Has fear ever held you back from going after your dreams? Maybe it was a new job? Or starting a business? Or approaching the man or woman of your dreams?

Did you know that fear is one of the biggest reasons (if not the biggest) why people don't go after their dreams? It could be fear of failure, fear of success or fear of the unknown.

In this post, I want to share an experience I had a few months ago, what I learned from it and how you can overcome the fear of going after your dreams.

One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do.โ€

– Henry Ford

An Experience I Had On Fear

In 2011 I started my online business, which is the same as this one – it was just called My Platinum Life back them. After about a year I started making an awesome income from it – something I had never experienced and, at one point, I didn't even know it was possible. It really allowed my wife and I to experience some amazing things in life!

However, at the beginning of 2014 I got the not-so-brilliant idea of starting a traditional business. My reasoning behind it was that I wanted to teach traditional business, therefore I had to learn it first hand.

Starting a traditional business was seriously one of the worst decisions I've ever made – although I don't regret it. First, it was a completely different game to an online business. The learning curve was huge with so many issues arising from a lack of control in certain areas.

This business really took a toll on me physically and emotionally, and it was also affecting my relationship with my wife. I was constantly stressed out and anxious because new issues keep coming up and, even though I got them sorted out and kept improving on the systems, this was just the nature of that game. I was also working 70+ hours per week and would often be away from home from 6am until 7pm.

The Turning Point

I remember one night at dinner, I was stressed to the max with a huge migraine and my wife, Dacia, said to me that she couldn't handle it anymore. My negative vibes were really affecting her and she said to me that she couldn't do this anymore – that I had to do something about it or she doesn't know what she's going to do. This really scared me because I didn't want to lost my family because of some stupid business I didn't want to be doing.

Dacia also told me that she's not happy because I'm not happy anymore. This got my attention and I questioned her “Really? I'm not happy?” She told me that I was only happy when I'd have a win here and there, but I wasn't fulfilled-happy. I then asked her “Have I ever been happy?” She said that I had been when I was only doing the online business. This took me back to those times and I remembered how amazing our lives were! That night I made a decision that I had to do something about this and before I lose the most important thing to me – my family.

A Discovery I Made

Two nights later, I was in my office and I got the idea of figuring out how many tasks I do in my traditional business vs my online business. I wrote them all down on my whiteboard and I came up with 45 different tasks for the traditional business and only 5 tasks for my online business – I couldn't believe the difference. This exercise made me realise why I was stressed out all the time. I was doing so many tasks, it was no wonder I never had any time to enjoy life.

The Fear Of It All

Before all this happened, I was so fearful to jump back into my online business full-time because I thought “what if I can't make it happen again.” I was clinging onto the “security” of my traditional business, which now I realise was just an illusion I had created in my mind. The traditional business had got us into some debt, two companies that owed us large amounts of money went under, we discovered that the product we were using wasn't very good, and more issues kept arising – there was absolutely no security in that business.

What Life Is Like Now

When I finally made the decision to let go of it and go full-time in my online business, my biggest reason was my family. I was then so ecstatic when I started making an income from my online business two weeks after going full-time. And that fact that I'm now solely focused on one simple business, it has allowed me to learn so much about internet marketing and create awesome results – without stress. And the best part is that I'm always home with my family!

So what can you take away from my experience?

1. Get leverage within yourself

If you're not happy with where you're at, find as many reasons for why you MUST make the change – the more reasons, the more leverage you'll have. Without enough strong reasons, you'll just keep procrastinating because of fear.

One way to do it is to associate as much pleasure to the life you can create if you take certain actions and associate as much pain to staying where you're currently at. Ask yourself: “What will my life be like 10 years from now if I don't make this change?” Once you've answered that, ask yourself: “What will my life be like 10 years from now if I do make this change?”

The important part of this exercise is to write down as many answers [reasons] for each of the two questions. The more answers you write down, the more effective the change will be inside you, which will translate to you wanting to take action despite fear.

2. Feel the fear and do it anyway

Fear is just an illusion – it's not real. When you feel fear of taking action, go ahead and do it anyway because once you take that action, you'll realise how easy it was and wonder why you feared it in the first place. Then the more you do it, the easier it will get until it becomes second nature. This is very similar to stepping out of your comfort zone and into your success zone – learn more about that here.

โ€œInaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.โ€ – Dale Carnegie

I hope you got something valuable from my experience and you're more prepared to go after your dreams now!

Did you get value? Is so, I would greatly appreciate it if you commented below and shared on Facebook.

Alex Ford

Alex Ford
Digital Marketingย Trainer
Email: [email protected]
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