Are you scared?

If you’ve been following me this year, you’ll know I am reading a minimum of one book a month. This month I’m reading ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’ by Robert Kiyosaki. He talks a lot about the fear of making money, the fear of expansion, the lack of understanding around money and how to expand.

Last week I posted this quote from the book which seemed to trigger something with you:

When it comes to money most people want to play it safe

and feel secure so passion does not direct them,

fear does.

When I first started my business I craved security. I couldn’t bear the thought of doing anything that exposed me to a situation that would expose my security. As a result I could never be driven and I could never make decisions based on my passion for my business because I was always in this place of fear.

So today I want to talk about what fear is, what a fearful life looks like, what’s the problem with living a fearful life and how to fight the fear.

So let’s start with what fear is. Fear is primal, it’s an instinct and is in our DNA. The fight or flight response that you may have heard people talking about is there for a reason. It’s there to save our lives.  Centuries ago it was designed to save us from nature – sabre-tooth tigers and bears and such like. Clearly our life isn’t like that any more but the chemical reaction that takes place in your brain is still the same today.  

The number one fear today for most people is that you are not enough.  Do you feel like that? Do you tell yourself:

I am not enough
I’m not good enough
I’m not experienced enough
I’m not young enough
I’m not old enough
I’m not thin enough
I’m not pretty enough

Years ago, if you were not enough you would be outcast by your people, by your tribe and that would ultimately lead to death. If your people saw you as ‘different’ on a tribal level, you would be outcast, you would die.  

That’s how our brain is still reacting today – our DNA is still programmed in this exact same way. We all need to wake up to this idea – we need to retrain our brains that life is not like that any more.

A fearful life is where your emotions are making the decisions.  You don’t (always) need to trust your fight or flight, it’s designed to save your life and your life does not need saving in most situations. When your emotions make decisions that is the moment that you start to push money away from you if you are running a business. Because most humans are programmed to be risk-averse and most humans are programmed (from childhood) that money = risk.

When I first started running my photography business I was terrified.  I had a really secure, safe job that other people would have given anything for; nice career prospects, a company car…. you get the picture. So many people around me were telling me I should be grateful for the secure and safe job I had. But the truth is that it just didn’t light me up in the slightest.

My husband and I would talk about the day I would hand my notice in and it was always long enough away for me to feel like it was a ‘perhaps one day’ objective. Which was of course keeping my fear under control.

I felt guilty that I had this amazing opportunity and I didn’t want it. I let that emotion make the decision to stay doing something that I didn’t want to.
Really quickly that guilt then became fear. I was told on many occasions that I was mad to quit a well paid secure job. That no-one would book me – I have no experience, no track record, most new businesses fail.

Sure enough I started to believe the messages I was getting and told myself ‘I can’t afford to do this, it’s so risky, I’ve got a family to think about, I can’t be doing this, it doesn’t work for most people anyway’. That notice-handing in date would again be pushed back.

I was letting my emotions make my decisions. I was trapped. I was consumed by guilt and fear. I was so scared about what might happen if I tiptoed outside of my comfort zone.  

Until one day something clicked. And I decided that enough was enough. I’d reached my fear capacity.

I realised that the only way to grow is to find a way to get out of that comfort zone. And the way to do that is to ask yourself what the long term solution is. For me it was obvious – I had to take the plunge, leap, jump – and hand my notice in.

The joy I experienced that day was unbelievable. And 6 weeks later, the visualisation I’d rehearsed in my head a thousand times came to fruition. I felt like I was living in a movie as I left the office that last time. The tears streamed down my face and I finally knew what freedom felt like.

And it was all because I made the decision to not choose fear anymore.

As far as we know, life is a one way ticket. Change those fear goalposts before it’s too late.

with love and abundance,

Faye x

P.S. If you feel like now is your time and you’re ready for big change, I’d love to hear from you. I’m looking for two of you to fill my vacant coaching spaces so take a moment to book a call using the link below. Is that you?

recent posts 

Motivate / Energise / Inspire

Copyright Faye Cornhill / PRIVACY   / TERMS