As someone who has made some pretty bold choices in her life, I have gotten up close and personal with the less-than-pleasant feelings of fear and doubt. They can be powerful, and easily stop you in your tracks. They can also be quite tricky, and easily convince you really don’t want what you want that much, so you might as well just keep doing what you’ve been doing, well inside your comfort zone.
Fear and doubt are the ultimate dream squashers, and make you settle for less than you are capable of having. They keep us stuck in life we really don’t want. We know we can have, and be more, but we shrink back.
But, if you want what you want badly enough, you can learn to deal with these little bastards, and charge forward. Here are some ways I have battled these demons and managed to create the exact life I wanted for myself.
But, first, check out this video talking a bit more about fear and doubt.
Make Friends with Them…It’s Okay They’re There
I know this tip seems to kind of contradict my violent assertion in the title, but it is important to know you don’t have to totally get rid of these feelings to make significant changes in your life. Hey, there may be people out there who have managed to rid themselves of fear and doubt completely, and are 110 percent confident in every move they make.
But, I would imagine those people are few and far between; most of us, even the people who have done the most awe-inspiring things, probably felt this duo plenty as they were chugging along towards greatness. In my mind, the only way we would be able to totally rid ourselves of these feelings is being able to see the future and know with 100 percent certainty how a scenario would play out based on a particular decision. And, that isn’t an option available to us.
When we accept our negative feelings, something amazing happens. They feel less intense; they stop occupying the forefront of our mind, and fade to the background more quickly. We remove that extra layer of distress that comes from feeling badly and thinking we ‘shouldn’t’ be feeling these things.
Moving from my old life to my current globetrotting freelance writer existence was a really bumpy road at times, and most of those bumps were in the emotional realm. There were plenty of times I felt fearful and doubtful about what I was doing, so much so, I wondered if it was worth the financial struggle, criticism and all that other junk.
But, I learned to make friends with these feelings, and not feel hateful towards them, or myself, when I found myself mired in their muck.
On an intellectual level, we know it is okay to experience fear and doubt, but on that deeper level of feeling, I think we believe we should only make a move, or that the only sign we are doing the right thing, is the complete absence of these feelings.
Don’t wait for that day, it will probably never come. Don’t expect these feelings to go away once you make your move, they probably won’t. But, it’s okay. It doesn’t mean you are making a mistake.
If You’re Being Led by Your Inner Voice, You’re Doing the Right Thing
In case you weren’t aware, there is a part of us that is connected to ‘all that is.’ It is perfect and completely unblemished by all the crap that comes with being human. This part of us is one smart cookie. It knows what would make us happiest; it knows of all the mysterious forces at work that conspire to aid us in achieving our goals, and getting what we want is a foregone conclusion so long as we allow it in.
All those desires you have, and all the things you strongly value—those are not just random. You are pulled towards them for a reason—they are the clues to who you really are and the things you should be doing. So, if your current efforts were borne of getting it touch with that inner wisdom, and achieving clarity about the things you want to be, do and have, you are on the right track, no two ways about it.
My passion for personal development and travel permeates every fiber of my being. When I tuned into what was happening inside, I realized that freedom and living life on my own terms was what I valued most in this world, above anything else.
I knew I needed to pursue a life that would allow me to live my passions and my values. When you know yourself on those deeper levels, it becomes very clear that any life ,but the one that mirrors these core desires and values, is not acceptable. So, despite all the crap that I went through, I knew I was doing the right thing.
When we know ourselves, and are being led by that inner wisdom, we are able to easier handle feelings like fear and doubt—they may throw us for a bit of a loop, and we may wish they would take a hike, but they won’t deter us. We’ll power on in spite of them ,because we know we are doing the right thing for us, that we are exactly where we are meant to be at this point in the journey.
Just Because Your Mind Can’t Conceive of a Possibility, Doesn’t Mean It Doesn’t Exist
So, I’m going to get a bit into law of attraction here because in my own experience, understanding what this concept is truly about (which is not just thinking something and making it appear, as many seem to think it means), and consciously applying the principles has changed my life in ways I couldn’t imagine possible.
