Fear is an excellent motivator! But, saying this will likely provoke a variety of reactions from many people depending on their perspective. Some will disagree by saying that fear is not a motivator, stating instead that fear is a de-motivator. It demotivates people to do things by scaring them into not taking chances and helps keep them safe from harm. Some could say that fear of volatile financial markets keeps people safe from losing their money by causing them to hold on tightly to their money, there are many arguments that are offered about how fear keeps people erring on the side of caution and they would be right, but would they?
There are also compelling arguments offered towards the contrary. How does one explain people that, despite the fear that they feel, choose to take part in extreme sports like bungee jumping, parachuting, white water rafting, competitive fighting, and auto racing. Also, what about those individuals that, despite the known risks, choose to spend large sums of their own money investing in stocks when it seems like the markets are crashing down around them? Would you call them crazy or crazy like a fox? Does the name Warren Buffet ring any bells? There can be rewards to facing your fears, whether it be something as simple as an adrenaline rush or making vast amounts of money.
Everything, and I do mean everything, comes with a level of risk and people make choices to do them every day, The point in saying this is that you must make choices in life to do things that sometimes involve major risks where others have very little. The problem lies in the fact that fear also often makes no distinction in deterring us from doing things where there is no real danger, no risk, and no reason to fear what is simply a change to what we are used to and are comfortable with.
In fact fear, if channeled, can be a strong source of power and motivation to achieve great things in our lives. When you take a moment and assess what is scaring you about what you are about to do, you can determine whether you are facing something that can harm you or not. If there is no danger of encountering real harm, then you can will yourself to move past the feeling of being afraid and focus that energy on the task at hand. Instead of allowing fear to control you, you will control it and master it. You will move forward and get through whatever it is that you need to do.
Focus your mind on the result that you are wanting to achieve. Of course, you need to have a plan and you want to put it down in writing to refer to as you go along. But do not try to take in everything you have to do to get to the end of what you are doing. Instead, break what you are doing into chunks in your mind. Start what you are doing and work from one chunk to the next, only applying the energy you are feeling to the one chunk you are working on at this moment. Work in a logical order from beginning to end. Do not allow yourself to become distracted and do things out of order. This will lead to you not knowing how to get back to where you started and that can cause anxiousness, which leads to fear.
By only allowing yourself to focus on only one chunk of your task at a time it allows you to complete one chunk and then move on to the next. With each chunk that you complete, you will feel a growing sense of accomplishment and confidence that will contribute positive energy to the energy that you channel from your fear. With each chunk you will gain momentum and as that positive energy infuses the energy from your fear you will gain even more power to complete your task as the energy from your fear changes from negative to positive.
When you confront and engage your fear as the energy you need to start something big, something that is outside of your comfort zone; it will create a powerful chain-reaction that will push your past any initial resistance and on to the point of critical mass when any remaining negative energy is converted to positive. Once you reach that point, there is nothing stopping you from achieving what you set out to do.
