Many of us experience fear and anxiety around not being where we’d thought we’d be by now. Usually we fear stepping into our future – whether it’s a new job, taking steps to become the person that you want be, beginning/ending relationships or something else. The essence of the Fear and anxiety is around what is coming, i.e. your future. What are the things that you’re a little nervous or anxious about?
There is something really important when it comes to releasing fear and anxiety in our lives. I have a quote on my wall that says: ‘When you feel that anxiety, that means that you’re hitting your fear barrier and to grow you must plow through it’. If you are feeling that sense of fear, the first thing you need to do is get into action. If you are feeling anxiety, it means you’re not in action. For example if you feel fear around being stuck in a particular job forever, you need to do something in this moment to move yourself towards that next goal. In some of my talks, specifically a talk that I did at LA Fitness in Philadelphia, I offer a Left page/right page exercise. On the left page, you write what you want to step into and on the right side you put your excuse, your ‘Yeah, but…’.
For example:
I want to be a physicist, or a lawyer
I want to start a family
I want to start exercising
I want to start my own business
I want to <fill in the blank>.
...I want to start a family, yeah but I can’t do X, Y, Z if I start one.
I want to travel, yeah but I don’t have enough time.
The whole left page of what we want to do are our action steps - it can be a stream of consciousness of a variety of things. These things may even be ‘weird’. One of mine was that I really wanted to dance in the park. I didn’t know why but I really wanted to. I put on the other side, ‘Yeah but people would think that I am weird’. Everything on the ‘Yeah but...’ page is the very reason we should do it. I really want to start a business, yeah but what about my children? Ironically, your children are the very reason that you should start your business (you don't want your children to feel like they can't leave out their dreams do you?). These excuses are exactly why you should be stepping into your highest calling.
The goal is to let go of the excuses and move forward. When we take action, all of that fear and anxiety is loosened and eventually released. The release is usually instantaneous even when you make a small gesture towards stepping into what you really want. Take that step, show up and you will free yourself from the cycle of fear and anxiety.
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