What Are You Afraid Of?

It's a question I have asked myself so many times until I'm tired of hearing it from myself. We prevent ourselves from doing so many things because we are afraid. Afraid of what people will say, afraid that we will fail, afraid that we won't like the result, whatever. The bottom line is that YOU DON'T KNOW UNTIL YOU DO IT.

Most people, me included, spend so much time worrying about "what if." My wife came up with a saying recently that I think is very appropriate: "Don't focus on 'what if', only on 'what is'". What that means is, if you don't know the answer, you don't have enough information to be afraid. So many people are certain that they will fail. No matter what it is that you want to do, you don't know until you try. And most of the time, it will cost you nothing to try. And you just might succeed.

As a wise person once told me, you have absolutely no right to have an opinion on any subject until you have actually lived it yourself. Don’t ask people who haven’t done it. In fact, don’t ask anybody. Most people can only give you their opinion through their own filter of experience, which may be completely different than yours. How do you know? You have to live it yourself!

YES, you can learn from other’s experiences, as long as they don’t scare you out of having your own. Stop worrying about failure; worry about what you're missing when you try too few times.

And what if you fail? Sure, your pride might get hurt a little, you may even be out some money. But in the long run, even of you do fail, you will have learned a valuable lesson which you will know not to repeat.

Think: It won’t kill you (if it would, you probably shouldn’t be doing it in the first place). Now go out there, stop worrying and START LIVING!