How often do you let fear get in the way of reaching your dreams or up-levelling your business? A practice I have developed, since my days of working with Lou Tice at The Pacific Institute, is to identify some stretch goals in my personal life and then transfer the lessons on over to my business. Works every time.
This past weekend, at Lake Norman, I did it again. For the past two years, I have been talking about taking additional steps to get past my fear of water. On the list of personal challenges were kayaking and paddle-boarding. Two summers have come and gone at home – so, in discussion with one of my colleagues who lives in a gorgeous part of the southern USA, I made the commitment to get this done!
I tend to function in ‘3’s and so that is how I approached this particular challenge! I paid particular attention to my self-talk, surrounded myself with positive people, ensured the weather conditions were conducive to what I wanted to accomplish (picked a quiet, sunny, warm day) and then took the plunge, so to speak.
Here are the 3 steps that moved me from fear to triumph:
1. DECISION. Everything starts by making a decision. Once you decide to do anything new or challenging, then it’s a matter of getting the resources in place. One of my success strategies around this is to only share my goals with people who love and support me. This is not a time to be anywhere near nay-sayers or the people who proudly wear the label ‘Devil’s Advocate’. None of that for me! So, I made the decision – on time (this past weekend), place (Lake Norman, with my colleague), people (a few positive young people cheering me on) and activity (baby steps – yet progressive).
And so I did! I made the decision to attempt the kayak first, recognizing that chances of falling/tipping into the water were minimal (compared to the paddle board). I wanted to build my confidence and have a success under my belt. So, we set everything up – and in I got. Phew. And Hooray. I was so happy and so proud of myself – I also made sure to take time to enjoy the moment of achievement – to stop and look around me – to wallow in what I just accomplished. These are important steps in the process too. Once I did that – then it was time to get on that paddleboard. I had young Abby (13 years old) holding the paddleboard steady for me as I got on and, eventually, stood up. As I was on my knees, Abby looked me straight in the eye (my eyes were filling with tears) …..and she smiled and said ‘you’ve got this’! Well, how could I go wrong! And, even though, as I stood up my legs were like jelly, …..I DID IT.What difference does this make in business you may ask? Well, as I drove to the airport with my colleague, I said to her – ‘let’s set a business goal now that causes our legs to turn to jelly – let’s create a strong vision of what we want to accomplish, where we want to grow, where fear may be holding us back – and let’s:
DECIDE
DETERMINE
DO
That’s how you grow in business!
WHAT IS ONE THING YOU CAN DO TO GET PAST FEAR THIS WEEK?
