Face yourself in the mirror and ask your reflecting countenance, honestly and without evasion, the following questions:
- Am I living the vision I had for my life?
- Has the fulfillment I yearned for passed me by?
- If I have not achieved my heart’s desires, what is really keeping me from living my dreams?
The answer, in many cases, will be the small yet potent word, FEAR!
For many of us, there seems much to fear: fear of the unknown, fear of making the wrong decisions, fear of stepping out on faith; fear of committing to something or someone and the list goes on.
It is a true statement that the leading cause of people not fulfilling their dreams is NOT the fear of failure but the fear of success! It’s the fear of actually accomplishing what they set out to do. The fear of living life to the fullest can have a paralyzing effect. This fear may have caused you to give up your dream of perhaps owning your own business, going after that promotion or to even furthering your education. It may even be that you started down the path to accomplish your dream but ended up making decisions or failing to take the right actions, which sabotaged your dreams of success and fulfillment.
Many of us live our lives in quiet desperation, not even knowing why our dreams haven’t come to fruition. That hidden fear of success turned our dreams of business achievement, financial freedom and loving relationships, into a pattern of false starts, procrastination and feelings of failure.
The reality is that fear is a natural part of the human experience and some fear is even healthy. It is fear that gives you the adrenaline rush to escape from a dangerous situation or causes you to fight to win. Many times it’s fear that drives us back to God when we find ourselves in trouble and are seeking to get back to the place of doing his will. Fears like those are what make us human. It is only when fear cripples us, conquers us or clouds our ability to move towards our dreams, and live the life that God intended, that we need to make a course correction.
As you face your reflection and search deep within, take an honest assessment and do the following:
- accept the fact that your fears have clouded your vision;
- acknowledge that such destructive fear is self-defeating;
- realize that such feelings of fear are habits which can be changed;
- appreciate that you cannot wait for the fear to go away to act;
- know that failure in the past does not determine your future;
- recognize that you can move from failure to fulfillment even in the presence of fear; and most of all,
- understand that God has given you the power to make meaningful life changes that can take you from fear and failure to freedom and fulfillment.
How have you gone about conquering your fear of success? Leave me a comment in the box below. You can also connect with me on facebook, or via my website.