Chai Wisdom

Let your actions speak louder than your fears

I don’t need to inform you or state to you that we are living in a time of immense fear.  You probably hear it all day long; “ Worst economy since the great depression.” “Unemployment at an all time high”; the media plays this tune right now on and on.  Well here’s the thing if you listen to this information all the time and believe that things are as bad as they are; I don’t know about you but I become fearful and stop doing the things I know work.

I don’t advocate hitting your head against a brick wall because rarely does the wall lose in that situation. I think it’s important to make sure you position yourself well in the current market.  Asking yourself questions such as: “ Does my product / service still provide value in the marketplace?”  ; “ Am I targeting the right demographic?” “Is there new avenues of marketing my product / service that would cost me less than what I am paying now?”  You should ask yourself these questions to make sure that you are setting yourself up to have success; Sometimes you do need to change your product or service to make sure you are still competitive in the market place

Once you have answered the above questions; it’s time to realize that fear can paralyze you and kill your potential in doing what you do. Fear unless it’s something drastic is usually a waste of time to think about.  The only thing that can overcome fear is action. 

Think of a time you were afraid of a situation or an experience (calling a person you were interested in, calling a prospective customer, fear of doing a presentation, etc.); if you pushed through that and you failed. You still felt unbelievable because you realize that you can conquer the fear.  When you have that feeling of personal victory you realize that it’s really not that hard to push through your fear.  To be honest most people build up situations in their mind to be worse than they really are and it usually paralyzes them.

Simple steps to use for your fears:
1.    Visualize past victories

• You have to have had a personal victory in the past (maybe something in sports, a good review at work , etc.) and make sure you relive that in your mind to recreate that feeling of personal victory
• Pre-play how you are going to be successful at whatever it is you are doing. Visualize your success as a professional in your chosen field.

2.    Read

• If you don’t have a consistent reading schedule; make ONE.  One of the best tricks that I have found to getting over my fears is reading biographies of successful people in life and realizing that they have the same fears but pushed through.
  
  • I am re-reading the Magic of Thinking big by David Schwartz. That is one of the best books that you can read on becoming successful.  Check it out here : http://bit.ly/aoosd

3.    Practice

• Practice creates confidence which in turn creates success

• Role-play if you are going to talk to a client; Make sure you know your presentation inside and out; study enough to pass the exam.

• The key here is not to over practice (which can create too much anxiety) but find the sweet spot where you feel confident and are prepared enough.

In closing, I was recently with wildrej from http://www.wildrej.com.  Throughout the trip he stated the story of Walt Disney had inspired him to learn more about the man, I looked him up on good old Wikipedia and found out that his breakthrough came during the Great Depression: http://bit.ly/GZgEp. Walt Disney pushed through his fears and made it in the toughest of times because he had a vision for adding value to children and families all over the world.  

Realize that you can only move forward or go backward (by doing nothing) on a daily basis. Let your actions speak louder than your fears.

Please comment or link on your blog if you found this helpful.