You see, there are infinite ways the things we want can come into our experience, and our little human minds cannot possibly figure them all out. It can’t even come close. Our natural tendency to focus on ‘how’ we will get the things we want can be a real dream squasher, and activate fear and doubt like nothing else. Our pea brains start going over possibilities, and can only come up with a limited amount—maybe like three. That’s a lot less than infinite, wouldn’t you say?
And, in most cases, these three ways don’t seem possible for one reason or another ,based on your past experience and current circumstances, and you start feeling afraid to want what you want, and doubt it can come to you.
But, so long as you believe what you want can come to you, like on the deepest level, the good old Universe will find a way to make it happen. You will get flashes of inspiration to do certain things and this action moves you closer. You will meet people, and come across opportunities, in the most random of ways. I’m sure you have experienced this in your life at times. Even if it was on a smaller scale, know the same principles are at work all the time, and it can happen for big things too.
Our brains can be very douche-like at times, and will work very hard to convince you that if it can’t conceive of a possibility, it must not exist. But, remember it is a big, dirty liar.
Don’t Talk to People Who Make You Feel Badly
This is a big one. Most of us aren’t so good we can totally put up a shield and protect ourselves against the criticism, judgment, negativity and fear of other people. Remember what I said earlier about fear and doubt naturally residing within—well even though you kind of want to play nice, you don’t want them hanging around more than necessary. And, nothing will get the party started faster than other people’s negative talk activating this dynamic duo.
So, avoid talking about the things you want, and what you are doing to bring them into your experience, with people who make you feel like you can’t have them. Not everyone has a bad intention and is trying to be a jerk—sometimes they ‘mean well’ and think they are helping protect you from disappointment. They want to make sure you are being ‘realistic.’ God, I despise that word.
But, even when the intentions are ‘good’, you will get the same end result of feeling badly. Remember that our thoughts and beliefs form the core of our experience—whatever we believe will be true for us. So, don’t let other people pollute your mind with their negativity and limiting beliefs.
Nourish Your Mind with Information that Will Support Pursuit of Your Goals
Unless you were blessed to grow up around people who were really positive, and whose mindsets were very oriented towards success, taking complete responsibility for our lives and all that jazz, you likely have a lot of crappy beliefs that need to be chucked, and replaced with ones that are more conducive to creating awesomeness.
The mindset that gave birth to the life I have now, this blog, my good habits and what not, was not one I always had. I wasn’t a particularly negative person, but I never would have become who I am now if I kept thinking how I did. My life wouldn’t have been terrible, but it would not have been anything special. Lots of potential and opportunity would have been wasted.
The person I am now evolved over time and was borne from exposure to information that challenged my views, made me think differently and gave me optimism that life could be different and better.
Again, what we believe will form the foundation of our experience, and that repeated exposure to more empowering information is the only way to get rid of the old programming. Our negative thoughts, feelings and beliefs have a lot of momentum behind them, and it is very easy to fall back on them. They have to be counteracted and weakened. The only way to do this is tipping the scales towards the ‘good stuff.’
So, find blogs, books and other mediums that resonate with you, and turn to them frequently.
You’re Always Moving towards What You Want and Everything is Happening FOR You
So, we’re going to get a bit into law of attraction again because I think this sentiment is something that can really help you deal with fear and doubt. When things happen that we interpret as ‘bad’ it can put us into a tailspin. We worry we are off-track or we won’t accomplish our goals.
But, these ‘bad’ experiences are really not bad at all. Sometimes they are merely showing us where we still may have blocks and limiting beliefs surrounding what we want. Sometimes they happen to help us fine-tune our desire—experiencing things we don’t want help us get clearer on what we do. Sometimes we have no idea we may want something until we experience its opposite.
So, as you can see, they are good things because they will help us develop intentions and a state of mind that is more conducive to getting whatever it is we want. We can use these experiences to check-in with what is going on inside. They are just part of the path, not obstacles trying to throw you off it. If you have decided you want something, it is yours for the taking. We just have to do a bit of work on our internal world to help line up with it more quickly.
