Nix Excuses
Hello, everybody, and welcome to this week’s episode of Motivate Me!
It’s Me! Time here on Motivate Me! and we are working on coming back from flat.
Before we start, let’s get into the right headspace. Let’s engage in the idea that this is time where YOU are the priority. Let’s take two slow, deep breaths to get us centered. Just follow me.
Today’s focus is: Battle Fear – Nix Excuses
My goal today is to give you actionable steps that will help you identify your fears, control them, and dispel them, so you can get out of your head and into achieving your goals.
Today’s episode is chock full of information. For the time being, kick back and listen in. After you do, you can head over to motivatemepodcast.com where all of this information is in print for you in the show notes. Just click on this episode and the show notes will appear.
So, fear… I understand fear. The night before the crew I’d hired came to town, I was having dinner with my daughter. She had come to spend time with me before I ventured out on my ninety-day trip to interview people in each of the fifty states about passion. I’m pretty sure I looked like a crazed woman during our meal. I was unexpectedly overwhelmed with fear. I’m sure it was the feelings I had of not wanting to leave my home, my husband, my daughter, and my new puppy. I’m sure it was because I was going to be gone for a long time. I’m sure it was because I was taking a completely blind step off of a very high dive.
But mid bite of I don’t even remember what, I just started to shake. The kind of shake that makes your hands tremble and your face quiver. And tears just started to stream from my eyes. Now, my daughter was 24-years-old, she wasn’t a young child, but she didn’t know what was happening, and it was apparent that my fear was scaring her. I remember her saying, “Oh my God, Mom.” Like, what’s going on? So on top of what I was feeling, I needed to find a way to comfort her.
I looked at her with calm and honesty and napkins in my hand, and I said, “Mackenzie, don’t worry, I’m fine. What you’re seeing is fear. Sometimes fear can affect us physically. I’m sorry, I don’t want to scare you. I’m going to be fine.” And after a pause that included deep breaths and nose-blowing, I told her, “This is not a bad thing, and it’s not a bad thing for you to see, because you’re going to watch me push through this.” And she did.
Whew. I get emotional just thinking about this.
Now, my trip is an extreme example in many people’s standards, but any of us can have a similar reaction to any type of challenge we face. Especially, I feel, when these challenges are self-induced. I mean, did I HAVE to put myself through this? No, I could have very easily stayed in my comfort zone.
In any case, the first thing we have to do is acknowledge our fear – especially if we’re allowing it to hold us back from achieving our dreams or goals. Many of us make excuses for why we’re not doing what we’d really like to do, instead of identifying it for what it is: we’re freaking afraid.
We’re afraid we’ll fail. We’re afraid of what others will think about us. We’re afraid we’re not smart or talented enough. We’re afraid we’re not young, pretty, or fit enough. We’re afraid we’ll look dumb, etc.
It’s important to know that the reason we stay inside our comfort zones all stem from our ego. Our ego communicates with us through our internal dialogue and uses the fear we create to control our actions.
Two previous episodes come to mind for me when I think about the ego, so if you’d like to hear more on that, you can check out Episode 555, “Say No to Negativity” and Episode 550, “Experiment with Your Craft.”
But the bottom line is that we can control the ego and the mind. We get to choose what we believe. All we have to do is flip the script on our internal dialogue. Let me give you an example of what I mean here.
Maybe this idea: “I don’t have enough experience” is holding you back. But, what if you change that notion to “I have a unique experience worth sharing”? The idea that I have a unique experience worth sharing is the affirmation I use to share my ideas with you.
Do you see what I’m doing here?
Here are three more examples of how you can “flip the script”:
We can change the negative thought, “People won’t find what I have to say important” to the positive idea that “Many people share my interests.”
We can change: “People won’t like me” to “Not everyone will like me, but many will.”
We can change: “I am too old” to “I bring the kind of wisdom that comes from experience.”
You know, there is really ONE main idea that we keep revisiting in one way or another throughout Season 4 of Motivate Me! One main thing we MUST do in order to come back from flat and regain our passion again. To sum this main idea up in one word, it’s “control.”
