Are you a perfectionist? Are you a procrastinator?
Have you ever asked yourself WHY you always have to clean the house, do your grocery shopping, walk the dog, and do all kinds of chores before you can even look at what you actually need to do?
What is it that’s holding you back?
It’s one thing…
And the best part is… you CAN overcome this one thing!
It all starts with recognizing it.
Done is Better than Perfect
Have you ever been afraid to put yourself out there? Or put the “thing” out there? Whether it’s your book, your idea, your business, or something else, it’s likely that you are holding back on taking action.
We have such a paralyzing fear of “all the things.” Fear of judgement, of not being good enough, of criticism of others, of failure, of not knowing enough, the list goes on.
One of our Unstoppable Influence Academy members brought up how I always say, “Done is Better than Perfect,” and she said that even though she knows it, she needed more, a tool of some sort. So she asked for a recommendation of another book to read to help her get to the point of feeling “ready.”
I asked Rich if he had a book recommendation, and his response was genius.
“Solving a problem that requires action by reading a book isn’t going to yield the results the person is looking for.”
No matter how many books you read on a topic, if you aren’t actually DOING the thing, chances are you aren’t going to feel ready, confident, or anywhere close to perfect.
The Fear Barrier
That thing standing in your way… the one that has you believing that you need to read another book, do another thing, learn something else, BEFORE you take action… that’s what we call the Fear Barrier.
Nothing is going to make that fear barrier comfortable.
It’s the barrier between comfort zone and miracle land.
Take bungee jumping for example. No matter how many books you read about it, or how many times you watch it done on tv, or hear people talk about it, there is no substitute for actually taking that step off the platform.
That example may be a little extreme for those of us who are terrified of heights, but you see where we are going with this. Reading, seeing, and hearing aren’t the same as the actual experience of facing the fear.
You may feel that fear barrier just by thinking about it. Your heart starts beating faster, you start trembling, you may feel a bit sick to your stomach.
That’s acknowledging the fear barrier. Only by DOING can you then overcome it.
Feeling the Fear
Overcoming will require you to feel the fear.
There isn’t a single thing that I’ve done while designing my best life that hasn’t required me to feel the fear and do it anyway.
Writing my book was a huge step through my fear barrier. I remember being scared to hand it over to my beta readers, and even being scared to hand it over to Rich.
I was scared to be on camera at that point, which may surprise some people, but it was a fear barrier that I had to push through.
Becoming fearless isn’t about the absence of fear, it’s mastering the fear. It’s being scared and doing it anyway. It is recognizing your comfort zone and taking an intentional step beyond it because you know the miracles and the magic are just beyond that threshold and you recognize that you have the choice.
I’m sure many of you have had the experience of being scared and not wanting to do something and then you look back and realize it wasn’t really all that bad.
In the law office, I had to talk in front of people that had way more experience than I did. I wasn’t a speaker. It was out of my comfort zone. Yet, I found ways to make it fun.
I went from freaking out, to feeling like I couldn’t wait to be on the stage again.
Even Rich saw the progress as I took every opportunity to speak. I realized that you need to step through your Fear Barrier in order to claim your gifts.
The Fear of Judgement
One of the biggest fear barriers that people face when it comes to doing and being what they want, is the fear of judgement from others.
We’re always worried about offending someone, upsetting someone, or someone seeing things differently than we do.
This is one of those times we need to accept that we will be too much for some, and too little for others.
I’ve learned this with Unstoppable Influence and I’ve seen it countless times in other situations. You can’t please everyone.
If that’s one of your fear barriers, know that there is likely to always be someone upset, someone who doesn’t see things eye to eye, and that’s ok.
Rich pointed out that it’s been said that if you are not getting angry messages, you’re not marketing hard enough.
When we are putting ourselves out there, and we are nervous or worried about what others will think, the conversations we are having with ourselves are all about US.
Once we focus on who we want to help and how to serve, it’s very hard to worry about that stuff if you are focusing on changing others’ lives for the better.
So recognize the fear barrier, understand your focus, and go ahead and take that next step out of your comfort zone.
Additional Resources
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