What Are You So Afraid Of

What Are You So Afraid Of? digitalbloggers.com /business/What-Are-You-So-Afraid-Of

INTRODUCTION Fear is an emotion based on the perception that a certain external occurrence or event is going to harm us in one way or the other. Our reex actions that represent fear are primal and are generally not based on any factual information. 99% of the population is programmed to allow external elements to govern how they feel and act at any given time. This makes mastering emotional intelligence a must for entrepreneurs. I cannot aord to give my control over to external unfactual information every time there's a 'block'.

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WHAT IS IT AND WHERE DOES IT COME FROM? Fear is a ‘close-relative’ of worry. Did you know worry is just a habit like any other? As a result, for most of us, it's very well developed from years of practice! Think about a habit you may not necessarily like… worry and that other bad habit we have are wired in the same area of our brains (i.e. the subconscious mind). The real worry though is how subtle the effects are. They only become noticeable when a ‘big event’ triggers the old man fear. The fear state is actually physical. Fear is real. You can feel its effects, the jabs, the hooks right in your face. I think if it had wings it could fly.

According to Earl Nightingale in his book The Book The Strangest Secret, he says Fear is a direct result of worry and it is crippling. It affects our higher faculties in ways we can’t even start to imagine. It does not care how smart or intelligent the host is, it will have its victim for breakfast, lunch and dinner…if allowed to.

Worse still if you don’t understand how it works, how it moves and ‘talks’ it can consume you completely. And it has a voice too! Have you ever listened to the words you use when you are actually feeling fearful of something or some situation? I know I have…when I am feeling fearful, words that I wouldn’t normally use come out. How is this so? I am sure you’ve heard the statement “that’s just your fear talking” at some point.

CAN YOU HANDLE IT? Just like in a battlefield where an army needs to know and understand the enemy before going in behind enemy lines, so must we do with fear. We must understand it, how it works and most importantly where it comes from. As an entrepreneur, some of the effects that are accompanied by fear are bad for business. Indecision, doubt and procrastination just to name a few. These have the real potential of stopping us dead in our tracks if left unchecked.

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A good place to start is to know what causes you to fear and then put measures to prevent it.

SO WHAT CAUSES THE FEAR ANYWAY? Fear arises from different sources shows differently in all of us. Past experiences have a lot to do with it. Herein I share my fear matrix. Being aware of what pushes you over to fear territory is vital. It really is the first step towards winning the battle.

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Insufficient Of Knowledge

Coming in from an employee background in 2013, this was certainly a big one. I was alone and did not have a mentor shining the spotlight. I felt incompetent at almost everything I did when I started my first business. More so especially when it came to financial matters and marketing. Every time I was in a situation where there was a money issue to be resolved I’d come up with all sorts of excuses to let someone else handle it for me. Today, I get the knowledge that I need.

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2.

Inexperience

One of my recent endeavours is selling on Amazon. When I started the process of sourcing a product from China and shipping that over to the US, I literally wasn’t sleeping. The logistics were very unfamiliar and all I had in my defence was a bunch of youtube videos and webinars I stumbled across online as I attempted to bridge my knowledge gap. I don’t recommend that process of going it alone to anyone but for me the lesson was priceless.

3.

Uncertainty

Anytime I tackle something new, there’s an element of uncertainty at play. A known fact remains deeply rooted in my mind, I have not done this before. There is no result to reverse engineer except for somebody else’s story. Despite the planning, a well-researched niche market and profit calculations, uncertainty will pitch camp in the pit of my stomach…until there’s a result. This is a fertile fear territory. I get comfortable being uncertain and do the darn thing.

4.

Goals, Expectations, Clarity

Things will happen that are out of my control, curve balls of this Life will be thrown my way and they must be accepted. If goals and expectations are not clear, it’s very easy to be swayed out of focus by temporary defeats.

Some of them can be huge and painful. I have lost thousands of dollars, shed the odd tear and slept on a few couches because of silly mistakes and risky investments. You know, I didn’t even know there was a cool term for this until it was my turn to experience it – couch surfing!

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Honestly, these can be very trying moments indeed. The ONLY thing I’ve had to hold on to in those ‘bad weather’ moments is my goals. You are the only person who knows why it’s important to you the thing that you are seeking. If you can’t see it, then you will slip back into old ways.

The fear consumes you and the mind defaults to familiar ways of dealing with a perceived ‘life-threatening situation’.

“Oh my word, we have no place to sleep, we are going to die, let’s go back and get a job”. Now, I have fallen for that one before. I am not saying it’s a bad thing. There's no right or wrong way to respond to the challenges we encounter along the way. My thoughts however remain, why come all this way just to turn back when it gets tough?

What's the point? I made a decision not to waste a good lesson ever again.

Real growth happens in our most difficult moments. That couch surfing has the potential to bring out the genius in you overnight...if you let it! Well, maybe just a few extra nights to think over the brilliant solutions.

FINAL THOUGHTS Now that I understand what has the potential to push me over to fear-land, my job then becomes to put preventative measures to cover these 4 areas consistently.

As Franklin D. Roosevelt put it in these wise words, “only thing we have to fear is fear itself” .

Have a fear-LESS day!

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Connect with Me: Email:team@batianlifestyle.com Instagram:@batianlifestyle Facebook:@batianlifestyle Skype:guchueddie Eddie Guchu is a Digital Marketer, a Lifestyle Brand Owner & DJ. He is based mostly in Perth, Australia & Nairobi, Kenya.

Former life: A Consultant Network Engineer in the IT outsourcing and Mining Resources Industries in Western Australia. Holds an MSc in Information Systems Management From Curtin University, Western Australia.

"It Always Seems Impossible Until It is Done - Nelson Mandela"

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