Here’s a list of The Seven Things We Need to Control to Battle Fear and Nix Excuses:
1) our direction in life
2) our egos
3) our beliefs
4) our decisions
5) our internal dialogue
6) our feelings
7) our actions
I understand that life takes its turns and things like accidents and illnesses sometimes take priority. But even during those times, we can dream and we can envision the future we want for ourselves, so that when the time comes we’re ready to act.
For some of you this conversation is making you anxious. Why do you think that is? What thought are you having right now that makes you nervous about taking control of your direction, inner dialogue, and life? I’m going to give you a second to think about this, and then I’ll take a gander. Maybe you need to hit pause for a second?
Is it my turn now? Here’s my guess: Is it your self-doubts?
I happen to have an activity prepared for you that will help you Kick out Your Self-Doubt, and after that, we are going to get into the elephant in the room that we need to address!
To Kick Out Your Self-Doubt, when you get some quiet time, I would like you to answer these five questions (You can search Motivate Me! with Lynette Renda on Facebook or Instagram to see printed versions of this activity).
1. What you would like to achieve?
2. What is your top self-doubt?
3. What is the worst-case scenario of you attempting this?
4. What is the best-case scenario if you attempt this?
5. How will trying to achieve this change your current situation?
Here are my answers to this as an example:
1. I would like to achieve getting my book about traveling the fifty states in ninety days published.
2. My top doubt is that the book won’t be good enough to get published.
3. The worst-case scenario if I attempt this is that I’ll take the time to write it and it won’t get published.
4. The best-scenario if I attempt this is that I could get my book published.
5. Trying to achieve this will change my current situation because I will have no regrets about not writing a book about my trip, I will always have a book I wrote about my trip, I will make connections with people in the publishing industry, and I could possibly receive feedback that will help me better the book.
Now, writing a book is just extremely time consuming but the risk is low. You may need to invest money or change careers, or you may just need to start a side hustle or volunteer. I’m not sure what fears and doubts you need to move past and why. Maybe you want to audition for the local theater or want to get the courage to sing karaoke. This exercise will work for all doubts big and small. Put it on paper, look at it, determine if you’re allowing fear to deter you.
So, here is the elephant in the room we need to address.
We need to distinguish between excuses and obstacles, and we need to provide you with the right armor BEFORE you begin your battle.
What’s an excuse? It is a made-up illusion we create when we’re afraid to proceed, one we use to make us feel better about not doing what we know we should.
What is an obstacle? It’s a hurdle that pops up on our path to going for what we want.
There’s a fine line between excuses and obstacles and that is simply wanting it badly enough!
So what if we prepare for our obstacles before we even encounter them?
It is as simple as these two steps:
Step One: List three obstacles you project encountering on the path to achieving your goals.
Step Two: Write a solution for each of the obstacles you project encountering on the path to achieving your goals.
You and I both know that you are aware of what your challenges will probably face. Maybe it’s childcare, maybe it’s marketing knowledge, maybe it’s transportation?
Find solutions for these obstacles BEFORE starting. Maybe you can swap babysitting dates with a friend, maybe you can take a short marketing webinar or sit down with a knowledgeable friend, maybe you can figure out how to use the transit system to get where you need to be.
We would love to hear your thoughts. Join us in our Private Facebook group: Motivate Me! Support System and checkout MotivateMePodcast.com for anything else.
I am going to leave you with some truth talk from me to you: I have given you solid actionable items to work on here. Hopefully, you don’t find it overwhelming. Hopefully, you take some quiet time to revisit this information and apply it to yourself. There’s so much in our control, and yet, we pretend it isn’t. It’s human to be afraid, but we can move through the fear if we see that our doubts are unfounded and that we can resolve our obstacles before we begin.
I am just like you. I’m moving through my own fears and doubts, and I’m leaning on my problem-solving skills to prevent me from being deterred.
We can do this. We can do this together.
I’d really love to know what you’re working on achieving, big and small, so come find me, friends!
Remember, you Motivate Me!