There’s another part to overcoming fear, and that’s your mindset and how you view yourself.
Learning to recognize or delve into the root of our fears is important, but just as important is changing your mindset about your fears. Thinking you won’t succeed at something won’t help you succeed. Some people say that positive thinking is bullshit, and that it really can’t change anything about you. I say that idea is bullshit. I’ve seen in my own life what a difference it can make.
Take this example. If you tell yourself that you’re ugly every day, would you eventually start to believe it? If someone else told you that you were ugly every day, would you start to believe it then, too?
What if you told yourself every day that you’re beautiful, or if someone else told you that you were beautiful every day? Would you then start to believe you were?
The same is true for success. If you don’t believe you can succeed, if you don’t have that confidence in yourself, then it will start to hold you back.
In the first post in my overcoming fear series, I wrote about the moment when I said those fateful words to myself: I want to be a writer. I’m going to focus on one word in that phrase: want. When I said “I want to be a writer” – that phrase had a lot of meaning but not a lot of action. I wrote another post stating I am an author. There’s a big difference between want and am. Wanting to do something doesn’t mean you’ll do it. But if you change your mindset to “I AM” then things will start to change.
I am beautiful.
I am an author.
I am successful.
Define what you are by YOUR definitions, and keep that positive attitude. It’s hard, some days it might seem impossible. Having a positive mindset doesn’t mean that you won’t have bad days – you will. I know I do. A positive mindset is about learning to weather those bad days, learning to embrace the failures, and defining success on your terms (not anyone else’s).
This was the last post in my overcoming fear series. I hope you enjoyed it. If you’d like to start from the first post and work your way forward, here they are in order: Post 1 (the real fear), Post 2 (how to discover the root of your fear), Post 3 (fear of success), Post 4 (fictional fear), and today’s post is number 5.
Did you enjoy this series, or find some tools to help you overcome or get to the root of your fears? Comment on this post and let me know (if you’re receiving the blog by email, just click “Read More” to navigate to the blog page to comment).
~xoxo Marianne
This is Post 86 of 100 as part of the #100DaysofMKAuthorLife.
P.S. – Shameless Plug Time! Ripple (Persy & Sully) (Seaside Valleria #2), is coming out next Tuesday, July 3rd! If you haven’t pre-ordered yet, you can do so via the links below.
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