Is Fear Real?

What makes fear real to you? Have you ever been so attached to an outcome that you have instilled fear into your mind and daily practice that it has now become a habit. 

We all look at fear like it's something real, however, I believe fear is just a choice that we have. Is fear in the past, present or future? Fear lives in the future. Just like our dreams. Haven’t you ever heard of the entrepreneur or business owner who manifested their dreams simply by dreaming it and then the behaviours required to get to those dreams were developed over years of practice, years of being told no and years of feeling like a failure. If on that journey we learnt about fear and failure and we started to become comfortable with it, what could that do to determine our outcome? 

I myself know that there are times where I let fear get the better of me. An example of this; just last week a staff member of mine asked me to meet with a client with her. Other people in our office were sick that are more experienced in this area than I so when I met with the client, I hadn’t done the prep work that I felt should have been involved to make myself comfortable with the meeting. Preparation is everything for someone like me. I will have a thousand conversations in my head before even meeting the person. Then the conversation I have with them usually goes a different way. However, I am at least prepared for most conversations. 

Getting back to fear, the client left without actually signing up. During the conversation, I felt like we didn’t flow, I didn’t go into enough detail and our body language was a bit off. Nothing was mirroring for me. I started to attach to the outcome. Was he going to sign up with us? Had I done enough to prove we were the right agency for him? Had I shown my staff member a different way of presenting or conversing? All of these things run rampid in my mind until afterwards, the client leaves, the staff members turns to me and says “Well, that went really well, didn’t it?” I thought to myself “No, in what world do you think that went well?” I would be very surprised if he uses us. 

I started to attach my own happiness and my own assumptions to the outcome. Fear got the better of me. Fear that I hadn’t done a good enough job. But, where does fear live? Like I said earlier in this blog, fear lives in the future. Where am I living. I am (or, should be) in the present. 

A few key dialogues that I could have used to change my perspective and ensure that the meeting had actually gone well was “ Of everything we have discussed today, what are 2-3 things that you feel could benefit you?” If the client turned around and couldn’t answer those things then I would know I hadn’t presented well. If he turned around and clearly described 2-3 things. Well, then I must have done something right. Turns out, the client loved it, signed the contract a day later and referred us to family & friends. The point to my story, is fear can hold us back. 

Whilst, I was dreaming that the client got what they needed, manifested the dream which was to have this client on our team and get referrals (which is what we all want, right?) 

Fearful for me is because I am attaching to an outcome. Every time I attach to an outcome it causes misery in my life – then I am waiting for someone else to make a decision and I am miserable until that happens. Someone else is dictating my happiness.

I had to really sit down and reflect on this and look at what shift I can make to change my way of thinking for next time, what dialogue can I use to the client and to myself? What would a different way of thinking look like for me? 

Whether it is in business and we are dreaming of better things to come or we are fearful of what we do when those things happen. I think it is so important to realise that if you are in the moment, fear can't get to you!