I heard this quote today on a podcast and it really hit home…
Think about the things that scare you.
Not the intuitive “hair standing up, you are in danger” fear, but the fear of failure, that you will no longer be loved or loveable, that you will be rejected, and so on. Those things that make you say “My life would be over if…”
Chances are that if you have tried something before and failed you still had people who loved and supported you, so right there you know the fear is a lie. You have survived all of your failures to date.
So what do you do with this lie once you find it?
Well, if you are like 95% of people you do nothing. You stay in your safe, little bubble where life remains consistent.
But, if you are part of the 5% who reach levels of success the other 95% only dream of, you figure out what universal truth that lie is pointing toward.
Hint: there is no list of “universal truths” on google. If you can think of something that is always true all the time and you cannot think of anything that could refute it, it is probably a universal truth.
I remember thinking that if I could only be “financially independent” I would no longer be afraid of being broke and not being able to pay my bills.
Then I found an old book in a used book store called “Making Molehills Out of Mountains” by the Voice of Experience. It had a whole chapter about the fallacies of having “financial independence” as a goal. Truly, there is no 100% safe investment. Currency can be rendered worthless through turmoil or inflation. Houses can burn to the ground. Land can be swallowed up by a sinkhole or taken by eminent domain. Companies go bankrupt. It is really depressing!
But, somewhere in all the doom and gloom was a light. And that light led to freedom. Really, if there were no such thing as true financial independence, then all of the time and energy spent planning for it and working towards it could be used for other things.
Because I love to research, I decided to see if I could figure out if there is anything that is “100% safe” (or close to it). Now, this was the mid-1990s so it took a little longer than it would today, but I discovered that the one thing that is closest to being 100% safe is your knowledge and education. Once you learn something, you can “lose everything” and never have to completely start over. You start with experience. Which really shortens the learning curve.
I also discovered that there is an abundance of, well, everything in the universe. There are trillions of dollars, with more being added every day. There is enough land that each person could have 2.3 acres. The Earth is constantly replenishing water, food, trees for shelter, grass for animals to eat, and other basic needs. And with technology we can learn anything we want to learn and create our own community.
Once you can identify the fear, figure out what the lie is behind it, and convert that lie into a universal truth, you can then think about how your life would be different if you believed the universal truth was possible for you? (and if there is one thing I learned in Mock Trial back in high school, it is that ANYTHING is POSSIBLE!)
Then, once you realize the universal truth you can ask yourself:
How would I show up today?
How would I do today?
How would I treat myself today?
How would I treat others today?
So, what is your biggest fear? And how are you going to show up today knowing that it is just a lie?