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Video – Getting Unstuck – Lesson 2. Three Of The Biggest Paralysing Fears And How To Overcome Them

Video (10 Minutes)

Getting Unstuck is a video series on how to overcome the fears that are holding you back from being the person you want to be and living the life want to live. Whether your fear relates to relationships or work you can learn to harness it and breakthrough it, rather than see it as a barrier to success.

Hello, Colin Hiles here with the ‘Getting Unstuck’ video series.

So here’s lesson number two.  I’ve entitled this one ‘Three of the biggest paralysing fears and how to overcome them’.

So let’s jump straight in and let’s look at why highlight these three fears?

Why highlight these fears?

I think there are two main reasons.

Firstly these three paralysing fears could be the biggest culprits preventing you from reaching your full potential and living the life you’re meant to be living.

And secondly they can keep you feeling safe but also stagnated, not quite fully alive.  So if you feel like you’re wrapped in a comfort blanket but you feel stagnated and not fully alive, then here’s maybe three fears for you to look at.

So what are these three big fears?

Let’s see if you recognise any of these or if any of these resonate with you.

Firstly there’s the fear of risk.  Secondly there’s the fear of failure.  And thirdly there’s the fear of not being perfect.

Let’s look at each one of these fears in a little bit more detail and explore a key question that we can ask ourselves, that can get us really thinking about each of these fears.

Awareness is really important.  As we become more aware of these fears and the grip they have on us, then we can begin to change them.

1. The fear of risk.

For some reason our minds lead us to think that that the familiar is usually the best way to live.  Even though we’re not happy with our current situation, our natural tendency is to prefer things the way they are, over what we can make them.

We don’t like being outside our comfort zone.  And you’ve heard the saying “No risk, no gain.”  It’s absolutely true.  You cannot succeed in life unless you purposely push the envelope and go beyond your preconceived limits.

The life that’s waiting for you to live sits outside your comfort zone.  So when you look at your life right now, the relationships you’re in, the quality of those relationships, your health, your weight, your shape, your income, the level of success you’re achieving, where you live, how you live etc.  This is all inside your comfort zone.

Everything that you want sits outside your comfort zones.  All the things that you would like to manifest sits outside your comfort zone.  Your ideal life sits outside your comfort zone.  So unless we’re willing to handle the fear of risk it’s going to be very difficult for us to grow our comfort zone and grow our comfort zone.  So more of what we don’t have at the moment, we then have.

Here’s a key question for the fear of risk:

What do you need to risk in order to gain?

2. The fear of failure

Fear of failure causes people to avoid the things they want to do because they’re afraid they will fail.  Now here’s a top tip, and these are only short videos so it’s difficult to go into these in too much detail.  But if you remember these three things they will certainly help you.

Tip number 1.  Everyone fails. I’m about to share with you some very famous failures.  But everyone fails.

Tip number 2. We can never be a failure.  It’s so easy to begin to identify ourselves as a failure.  And we’re making the big mistake of linking an event or an experience with our identity.  William D Brown summed it up nicely when he said here “Failure is an event never a person.”  So you can never be a failure.

Tip number 3. Failure is just feedback.  And it helps if we treat failure as a learning opportunity.  Now we’ve already operated from this belief earlier in our lives.  We did this way way way back when we were learning to walk.  If you think about it, the first time we stood up we fell over but we didn’t label ourselves a failure, we just saw it as a learning opportunity and we continued to get up, fall over, get up, fall over, get fall over and eventually we learned to walk.  And it’s a good job we didn’t label ourselves as a failure; otherwise we would still be crawling on our hands and knees!

Famous failures

Here’s some famous failures:

Mozart was told by the Emperor Ferdinand that his ‘Marriage of Figaro’ was too noisy and it had too many notes in it.

Van Gogh only sold one painting during his lifetime, and that was The Red Vineyard.  In his day he was never famous for being a painter and struggled to make a living as an artist.

Edison was considered unteachable.  In fact Edison only had three months of formal education before his school master labelled him unteachable.  And then his mother pulled him out of school and she home schooled him herself.

Einstein.  Once again teachers said that he would never amount to much because of his defiance of authority and his independent nature.

Napoleon graduated 42^nd in a class of 43 from the Military Academy.  And we all know how famous Napoleon went on to become.

R P Macy, the guy who founded Macy’s department store, failed seven times at retailing.  And he had seven bankruptcies – I mean you think about that, seven bankruptcies before he started Macy’s, which went on to be a huge success.

What about J K Rowling of Harry Potter fame.  She had twelve publishing rejections before she was accepted.  She was turned down twelve times when she first wrote the first Harry Potter book.  Can you imagine how the publishers that turned her down feel now? They must be eternally regretful for that.  The Harry Potter series has gone on to sell 400 million copies worldwide.  Hugely successful.

Successful entrepreneurs

I read this stat, thought it was very interesting.  Successful entrepreneurs average 3.8 failures before they succeed. We can all learn a lot from that stat!

So here’s the key question for the fear of failure:

What would you attempt if you knew you couldn’t fail?

3. The fear of not being perfect

The fear of not being perfect stems from our need for approval.  Fear of disapproval comes from the belief that others are responsible for our worth.  The need for approval gets many of us into unfortunate relationships and circumstances.  We take up habits, ways of talking, acting, even thinking just to show that we are worthy of the relationship role or recognition.

Here’s some things to remember on this.  Perfection is an idea, not a reality.  It’s a belief system not a reality.  It’s impossible to be perfect.  I mean no one’s perfect.  Even your heroes and heroines are not perfect.  I know I’m not perfect!

So imperfection is what makes us perfect.  In fact we are perfectly imperfect.  That’s probably the best way to put it.

Rather than trying to be perfect all the time, just revel in being able to be just who you are.  Taking on that mindset, i.e. letting go of the need to be perfect, allows something amazing to happen.  You’ll fall in love with who you are and what makes you unique and different, flaws and all.

So here’s the key question for the fear of not being perfect.

Where in your life is the need for approval preventing you from being authentic?

So there we go, there are three of the biggest fears.  The fear of risk, the fear of failure and the fear of not being perfect and three key questions to get you thinking about where they may be lurking in your life.

I hope this video has triggered something for you. If you are able to let go of these fears, move beyond these fears your be able to live a more authentic life.  A life that’s built around who you truly are and what you truly should be doing.

Wise words…

And before I leave, I’d like to leave you with some wise words by Eleanor Roosevelt.

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.  You’re able to say to yourself “I have lived through this horror.  I can take the next thing that comes along.”  You must do the thing that you think you cannot do.”

So thanks for listening.

Leave me a comment. Let me know what you think. Helpful, not helpful?