because we are living our fears."
- Les Brown
Have you ever heard the saying..... when you fall off a horse you get back on it as quickly as possible?
In other words, it doesn't matter what you do in life, but when you fall you must get up and go again. And make sure that you do it as quickly as possible.
About two months ago, I got the opportunity to do a very small presentation. Well, it didn't go as I had planned. In other words I was nervous and I didn't do a very good job. I felt that I had failed and I was disappointed. And as we know, public speaking is a lot of times a very scary thing to do for many people. I have to admit that I need to practice a lot more to get comfortable with speaking in public.
This incident happened on a Friday and for the rest of the day and the weekend I could not stop thinking about this presentation that went wrong. I could not let it go. Of course I was beating myself up too. I knew that I could do better if I got another chance.
This little incident has been stuck in the back of my mind for over two months. And every time I thought about it, it made me feel anything but great.
But the other day I got a chance to do another presentation and I took the chance. I am happy to let you know that this time I did a lot better. It wasn't perfect, but I was happy with my own performance and best thing of all was that I have now erased the old memory of the presentation where I felt I had failed, with a brand new presentation, where I felt that I succeeded.
The presentation was a success but the bigger success was that I did it again despite feeling fear and being terribly nervous during the hours leading up to the presentation. But I did it and now..... I can't wait to do it again.
Unfortunately some people don't try again after they feel that they have failed at something. It can be a lot of different things like in my case, public speaking. Or after a failed marriage they never want to be in a relationship again. Maybe someone tried a new job and it didn't work out, and they will never apply and try another job ever again. People hate the feeling of being rejected, so they will not try much in life. A lot of people settle for something far less that what are truly capable of doing. The only thing that they had to do was to get up and back on the horse again after they had fallen off.
But instead many people think about all the pain involved. They don't want to feel uncomfortable, criticized and rejected so they crawl back into their comfort zone, where everything is familiar and they don't have to learn anything new or do anything different and slightly more difficult.
But this is no way to live.
I could easily have told myself not to ever do a presentation again. But I also know that if I want to move ahead to the next level of my life, I just need to learn to do these things.
In the end, I won't die.
A great question to ask yourself is.....
What is the worst thing that can happen if I do this? Will I die?
If not, I suggest that you do it.
There is a fantastic book written by Susan Jeffers, called Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway.
I recommend reading this book. One thing that you will understand by reading this book is that we all feel fear in our lives, but some people will not allow it to stop them from going where they want to go. In other words, they will do it afraid.
If you start to back away when you will feel fear the next time you will feel fear, you will automatically back off. This has now become a habit. Feel the fear and back off.
But if you instead of backing off, you move through the fear and do it, the next time you will once again move through the fear. This also become a habit of not allowing the fear to stop you.
Feel the fear and do it anyway.
Do what I did.....Do It Afraid!
The choice is completely up to you.
What would you do if you weren't afraid?
www.karinglannstam.com
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