Mental Strength, Fear and Doing Your Best
Ever get afraid?
Ever face something new and fell fear?
Well, fear is the mental strength energy that informs you to do your best in this new situation.
Think about entering a new situation. To meet that situation, imagine that you received an extra burst of energy, your senses sharpened, and there was a tinkling – an excitement – in your body, he became more sensitive and aware.
Doesn’t that sound great?
This is the very thing we need to do our best in the new situation!
Well, this is exactly what does happen each time we enter a new situation. Most of the time, however, we call it fear and we’ve been programmed not to like fear.
Contrary to popular belief, or parents didn’t teach us to feel fear. Our parents did however teach us to use fear as a reason NOT to do something. Sure, this was based in love; they were doing the best they could. They taught us this because as children we can’t logically determine if our physical well-being is danger or not when we are tying something new physically. To us it’s all fun! To our parents there is fear, and this fear was passed down to us.
Unfortunately, at eighteen-or-so when we do know the difference between something that is truly dangerous and that which is merely new and untried. No one ever takes us aside and says, “That fear you been using as a reason not to do something – it’s really part of the mental strength energy to DO that something.”
When engaging in a new situation, the first thing we need is more energy. A new situation, by definition, has to be different, and the extra energy will help us meet the challenges of whatever “different” may offer. And it’s using our mental strength that takes this energy and focuses it toward our goal.
When we feel fear, our body releases adrenaline, glucose and other energy producing chemicals into our bloodstream. This physical energy is available to support our thoughts and actions.
In a new situation, naturally you want all the information you can get. This is why the sharpened senses, sensitivity and heightened awareness associated with fear are so useful. They help us absorb and more quickly process the new information.
Another aspect of fear is letting go of irrelevancies. We automatically focus on what’s important, “and let the rest of the world go by.” When we are in a new situation, we want to focus on what’s in front of us, what’s central, what’s important. Fear drives away useless thoughts like, what’s on TV or did I pick my clothes up from the dry cleaners. Fear keeps the useless thoughts out of our awareness.
Part of doing our best in a new situation involves learning. There is so much more to learn from the experiences – so much to learn about the experience and, more importantly, so much to learn about ourselves.
New situations that provide fear create a good environment for learning, not an ideal environment (fear is not known for its absence of patience), but a good environment nonetheless. The energy, clarity of mind and ability to focus are excellent mental strength tools for learning.
Ultimately, we want to get to a point were we automatically know and use fear as the energy to do our best. In the interim – as we break the habit of thinking of this energy as a reason not to do anything new – the suggestion is: be aware of the fear and take action anyway.
Once you know something is not physically dangerous, go ahead and do the thing. And I would suggest if you think something is physically dangerous, reexamine how you determined it is dangerous, it might be unfounded and illogical fear from your parents surfacing.
So, when you take action in a new situation, it may feel uncomfortable (count on it), but keep moving one step after another in the direction of your goal. As you move – as you use it – the energy it will transform itself from barrier to blessing. You’ll have energy, not limitation.
The process of transforming fear will reprogram you and develop the mental strength to change your attitude from. “Fear means, ‘Don’t’ “to “Fear mans, ‘All systems go!’ “
Now, I’d like to you to one thing….go back and reread this post. This time as you read replace the word “fear” with “excitement” and see what happens.
“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, “I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.” You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt.