So, that’s my two cents on giving fear and doubt the beat down. Remember, you can have whatever it is you want. What your life has been like up until this point, is in no way an indicator, of what the future holds for you. If you start thinking differently, your life has no choice but to change.
I hope you enjoyed this post. Please leave me a comment and know what you think. What fears and doubts are you currently working through? What tips would you give to people to deal with these uncomfortable feelings? Looking forward to your comments and having a chat with you.
Kelli, this post really spoke to me.
Like you say, fear and doubt will always be there. By practicing mindfulness & continually challenging myself to get out of my comfort zone, I have learned to acknowledge my fear and act in spite of it.
About halfway through my recent travels, I started wondering if I would ever stop feeling nervous every time I did something new, and I realized…probably not. But I can choose to either let fear paralyze me, or I can let it motivate me.
I also had a recent epiphany regarding a “bad” experience. During my years in corporate marketing, I felt like a little part of my soul was dying every day. I was stuck, I was miserable, I felt like a huge impostor, and yet I also felt like I needed to be there for some reason.
Now I know what that reason was. I always had a secret, burning desire to work for myself; to create exactly the kind of life I dreamed of and help others do the same. My years with this company provided my with the knowledge & tools to do so. More importantly, that drawn-out deep unhappiness was the straw that broke the camel’s back – in a good way. It was the catalyst that ignited the spark inside me. My determination became greater than my fear.
Inspiring post, thanks Kelli!
Hey Mandie
I am so glad this post resonated with you–they are feelings we all experience, and like you had mentioned in one of your posts, this is one of those things where we feel we ‘should’ have gotten over them. Learning to step outside our comfort zones is huge, and the more we do it, the easier it gets. We still may feel uncomfortable but we have gotten comfortable with that, and we do it anyway.
I know you have shared your experience with anxiety and how it has been a challenge for you sometimes when traveling, and I think it is so awesome you are doing it anyway. It is freeing to realize that those types of feelings don’t have to trap us and that we can act in spite of them.
Your experience with your old job is a very interesting one, and it makes me think how everything that happens is moving us towards what we want, and there was some value in it because you were able to learn things that helped prepare you for this phase.
Thank you so much for sharing your insights and your story–I always love learning more about the people I have made connections with online 🙂
Hi Kelli,
Having been there for the journey it’s so wonderful to watch detail and recount your experiences, as you’re helping so many folks deal with fear, doubt and other negative emotions in a beautiful way.
Being cool with feeling like sh*t AND digging deep, by doing uncomfortable stuff, to expose my blocks, has freed me, largely. It’s not only OK to feel terrible, in many cases you must feel really bad to expose your doubts, fears, terrors, anger and all balls of negative emotion so you can be free of them, and so you can go on to succeed.
You can’t get over something that’s still in you.
Thanks so much.
Tweeting soon.
Ryan
Hey Ryan
Thanks so much for your insights. You make a good point about sometimes having to hit ‘rock bottom’ emotionally to really see what is going on. ‘You can’t get over something that’s still in you.’ Love that, and a great truth that may spur people to take that journey within.
Hey Kelli,
Nice to meet you! I’m usually on Ryan’s blog but never knew that you’re a blogger yourself. You two are definitely a match made in heaven.
Fear and doubt is something I struggle with, but as you mentioned, I learned how to embrace it by using it as a test to see if what I want is really what I want. These two feelings in this sense can definitely be your friends. Lately I’ve been looking at it as the road to getting to know your real self. Yes there’s going to be twists and turns, but if you stay focus you’ll definitely get to your destination.
Speaking of focus, it has a lot to do with the Law of Attraction. I find that when I stay focus, the answers to my problems and questions tend to pop up. Whether it’s in my head or from a blog 😉 … knowing what you want and staying focus on it will eventually be revealed by the universe.
You know when I think of the Law of Attraction, I think of the movie Star Wars. The force is within all of us, we just have to use it! Thanks for the share and I hope you’re having a great week!
Hi Sherman
Thanks so much for stopping by. Nice to meet you too! Yeah, we’re a blogging duo though I haven’t been doing it quite as long. You are so right about being able to tap into them to get more insight on what it is we want and our path. I can’t imagine there is anyone who never feels these things..maybe those spiritual masters who live in caves and mountaintops and are ultra in-tune with ‘source.’
