Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway!
“Behind every flinch is a fear or an anxiety – sometimes rational, sometimes not. Without the fear, there is no flinch. But wiping out the fear isn’t what’s important – facing it is.” - Julien Smith, The Flinch
I’m wondering if some of you have ever been like me venturing through the dark forest much like the cast of characters in the Wizard of Oz. I always think about this particular song in the movie “Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My”, when doing something new in my business because there are some scary roads in business we must take. Before the cast starts singing “Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my” Dorothy says, “I don’t like this forest it’s dark and creepy”. I find myself saying, I don’t like doing this in my business, because it’s scary and creepy and mostly very uncomfortable.
So you are probably wondering where on earth am I going with this. Hang in there because I have learned a positive lesson about this same fear that got the cast all tangled up in this movie. This is my lesson learned on feeling fear and doing it anyway!
One of the things lately that I needed to do is write a free offer with a set of auto-responders because I did not like the ones currently on my website. Now I had the good intentions of doing this and I even put this on my goals list but it wasn’t getting done. It reminds me of another song line that says “the road I’ve traveled on is paved with good intentions”. Good intentions are one thing, doing the intentions is a whole other thing. Recently, I guess I was feeling much like Dorothy and the Scarecrow and the Tin Man and poor unsuspecting Toto! The cast took Dorothy’s line of, “this forest is dark and creepy” and conjured up all these fears of Lions and Tigers and Bears! What do you conjure up in your head on the road to getting important things done in your business? I know that I always tend to conjure up in my head, “What if I fail”? ”What if it’s not good enough”? I could go on in on with the “what ifs” that haunt me but I will spare you!
So what happens next is this lion jumps out and scares them but it turns out he was not such a scary lion because he had no courage. But the real turning point was as the cast kept moving forward to meet the wizard, Dorothy stood up to the lion among other obstacles. My lesson was around doing the writing for this free offer with auto-responders and standing up to my worst fears I had around failing miserably and not being good enough. I stood up to all the gremlins in my head and with the prompting of my coach, I pushed through it. And I have to say it felt good.
We all know that eventually they get to the wizard. So the most positive part of that whole movie is that they didn’t turn back screaming. They moved forward. I also moved forward with getting it done and now it’s on my website better than ever. In that same way, we must continue down the road to making every effort to push forward through the fear even if we do encounter, “Lions and Tigers, and Bears!
I write this now because it’s fresh on my mind. I’m struggling with “Lions and Tigers and Bears right now but I’m determined to move forward and do it anyway. What are some fears that have prevented you from moving forward?
