Giving up Fear…Update

Apr 6, 2011 by Ben

About a month ago I gave up fear for lent.  I’m not Catholic, but I like the idea of lent and each year I usually give something up.  In years past its usually been soda, sugar, TV etc.  This year I decided to go a different route.

This year I decided to give up fear.

I recently left my “normal” job to set out on my own and start some businesses on my own.  This has been one of the most exciting and scary times of my life.  So many questions, doubts, and fears were creeping up.

• How am I going to get these things off the ground?
• Why won’t this website work correctly!?!?
• How in the world do you do accounting?
• etc

I’ve gone through all those and many many more, but ever since I made the decision to give up fear, they haven’t stopped me.

I know it sounds silly, but simply the decision to not operate under fear has let me move forward past all of them knowing full well that I will figure it out as I go and it will all be OK.  Whenever I run into something on my to do list that I’m afraid of, I remember that for 40 days, I have no fear.

And it works

I simply act as if I’m not afraid and move forward and I ALWAYS find that at the end of the task I was afraid of, that it wasn’t that hard, or that scary at all.

So who knows, maybe I’ll give up fear even after lent.  So far I’m loving life without it.

Ben…

 

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Giving up fear for lent

Mar 13, 2011 by Ben

This year I’m giving up fear for lent.

I’m not Catholic, but I like the idea of lent.  Each year my wife and I usually give up some of the same things as in years past; soda, TV etc.

This year I thought more about it as I already don’t drink soda, and the TV is always a nice thing to do without to reset for a while, but I was searching for something else.  Something bigger…

So I’m giving up fear…

 

I told my wife this, and she chuckled, “but you aren’t afraid of anything!”   And thats true for a lot of things, but its not 100% accurate.

In 4 days I’ll be without a job.  I’ve been winding down my work with a great company, and as of the 15th I’ll be unemployed.  Well unemployed in the technical sense.   This time I’ve decided to take this opportunity to start my own businesses.  Yes, plural; multiple businesses.  And that is really scary.

I can easily overwhelm myself with the amount of details and minutia that comes along with choosing that path.  But for the next 40 days I’m giving all of that up.

I won’t let fear paralyze my progress.

I won’t let fear stop me from pursuing this dream.

I won’t let fear tell me that I don’t know what I’m doing.

I won’t let fear stop me.

And the thing is, as I write these words and look at the list above its clear to me that its all bullsh*t.   I know I’ll be fine. In fact I know I’ll be much better than fine.  Without fear I’ll move forward.  Without fear I’ll figure it out.  I always do.

Fear is only as deep as the mind allows.
Japanese Proverb

So the next 40 days are all mine to live without fear.

Ben…

What is fear holding you back from today?  What would happen if you just gave up that fear and pushed forward?

 

 

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