The past few weeks have been incredibly busy and I’m finding it hard to carve out time in my schedule to write content for this site. Each and everyday topics come up in my coaching sessions that make me think “ooh! That would make a great blog post!”
Unfortunately, there never seems to be enough time to put into writing all of the topics I’d like to share on. Between coaching clients, running the Location Independent Therapists community, writing my book, taking care of my son, and making time for my own self-care…well my blog sometimes gets put on the back burner.
There’s also one other factor that comes into play in my procrastination on writing content, one that probably almost any writer, or human being for that matter, could relate to and that is….FEAR.
There’s this myth circulating around in our society that those of us who follow our dreams are fearless. How else could we have gotten to where we are unless our lives were devoid of fear? This is a topic that seems to come up in almost every single session I have. And it’s a topic I know very well from my own personal experiences.
Fear of not doing things perfectly.
Fear of rejection.
Fear of the unknown.
Sometimes even fear of getting out of bed in the morning. Oh yes, I may have created a life for myself in another country halfway around the world from where I grew up and I now am doing what could be considered the job of my dreams, but am I fearless? Oh no, I am so far from it.
But I do feel successful in the sense that more often than not I don’t let this fear paralyze me (the exception being my lack of recent blog posts). Usually, I put into action this technique that I use with my patients which comes from “Acceptance and Commitment Therapy” and is called “exchanging BUT for AND.”
Instead of saying:
“I would plan a trip to SE Asia for my upcoming vacation, BUT I’m scared.”
you say…
“I’m scared AND I’m going to plan a trip to SE Asia for my upcoming vacation.”
So often we let our actions be dictated by our emotions, which is the perfect recipe for waking up at the age of 50 and realizing you’ve lived a life you’re not proud of. You’ve never done the things you wanted to, you’ve missed out on opportunities and you’ve spent the past few decades not being true to your values and priorities.
There are many other techniques I use with my clients (as well as myself) in order to help them ensure that fear doesn’t get to take the reigns of their life. One that I personally find to be particularly powerful is a little injection of inspiration. So I’ll wrap up today’s short blog post with my 15 favorite quotes on courage and fear, the perfect recipe for reminding your own fear who is boss
If you’re an entrepreneur who is interested in increasing your confidence, courage, and emotional resilience, you can learn more about my mindset coaching for entrepreneurs HERE.
1. “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”
~Mark Twain
2. “I am learning every day to allow the space between where I am and where I want to be to inspire me and not terrify me.”
~Tracee Ellis Ross
3. “If your dreams don’t scare you, they’re not big enough.”
~Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
4.”Courage, dear heart.”
~C.S. Lewis
5. “To try is to risk failure. But risk must be taken because the greatest hazard of life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow, live, and love.”
~Leo Buscaglia
6. “Don’t give into your fears, if you do, you won’t be able to talk to your heart.”
~Paulo Coelho
7. “Replace fear of the unknown with curiosity.”
~Unknown
8. “FEAR has two meanings:
Forget Everything And Run.
Face Everything And Rise.”
9. “It’s not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.”
~Seneca
10. “We fear that we are inadequate, but our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”
~Marianne Williamson
11. “A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.”
~G.T. Shedd
12. “You can choose courage, or you can choose comfort, but you cannot choose both.”
~Brene Brown
13. “Life is a daring adventure or nothing”
~Helen Keller
14. “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
~Nelson Mandela
15. “Courage does not always roar, sometimes it’s the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, I will try again tomorrow.”
~Mary Anne Radmacher
Bonus:
“Choose the great adventure of being brave and afraid at the exact same time”
– Brené Brown
Are you an entrepreneur who is looking for how to be more confident and courageous in your life and business? Learn more about my 1:1 mindset coaching for entrepreneurs HERE.
Or schedule your discovery call to meet me and decide if it would be a good fit to work together. Schedule HERE.