Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” – Dale Carnegie.
I am a dreamer, a visionary, and some might say a little on the irrational side. Dreaming big and thinking about all the possibilities fills my cup. It can be overwhelming because the logical next step is to think about how to accomplish those dreams but we’ll talk about that in a later post.
I’ve taken a few different classes recently and they have all talked about fear. Fear holds us back and prevents us from taking the leaps of faith required to do big amazing things but Walt Disney said, “if you can dream it, you can do it.” We may lie to ourselves and say we aren’t afraid of failure, we’re afraid of success but the reality is that fear of success is actually a fear of losing success which is, in a roundabout way, a fear of failure. What are we afraid of then? Well, we’re afraid of two things… spectators and outcomes.
One of the courses I took recently talked about the “FISHBOWL Effect” which perfectly describes how we respond when we feel as though all eyes are on us, as if we were in a fishbowl. We become afraid of failure, imperfection, spectators, harm and humiliation – all because we are being watched. We become afraid of: being judged, our opponents and the opinions of others, winning and losing, and letting someone down – the potential outcomes of our efforts.
So if we have these fears of spectators and outcomes, how can we possibly reach our big, crazy, audacious dreams? What makes us believe that we can achieve that level of fulfillment? Well, we have to EMPTY the fishbowl.
Focusing on the effort over the outcome will give you the confidence and courage to take action and make forward progress. Focusing on the message over the mess gives you permission to make mistakes and learn from them which gives you confidence and courage to continue. When you give yourself grace and focus on being patient over being perfect, you eliminate the fear that you are not enough. It’s ok to be disappointed if something doesn’t go the way you thought it should, but instead of getting stuck in the vicious cycle of being a victim, turn the pain into purpose and do something different next time. If nothing changes, nothing changes. Remember that playing small doesn’t make someone else’s life better but playing big has the chance to dramatically improve the world.
Get out of the gravitational force of mediocrity and find the courage to go after your dreams. Huge dreams change the way that you think and maybe they aren’t attainable right now, but by dreaming big dreams and constantly striving for them, you become the person who can attain those dreams. Appreciate the journey, choose an abundance mindset over scarcity, and take the leap of faith to make your dreams come true.
As a friend of mine says, “make your own pixie dust and find your Disney!”
