subject: How Fear Limits Us [print this page] To become exceptional in life, to live a life of serial achievement, to become unstoppable and triumph over every challenge life throws at us, it is essential that we understand the emotion of fear and how to handle it.
The concept of fear deserves a particular mention for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is a widely experienced but little understood emotion. Secondly, fear, especially the fear of failure is the number one reason for mediocre achievement in the adult lives of many. Finally, when we feel this emotion, many of us become stuck and are unable to push through toward the attainment of our goals. It is not the lack of skill, but fear that is the foremost killer of dreams and ambitions.
The emotion of fear has its roots in our early childhood during our conditioning process. As children we are born with no sense of fear or limitations however, growing up, as we receive repeated disparagement and continuously told what we are incapable of, these experiences begin to form part of our mental construct. This sense of confidence and our idea of a world without impossibilities begin to erode.
By the time we reach adulthood, we have come to accept our capabilities as our reality because those who told us were older, smarter and more experienced. Attempting to go beyond these capabilities instils an automatic fear of failure in us as we have now come to believe that we are not sufficiently skilled or competent to achieve it. As a result, many of us provide countless excuses as to why we cannot accomplish a goal instead of why we can. Many give up even before giving it a try. Many have become fear-conditioned. The strange thing about the emotion of fear is that it manifests in two ways. Sometimes it manifests in the form of a physical feeling which you actually experience. For instance, the knot you feel in your stomach before a major sales pitch to a key client. It is the physical form of fear that most people identify with and interpret as being afraid.
There is however another sinister, more covert form of fear. Other times and very often, the sense of fear we feel is very unconscious and we are not even aware that we are afraid. This type of fear manifests in the form of making excuses for not pursuing and sticking with our goals. This type of fear manifests when we say things like Ive tried before in the past and failed, what is the point of trying again, What will people say when this doesnt work out, and so on. The physical sense of fear is easier to deal with and once you identify it, you can motivate yourself out of it pretty quickly. The latent sense of fear, however, is the more treacherous because many of us are actually experiencing it without even being aware. We cloak this sense of fear instead with excuses, complaints and justifications. This type of fear has single-handedly been responsible for hundreds of millions of disenchanted dreams and unfulfilled destinies.
Being aware of these emotions makes it easier to recognise when they are limiting us and allows us to identify how they are fuelling the limiting beliefs in our lives. Once we know this, the battle for success is half won.
