Scary Monsters or Unrealistic Fears?

“There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.”  ~Andre Gide

Think about the thing that terrifies you the most. No, it’s probably not vampires and goblins. But it could be the ghosts of your past: past bad experiences, past failures, past relationships that kept you down. Or maybe it’s the voices – you know, the voices in your head that tell you that you will FAIL; you’re not good enough, you’ll never have enough, be enough, do enough; you’ll never succeed; you’ll never be happy. Wow…even scared myself there a little just writing that!

Here’s the thing, remember back when you were a kid and the scary shadows of the night were revealed to be nothing more than a hanging shirt when brought into the light? If you can shed some light on your fears, you’ll soon see that the majority of them are not as real as they seem either. They are nothing more than our ego’s best effort to keep us playing small. And keep us from transforming into what we want to be or do.

So, your challenge for this month – turn the lights on! See your fears for what they really are… unreal and not near as big as they seem. Look those monsters in the eye and say, “I am not afraid of you!” Then do at least one thing to step towards what it is you want.

It’s like a Halloween movie that I watched with my girls recently. It was called, “Girl vs. Monster” and if you follow me on Facebook, then you know what I’m talking about. It was about how the monsters grow and gain strength when we are fearful. They feed off of our fear and become stronger. But when we face the fear and do the thing we are afraid of, the monster loses its power, it shrinks and dies. Pretty powerful metaphor huh?

Here are your steps:

1. Identify at least one fear you have. This might be done by asking yourself, “What if?” What if I take this risk, do this thing, make this change? What might happen?
2. Then consider all the answers. Are any of them life threatening to you or your loved ones? (Most likely the answer will be no. – This is where you turn the light on the monster.)
3. See the fear for what it really is and decide that you will take one step in the direction that you want to go.
4. Identify that step (no matter how big or small) and take it!
5. Celebrate that you’ve taken the step and hey, you’re still alive. None of the fears you had about it came to pass and then decide on the next step.
6. Repeat until you’ve reached your goal.

And you know what? Even if by chance things don’t go exactly as planned…remember this, the monsters will lose their power if you do not feed your fears. And for most, failure is one of the biggest fears but the worst failure is the failure to take any action at all.

So no matter what the outcome, celebrate that you took action and keep moving forward.