Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway

Feel the fear and do it anyway!

The less you need someone's approval, the more you are able to love them.

Taking responsibility means never blaming anyone else for anything you are being, doing, having, or feeling.

THE ONLY WAY TO GET RID OF THE FEAR OF DOING SOMETHING IS TO GO OUT AND DO IT.

security is not having things; it’s handling things.

Patience means knowing it will happen . . . and giving it time to happen.

Every time you encounter something that forces you to “handle it,” your self-esteem is raised considerably. You learn to trust that you will survive, no matter what happens. And in this way your fears are diminished immeasurably.

IF YOU KNEW YOU COULD HANDLE ANYTHING THAT CAME YOUR WAY, WHAT WOULD YOU POSSIBLY HAVE TO FEAR? The answer is: NOTHING!

Remember that underlying all our fears is a lack of trust in ourselves.

WHEN WE GIVE FROM A PLACE OF LOVE, RATHER THAN FROM A PLACE OF EXPECTATION, MORE USUALLY COMES BACK TO US THAN WE COULD HAVE EVER IMAGINED.

It is a paradox. The less you need someone’s approval, the more you are able to love them.

We fear beginnings; we fear endings. We fear changing; we fear “staying stuck.” We fear success; we fear failure. We fear living; we fear dying.

THE FEAR WILL NEVER GO AWAY AS LONG AS I CONTINUE TO GROW.

For many of us, the people we find most difficult to praise are the ones closest to us—our mates, our children, our parents, and sometimes our friends.

It’s a problem” is another deadening phrase. It’s heavy and negative. “It’s an opportunity” opens the door to growth. Each time you can see the gift in life’s obstacles, you can handle difficult situations in a rewarding way. Each time you have the opportunity to stretch your capacity to handle the world, the more powerful you become.

A self-assured woman who is in control of her life draws like a magnet. She is so filled with positive energy that people want to be around her.

… when you blame any outside force for any of your experience of life, you are literally giving away all your power and thus creating pain, paralysis and depression.

The only time you will fear anything is when you say no and resist the universe. You may have heard the expression “Go with the flow.” This means consciously accepting what is happening in your life.

No one is more unloving than a person who can’t own his or her own power. Such people spend their lives trying to pull it out of everyone else. Their need creates all sorts of manipulative behavior.

If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.

… the secret in handling fear is to move yourself from a position of pain to a position of power.

The truth is that love and power go together.

I learned an amazing way to demonstrate the effectiveness of positive versus negative thinking from Jack Canfield, President of Self-Esteem Seminars, which I now use in my workshops. I ask someone to come up and stand facing the rest of the class. After making sure the person has no problems with her (or his) arms, I ask my volunteer to make a fist and extend either arm out to the side. I then tell her to resist, with as much strength as she can muster, as I stand facing her and attempt to push her arm down with my outstretched hand. Not once have I succeeded in pushing her arm down on my initial trial. I then ask her to put her arm down, close her eyes and repeat ten times the negative statement “I am a weak and unworthy person.” I tell her really to get into the feel of that statement. When she has repeated the statement ten times, I ask her to open her eyes and extend her arm again exactly as she had before. I remind her to resist as hard as she can. Immediately, I am able to bring down her arm. It is as though all strength has left her. I wish I could record the expressions on my volunteers’ faces when they find it impossible to resist my pressure. A few have made me do it again. “I wasn’t ready!” is their plea. Lo and behold, the same thing happens on the second try—the arm goes right down with little resistance. They are dumbfounded. I then ask the volunteer once again to close her eyes, and repeat ten times the positive statement “I am a strong and worthy person.” Again I tell her to really get into the feeling of the words. Once again I ask her to extend her arm and resist my pressure. To her amazement (and everyone else’s) I cannot budge the arm. In fact, it is more steadfast than the first time I tried to push it down. If I continue interspersing positive with negative, the same results occur. I can push the arm down after the negative statement, I am not able to push it down after the positive statement. By the way—for you skeptics out there—I tried this experiment when I was unaware of what the volunteer was saying. I left the room, and the class decided whether the statement should be negative or positive. It didn’t matter. Weak words meant a weak arm. Strong words meant a strong arm.

Rejection is rejection—wherever it is found. So you begin to protect yourself, and, as a result, greatly limit yourself. You begin to shut down and close out the world around you.

all my life I have never heard a mother call out to her child as he or she goes off to school, “Take a lot of risks today, darling.” She is more likely to convey to her child, “Be careful, darling.” This “Be careful” carries with it a double message: “The world is really dangerous out there” … and … “you won’t be able to handle it.” What Mom is really saying, of course, is, “If something happens to you, I won’t be able to handle it.” You see, she is only passing on her lack of trust in her ability to handle what comes her way.

THE ONLY WAY TO FEEL BETTER ABOUT MYSELF IS TO GO OUT . . . AND DO IT.

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s way. The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity—even in the most difficult circumstances—to add a deeper meaning to his life.