Your journey from fear to freedom in business is not always one of comfort but it is exciting.
When you choose to take that journey or join the journey from fear to one of freedom, it will change your life and business.
I was listening to a Podcast probably about a year ago and the speaker Bedros Keuilian suggested a question to ask yourself to test where you were on the spectrum between Fear and Freedom? One of the questions was “If you didn’t know what your job was, what job would you choose”? If your answer is different from what you are doing now, you must ask “So why are you not doing it”? This is when your fears are exposed.
Take this question one step further and apply it now, to your business. If you did not know your business’s current success where would your want your business to be”? Following your answer, ask yourself “So what is stopping your business from being there”?
Interesting isn’t it what lies below the surface of our conscious thoughts. Often our unconscious thoughts are exactly where our fears reside. They are the thoughts that hold the unconscious bias about what we are, capable of, what is possible or impossible, what we deserve and don’t deserve.
Where to start the journey from fear to freedom.
“Before you control conditions, you must learn to control yourself”
Napoleon Hill – Think and Grow Rich.
It all starts with mind management and where mind management comes into its own. Although we have automatic thoughts every second of the day. When we have the self-awareness to recognise them, we can actively irradicate them by reframing them or use them to power up our existing resources. This is when we are truly at the cause of our outcomes and not a sitting duck with fingers crossed waiting for the storm clouds to pass.
If I were to liken free-floating fear to an analogy it would be that of a feral cat. Yes, a stray cat who remains aloof and unsocialised. Ready to pounce on its prey to trap it and stop it in its tracks. Stealth-like in its approach and allowing the tension, anticipation to build and then boom! The cat will most likely play and tease its prey until there is no life left or gets bored and becomes distracted. How true to life is that for us.
Now, the feral characteristics and behaviours of the cat have similar positive intentions for you as they do for the cat. It is about survival.
Fear (False Evidence Appearing Real) has the greatest of intentions to maintain your safety. If your perception is of a ‘threat’, your mind will seek to let you know and retreat or fight. It does this through signalling fear even if it means ‘false alarm’. Just as the feral cat will retreat from humans because they perceive us as a threat.
Choosing the path less travelled.
‘Trust the wait, embrace uncertainty, enjoy the beauty of becoming.
When nothing is certain anything is possible’
Mandy Hale
The quote I have used above expresses the essential features of the journey you must take to go from fear to freedom in your business.
Both concepts of fear and freedom are attitudes or mindsets created by you, using deeply held beliefs based on your individual experiences, readings, nurturing, and events. Your thoughts which come from this historically held understanding dictates the results you are getting.
Freedom will only be achieved when you master the self-awareness required to identify the ‘unhelpful’ thinking patterns. Self-awareness takes discipline but offers you the opportunity to re-calibrate your thoughts with your desired outcome. To quarantine the emotion of fear and stop listening to the self-doubt and the neigh Sayers, so you lead fearlessly from the front.
When you are operating from the premise of fear you become emotionally hijacked, entangled in overthinking and procrastination. Like driving a car with the brakes binding on, blindfolded, and your hands behind your back.
5 paths to freedom?
When you spend time mastering self-awareness you are rewarded with clarity. Clarity will set you emotionally and mentally free.
Getting these levels of freedom will mean you, domesticate your inner feline!
- Being honest with yourself and others. There is nothing wrong with telling people that ‘this is a white-knuckle ride’! You are likely to find great support and encouragement in response.
- Call out the ‘fear’, name it and expose it’s core. When you lift it from the root it can not come back in its same form.
- Be clear in stating your vision which may feel vulnerable, but no one would shoot blind if they wanted to hit their target.
- Acceptance of and prepared to experience uncomfortable emotions fully.
- Lean into your vulnerability.
It is with my greatest hope that this has been thought-provoking for you and it has whetted your appetite to consider what is possible for someone to master it is possible for you.
Just remember this does not happen automatically. Every one of us has multiple layers of different thicknesses to unwrap and dispose of. And if you need help or support to apply the theory or go through the process, remember I am here.