Fear Feeds Procrastination

Yesterday, I was talking about procrastination, and how it can hurt your business and your life.  One of the main reasons for procrastination (at least for me) is Fear.

Fear is a terrible thing, and I’m talking about both fear of failure AND fear of success.

What is fear of failure?

A good example of fear of failure is not learning something new because you don’t think that you’ll be able to do it, or not doing a blog post because you feel like no one will read it, or not trying a new weight loss method because you think it might be to hard.

We get stuck in this kind of fear and it causes us to procrastinate and put things off.

What I have found in this situation is that it’s a matter of saying to yourself “What’s the worse thing that can happen”.  Basically, the worst thing that can happen is that the “thing” (whatever that thing may be for you) doesn’t work.

So what, it doesn’t work!  At least then you have something started that you can tweak, or try a different approach or whatever.  Trying something is never a “failure”, it is always a learning process.

A good example of this would be when people come to me and say, “Hey, does that selling on eBay thing really work?”

The answer is YES, it really works…  BUT you have to put some work into it in order to see the results.  You have to take some training, you have to learn how it will work for you, and then you have to tweak it to make it your own.  I know people who are making 5 figures a month in sales.  It’s life changing, but you have to be willing to push through the fear and say:  I AM going to learn how to do this, even if it’s scary to put myself out there. I know I can do this if I set my mind to it, it’s only scary because I haven’t tried yet.

What is the worst thing that can happen if you take all of the training to learn how to sell on eBay and it doesn’t work?  Well, you are out the $20 cost of the training, and some time.  But what is the best thing that could happen?  You could get out of debt, you could save money for a family vacation, you could replace your full-time income and quit your day job?  Those seem to me like pretty good reasons to push through the fear of wasting twenty dollars and some time to give it a real try!  Push through that fear!

The flip side of fear of failure is fear of success.

Fear of success is something that holds me back.  I feel like often times I get stuck in a comfort zone.  I know that I have seen some mild success on something.  I will use for an example again the selling on eBay and Amazon.  I have seen some reasonable success selling on both of these platforms, and yet I am not (at the present time) one of the bigger sellers that I know.

Now, I know that I could be, I know that I am smart enough, talented enough, and have enough drive to see it through.

So what’s stopping me?

Honestly I don’t know.  But it is a fear.  I’ve been working for so many years to be “successful”, what if that actually happens??  Then what?  What do I do then?  I want more than anything to be hugely successful. But instead of doing the things that will push me forward in my business, I spend my time doing “busy work

I had a friend of mine hit the one million dollar in sales mark on Amazon yesterday.  Holy Sh*t!  That’s awesome!  This is just a young kid, only 24 years old AND he still maintains a full time job (why I’m not sure, guess he just likes not sleeping LOL).

So why wasn’t that me?

He doesn’t possess any special ninja qualities that I don’t.  He doesn’t have anymore time in a day that I a missing out on.  He doesn’t have anymore knowledge than I do.

It could be me…. it should be me!!!

What is the difference between Matt and me?  NOTHING!!  Except that he does not have that fear of being successful.

For that matter, what is the difference between Matt and you?  The answer again is NOTHING!  Matt started selling on eBay and Amazon 2 years ago (just shortly before I did).  He has taken the same training, he has had the same amount of time, and he has the same ability!

He was given the same opportunity and ability as the rest of us were.

I guess really what I am saying (and saying just as much to myself right now as I am saying it to you… ) is that if you want to get more out of the life you are living, you can not left fear stop you!!

You have to push through it and do it even when you are afraid.  If you continue to procrastinate on something that you really WANT to do, 6 months from now  you will be in the exact same spot now.  Except that you will have accomplished nothing, and you will likely have built that fear into an even bigger road block than it is now.

My challenge to you today is to do something that you have been procrastinating on because of fear.  Do something today that your future self will thank you for! 

I would love to hear about it!

Talk soon,

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