One thing I do is help people recognize and then overcome fear. Almost everyone I speak with has some sort of fear. Usually, fear appears tangibly through anxiety or depression. To put some perspective to this; if I talk with just 20 people each week that is over 1000 people in the course of a year. Over the years I have spoken with thousands of individuals.

The most common fear I encounter is the fear of failure. To not be good enough, to not do enough, to lose a relationship, to lose a job, to not make it far enough in a career, to mess up as a parent and ruin a child; there are so many ways that people believe they could fail. What is failure, really?

What if I told you the only way to fail is to give up or self sabotage by never starting at all? Anything you really want out of life can be yours. Rarely do we achieve anything instantly. Life requires commitment, patience, perseverance, and follow through. Do you cringe at those words? Many people do. If those are the attributes to success, why do so many people avoid them?

It is because You are afraid to succeed. That is the true fear. You cannot be afraid to fail unless you expect to fail. You cannot fail if you learn, grow, and continue to try. So in reality, the fear of failure is actually the fear of success. What would success mean to you? Would it require more time, attention, and energy of you? Would success mean living up to a higher standard? Would success mean personal responsibility?

Think of someone you admire. What qualities do they have that attract you? I would expect that anyone you view as successful and admirable would possess some particular character traits. I am willing to bet they are committed, patient, perseverant, responsible, and organized with their time and energy. So how does one get from a state of fear to a state of success?

It’s all about mindset. What you believe, you will be. Remember the post I wrote on thought seeds? Everything begins in the thought realm. There is power in what you think and anything you continue to think repeatedly becomes your belief. Success or failure is completely within your control.