Love that you brought up Law of Attraction–working consciously with this principle has changed my life dramatically and there is definitely something to it. We can definitely attract the information we need if we simply ask and tune into what comes into our minds. The star wars analogy is spot on–there is that core energy that comprises everything in this reality, including us and we just need to harness it in a good way, not be at the mercy of it. It is a neutral force and can only deliver what we are a match to, so it is up to us to raise our vibration.
Thanks for your insights!
You’ve reminded me how important it is to have at least one really good friend in your life who you can have deeply authentic conversations with in a mature way. We always grow within relationship, so that kind of “permission” is so important to have in at least one relationship. Then we can express our feelings like fear and doubt without having someone throw us a pity party. Instead, they can be just as real with us as we’re being with ourselves, and help us actually tap into the truth beneath those feelings, and help your natural sense of well-being emerge again, authentically. Very nice reminders in this post.
Hey Indigo
Thanks so much for your always insightful comments. You are really so right about that. Having that person who can speak honestly with us, and not just feed those feelings by ‘commiserating’ is a great thing to have. I feel like I have that with Ryan and I am very grateful to have someone like him–he is a pretty wise dude with an outlook on life that can always help pull me out of my funk, dig deeper and figure out what is going on at a deeper level. So glad you liked it!
Fear and doubt will always be there. By practicing mindfulness & continually challenging myself to get out of my comfort zone, I have learned to acknowledge my fear and act in spite of it. <~ I love this comment because it says what I wanted to say better than I could have. Great blog with practical steps. I'm a big fan. 🙂
Hey Nikki
Those sound like two great strategies for dealing with this nasty duo. Like you said, it will always be there. On an intellectual level, I think we know this, but on a feeling level, we can have this idea that it can be eliminated or we ‘shouldn’t’ feel it. Thanks Nikki..that means a lot coming from someone as accomplished as yourself!
Hi Kelli,
In my past year I always get afraid from the failure. You know there are many things in our life but few of them which seem familiar and with which we can have some bond. I used to think like I will never get success. But with the support of my family I have learnt that fear is nothing if we don’t give a damn to it.
It’s all about us and our confidence which can be achieved by hard work.
There may be many doubts regarding anything we do in our life but if we try then solutions are always with us.
Thanks for such a motivational article.:)
Hope you are having great week.:)
~Ravi
Hey Ravi
Thanks so much for stopping by and taking the time to leave your thoughts. Glad you liked the post. You are so right about that–there will always be things that are unfamiliar and new to us; it can be hard to predict how our choices will play out. That is so great you have the support of your family in achieving your goals. That is something to never take for granted–a lot of people don’t have that and it can be tough. I am so glad to hear you are conquering your fears and going after your dreams. You are so right–there is always a solution , we just have to trust.
Kelli, if you don’t mind, I’d like your perspective on this. One of my bigger issues when it comes to fear and doubt is fearing that I’m wrong about what I’ve chosen to believe. For example, when I see someone with an opposite perspective to mine, I immediately feel anxiety, wondering if I’m wrong and they’re right. It happens so often and I really, really don’t like how it feels. This is triggered whether someone is talking about LOA, or other lifestyle choices. When it happens, I kind of feel like my whole world is being shaken up a bit, anxious and uncertain. I’ve read some about this on Melody’s blog, and I’ve thought of some solutions for myself, but I’d really like some advice on this if you have any? 🙂 Thank you.
Hey April
Thanks for stopping by and for sharing your experience with me. I think your issue is a very common one and we all experience it to some degree. There are very few people in this world who are 110 percent confident about their belief system, choices and what have you. When we encounter people that think an opposite perspective, are making different life choices or criticize us, that doubtful part of us is being triggered. This doesn’t mean at all that other person is right. In most cases, there is really is no ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’
Studying LOA has changed my life, and it helped me realize an ultimate truth–whatever we believe will be true for us. Whatever we focus on expands. Our thoughts and beliefs determine what we focus on in life. So, a person with a more pessimistic attitude, for example, can make a great case for why the world is a horrible place, life is unfair, something like LOA is a load of garbage, and a bunch of other bad stuff.
