Knowing that we need to change our lives is not the hard part. That, in fact, is something we've probably known for a while. So the question is, what stops us? Why do we go after some things some of the time, but other times we do nothing?
What drives us is also what holds us back, and that is fear.
Fear of what, you ask? Well, let's see...fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of success - you name it. It's pretty tough to commit to something when you don't know what you're getting yourself into, isn't it? What if you do everything you know to do, and you don't get the results you want? What if you do get some positive results? You can't possibly keep it up, can you? I mean eventually you'll just go back to your old habits and all that work will be for nothing, right? Does this sound familiar?
Let me ask you this. How long would you give your average baby to learn how to walk before you decided that maybe walking wasn't something that was in the cards? Silly question, isn't it? Babies will fall and fall until they get it right. So if we all started that way as babies, at what point in our lives did we suddenly become afraid to try things, let alone fail? What happened along the way?
Think for a minute what role fear plays in the everyday decisions we make in our lives. We go to work because we fear we'd get fired if we didn't. We study for exams because we're afraid of suffering through it without knowing the answers. We DVR shows because we're afraid we might miss something good. Fear is all around us. The key is to use the motivational power of fear to work for us, not against us. What if we kept living our lives the way we were now, without making the changes we knew were so important?
How scary would that be?
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