Brave Each Day
Are your fears holding you back ?
When you decided to first launch your business, you were stepping out of your comfort zone.
Whatever your fears were at the time, you faced them, and when you confronted them, some of those fears fell away.
A few very quickly, others taking longer but each time, you were extending the boundaries of your comfort zone.
So what are you afraid of now ?
However, some fears will have stubbornly kept a firm grip on you and may be holding you back.
Perhaps they are related to hiring your first employee, building a team, leading a growing business or maybe even self-leadership and breaking an addiction. They can bring with them feelings of inadequacy, the imposter syndrome as it’s known. What you may not realise that just like those fears, if allowed to grow, actually start to contract your comfort zone, just as external air pressure will collapse a vacuum.
Your comfort zone is dictated by the perceived fears in your head. The fear of flying, public speaking, lack of cash, hiring staff, to name just a few are all fears that are first generated by your thoughts. Those constant conversations you have in your head, that are only ever perpetuated by you. They may be fuelled by what you hear, read or watch but it’s you who let those particular thoughts into you head and not others.
Can you re-program yourself ?
The Reticular Activating System (RAS), an amazing part of the brain that you can control, responds to those thoughts that fly around your brain, whether they be good or bad. It picks up information that reinforces those thoughts, brings them to your attention and adds them to the appropriate file. If you have an inherent fear of public speaking, then even when you see someone easily speaking in front of people, your immediate reaction is not, “I can do that” but instead, “I could never do that.” That little memory is then catalogued and filed, reinforcing your thoughts about not being able to be like that person.
Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) has a great way of dealing with this. The practitioner helps you to bring those fears and thoughts to the fore and then uses a concept called ‘pattern interrupt’ to completely break that chain of thoughts and trash them. Just as you locate the file on your PC when you want to delete it, is exactly how the RAS deals with it. It shreds everything in the file and deletes the folder.
However, you must be brave enough to face that fear, and intend to destroy it, for that to be successful.
Not everyone requires the NLP Practitioner, and you may be able to manage it yourself, by just ‘facing the fear and doing it anyway’, as Susan Jeffers expounded.
Are you going to be brave today ?
When you decide to ‘brave the day’ and face your fears, you can keep expanding that comfort zone that your thoughts project, keep learning, continue to be a better manager of yourself, your team, and your business.
Just be brave.