Day 13-14 Fears

I really like that the chapter on fear follows the no complaints and no excuses chapters.  Fear is after all another type of barrier to action just like complaints or excuses.

It's arguably the most potent type of excuse that any of us will ever make.  The craziest thing about fear relative to other excuses is that our fears actually built the box we live in.  They define our comfort zones and tell us the acceptable limits of our daily life.

When I think back to the periods of my life that I grew the most in the least amount of time, it was always those moments I pushed my comfort zone.  I did a bunch of social experiments about a year and a half ago.  Things like wearing a Davey Crocket hat out in the bustling streets of NYC, begging for change, calling up strangers by punching in random numbers and coaxing a movie recommendation out of them before they hung up.  Funny right?  I remember half of the things that I endeavored to do, I thought were "impossible" before I actually did them.  Why were they impossible?  Because my mind and my fears dictated so! 

But it was more than fear.  It was fear so entrenched it had actually changed the way I viewed the world itself.  The fear had become bonafide limiting beliefs. As I systematically chipped away at these limiting beliefs to expose new realms of possibility my old world began to fall away.

When you meet your fears, you break the bonds that hold you down.  It's scary because as you remove the shackles you realize how much potential you really have.  That can feel like a huge responsibility.

I learned a lot about people in that short period of time.  I learned even more about myself.  I learned that even our most closely held beliefs about ourselves and the world can be mind bogglingly wrong.  I learned that you never know what is really true until you try.

So here I am trying. :)  I was pleasantly shocked by the exercises to again confront the areas in my life that are holding me back.  Even my worst outcomes are not as bad when they're written out in front of me.  There's nothing left to do but to keep pushing and keep myself grounded in truth.

After all, I already know that life is more fun outside of the box.

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