Watch this quick 17 second video before reading on…
We have all felt like that little kid on the diving board at one point in our lives; sooner or later we all experience fear. If we don’t it’s because we have decided to accept the status quo of our current situation(s), having decided to give up on doing more to get further and achieve more with our lives. I discussed in a blog a few months ago that “fear” stands for False, Events, Appearing, Real, which explains how most of the time the fear we feel never comes to pass, because fear stems from emotion and not rational thinking.
The best example I can give you of irrational fear is one that any parent has dealt with: my children are at the age where they fear monsters in their closets and under their beds. When this issue comes up, usually around bed time, we check under the beds, closets, or any dark corner to verify no monsters are lurking in the shadows. Once they have seen there aren’t any monsters, they feel relief and the fear subsides.
What’s interesting is as adults, even though we don’t fear monsters under the bed, we still have monsters lurking in our minds in the form of things like a fear of rejection, failure, or even success. Dealing with our adult monsters is similar to dealing with a child’s—act quickly and embrace them; don’t let them fester because the worst thing we can do is let them build.
I believe we have all experienced or heard of a situation in the field involving the “New Product Monster” – a TM is calling on a doctor that they have wanted to pitch a new product to for a while; they start to feel just like the little kid on the diving board, second guessing themselves. “Is this the right time? He looks busy… he looks agitated. What if the OR director sees me pitching the new product?” Just get in there! Don’t feed your fear in an attempt to justify your last minute reluctance or you will end up doing nothing and losing out, because not taking action by avoiding fear gets you nowhere.
The point is when you meet your fear head-on with tenacity you stretch yourself by getting outside of your comfort zone; you become stronger. Like that little boy jumping off that high dive, if he jumps he will not feel the same fear next time. Remember fear is normal and everyone deals with it, the difference is successful people deal with fear by understanding it’s a part of the road to success. They understand the old adage, “No guts, no glory,” that if we are not experiencing fear, then we are not taking enough action to pushing ourselves to grow. If we don’t experience growth, we will be stuck at status quo. As author Grant Cardone says “Fear is like fire, it’s not something you pull away from. Rather, it should be used to fuel the actions of your life.”
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