‘What if….”
Does this thought often bother you? Are you the one who spends a lot of time thinking on “What if….” before starting anything new? Do you often think of the negative aspects even if there are no valid reasons to do so?
You will notice that all your ‘What if…” have one common element- the fear factor!
The ‘fear of the unknown’.
What is Fear of Unknown?
Most of this fear is based out of your assumptions and not on facts. You need to make yourself free from this ‘unknown fear’. Unless and until you do that, it will be difficult for you to accomplish anything important in your life- both at personal and at professional level.
How does one achieve that state of mind? I will share something from my own life. I too had many fears in my mind as I was growing up. Moving from adolescence state to a young man and then to crossing my midlife, I was continuously faced with so many fears that many times I wondered if at all will I be leading a free and happy life devoid of all my fears? Then as I gained experience in life, I slowly started taking risks; risks of giving an attempt to all the things/activities that I had some kind of fear attached to. And I was pleasantly surprised to find that most of the fears that I associated with these things/activities were mere fears only!
In practical life, they (the fears) just don’t exist!
What is the solution?
Here is the Key; to begin with, attempt very small or not very significant fears of yours and keep repeating the action (your attempt) accumulating the small victories. After a point, you will have the confidence and the mental strength to attack your bigger fears. And slowly you will achieve bigger victories. You will be ready to take calculated risks in your life and will make significant progress.
And you know what? The biggest lesson for me in all this was:
People give a damn about you!
So, the biggest worry that we have in our mind ‘what will people say’ is so irrelevant and exasperating.
And remember: On the other side of your FEAR…. lies your SUCCESS!