If you can remember that idea of whatever we believe will be true for us, it can help put up a shield against other people because even if they make a convincing case for why a negative belief is valid, you’ll remember that this is their truth, not an objective one, like the sky is blue or two plus two equals four. Also, think back to what makes you believe what you believe–it is likely because you have given this some thought and have had experiences that validate this truth to you. In my own life, for example, I was very easily influenced by other people when I first started studying LOA, and people criticizing it would make me very uncomfortable. But, the more I worked with the concept, and the more I manifested amazing things, the more confident I became. And these days, an opposing opinion barely registers emotionally.
As for lifestyle choices, it is important to remember that anyone criticizing another way of living is doing so from a place of doubt or unhappiness about their own life. That is always the trigger. Seeing people live differently can really challenge our beliefs and the decisions that have stemmed from them, especially if they are things we really didn’t want to do but felt we were supposed to do or was the ‘right’ thing. I have made many unconventional choices that have been questioned, and sometimes it can be uncomfortable. But, I know these decisions were made from a place of deep reflection and what I am doing is right FOR ME. Remembering that always helps those feelings subside. It is never about us, it is always about the other person.
Hi Kelli:
I recently found you through the Comments on Melody Fletcher’s blog, and I’m really enjoying your blog and your practical, real-world advice (love the title of this article too!). I’ve been reading it daily.
I’ve been trying to work with LOA for the past year and it’s been an up-and-down proposition. Nothing I’ve desired has manifested, despite the times when I feel very content and certain that things will. I received lots of signs that things were moving toward manifestation, yet nothing happened. Since LOA’s “not worked” for me, the feeling-bad times can be really frustrating and overwhelming,
On the one hand, all this occurred before I found you and Melody and your respective perspectives on LOA, so I do feel more hopeful – LOA is now making more sense to me. On the other hand, doubt keeps rearing its ugly head, and I am disheartened to think about my hidden beliefs – some of which I may not be aware – that may continue to keep me from living a full life. I stay with these feelings of doubt and worry; however, too much time passes trying to be “with” the emotions/feelings until they abate, and I end up doing nothing.
What do you do when being with the emotions/feelings of fear and doubt leave you with no motivation?
Thanks!
Hi
Thanks so much, so glad you are liking the blog. Melody is just awesome and I have learned so much from her.
I think your experience with LOA is a common one and I can certainly relate. The thing about LOA is that is so ridiculously simple to manifest things but, it is not going to feel that way in the beginning because of the work we need to do stripping away those layers of conditioning that totally get in the way. We make it really hard, and that’s okay. We don’t want to beat ourselves up too much, or we will just feel worse, and we all know how that will turn out attraction-wise.
One of the main issues is that we have a lot of trouble fully trusting the process, and even when we see signs we are moving towards something, or we actually manifest something, that doubt still makes its way in with each new thing we are trying to bring into our experience. We know we should trust and feel good, but we simply don’t and it is frustrating.
As for the hidden beliefs, I wouldn’t worry too much about that. In my experience, most of the big beliefs that get in the way of getting the thing we want most, like money, jobs, relationships and what have you, are pretty obvious and on the surface, like I’ve never had good a good job or relationship so I can’t have one now ; I’ve always had money troubles, there is no way I could be abundant.
There may be some hidden stuff that gets in the way, but eventually it will make its way to the surface and won’t be so secret anymore. Try to take your focus off worrying you have all this stuff sabotaging you, and just work on feeling good for the sake of it. That will clean up a lot of your vibration without you even having to focus on anything in particular.
As for trying to feel good when these feelings are striking, the first thing you want to do is accept they are there. Fighting them and trying to force positive thinking won’t work. Reach for any thought that feels better, no matter what type of thought it is. Do anything that makes you feel good, don’t worry about whether it is related to your manifestation. Ultimately, it doesn’t’ matter because we attract based on feeling and not action. And keep reading LOA material that makes you feel good and that you are understanding it. That is a huge help in shifting your mindset.