Tag Archives: thoughts of fear

22

Success Isn’t Everything

Leave a comment

Success– the accomplishment of an aim or purpose.

success questionsSuccess is something all people aspire to. It is the signal that our efforts have allowed us to move forward to achieving the things we want in our lives.  Accomplishments could be personal or professional, but one of the best ways to guide yourself toward success is to ask yourself the right questions about how you are progressing each day.  This process is a shift in consciousness for most people. Either you are drifting on a river going where life takes you, or you are steering your raft toward your success.  The paddle you drive is the question you ask yourself.  It starts with a conscious awareness of your thoughts, emotions, words, and actions to pursue your desired purpose and issues that will take you there.

Why Questions Build Success

Questions are a tool that can change your whole focus in your day.  Asking the right questions will provide focus and direction for a day. There is a reason you should question yourself.  First, an item will immediately change your attention, and changing that focus to a goal will bring answers to success questionsyou. What can I do today to help move me closer to a dream, purpose, or objective?  Where focus goes, energy flows.

What action can I take to become wealthier today?  What things can I do to build better relationships? What activities will make me happy today?  Each question will focus on that thing, and even if you don’t know for sure what to do, suggestions will come to your mind—usually a lot of them.  Then you can whittle them down to the ones you feel are valuable to your growth path. Often the first ones that come to your mind are pretty poignant.  It is good to be open to all options and not dismiss potential answers automatically.  Weigh your focused suggestions carefully, then choose the best actions.  Of course, to accomplish anything and use those questions, your answers need to be followed up with actions. Work makes everything happen.

Success May Come From Deleting Information

Another significant side effect of asking the right questions and honestly seeking an answer is your focus tends to cut through the opposition you might have to a goal.  You may have to make changes, and with change success questionscomes risk. Risk of failure, risk of learning, and most importantly, a chance of what others will think of most people.   A good question will get you to focus on what you want and delete what you don’t want.

What can I stop doing that hinders my success?  What things prevent me from accomplishing my goals?  Answer these questions and delete those barriers from your life, and you will be on your way to success.  Identifying the situations, actions, and people that hold you back allows you to stay clear of these things and work toward accomplishing the aim or purpose you seek.  How can this work for you?  That answer is up to you and the actions that result from your solution.

It Won’t Always be Easy.

Of course, the journey toward your success will not always be comfortable, but using the right questions can also help you navigate any rough waters you encounter. We are not born with all the knowledge and skills we need to success questionsaccomplish some things.  The education we need often comes from experience, and those experiences may seem complicated and unwanted.  For example, losing a job for any reason can be tough to deal with one’s life.  But along with that change comes opportunity.

Where is the opportunity here I am not seeing?  What can I do now things are changing? What can I learn from this?  How can I turn this around?  Any of these questions will bring answers to guide you. All situations provide information and use them to learn and grow.  What other positive choices do you have?  Questions can reveal the resources available to you and improve your outlook, production, and performance in your life.

Success is a matter of the Right Questions.

Learning to develop a definite pattern of questions for yourself can help build a consistent tool to empower you to overcome obstacles and reach the successes you desire to experience in your life.  The items will steer your focus toward solutions and away from the distractions and self-pity our minds often provide.  Look consciously at your goals and what is stopping you from reaching them today.

Make the conscious choice to see the possibilities in your challenges, leading you toward your goals and desires.  It all begins with a focus on the thoughts you entertain, the emotions they elicit, the words you use to express them, and the actions you take.  Your success today may be one good question away.

“It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.” – Eugene Ionesco

“The key to wisdom is this – constant and frequent questioning, for by doubting, we are led to question, by questioning we arrive at the truth.” – Peter Abelard

“A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.” – Francis Bacon

Does Anybody Know What Time It Is?  – the musical question only you can answer for success today.

 

 

 

22

Fear or Faith

Leave a comment

It is so easy to get caught up in the whirl of activity, and we can quickly forget these events happening to us are not the things that determine who we are as people. The way we deal with things will define our life experience, and the bulk of the time, we are allowing things to skip by us on autopilot dictating much of our reality to us. Fear of suffering is the prevalent emotion that sneaks into our lives, making us feel anxious about what might happen or even about how other people will perceive things that did happen. The hope is that by looking at life through a lens of faith, fear won’t often win. People are insecure about who they are and will always allow one to hold the person you want to be and what you want to accomplish.

This writing is my look at my struggles with fear and encouragement for all to look past the fear today and develop a mind that is not ruled by emotions and the fear which stems from that. It is not too much to ask yourself to create a mature, honest, respectful, and responsible life. Looking past our fear and living a life of faith is a goal for me and, hopefully, a plan for you.

What is Faith?

Simply put, faith is taking actions or making choices expecting the best possible outcome will result. When you believe whatever results from things will be for the ultimate good of all, you operate from a base of peace of mind. The other option is to work from fear that something will go wrong or that if things don’t work out exactly as you think, it will be a failure. Some people attach themselves to a particular outcome, and when it doesn’t happen that way, anger, disappointment, low self-esteem, or some other emotional response follows.

None of us have a broad perception to see all that might happen or result from a particular situation. Our imaginations are a tool we use to our detriment often. We imagine the worst-case scenarios and things that are not even happening. But we can feel throughout thoughts and imagine how bad they would be if they did exist.

Turning the power to the right side and thinking about what could happen if things worked out even better would be a great act of faith. Too often, we seek something, take action, and then we don’t let it play out as it should. We are so one-dimensional in our thinking we can’t see a more significant way that may be right in front of us and will provide all and more than we hope for. But we don’t see it. Faith to accept things will be working out for the best is the most potent and complex skill to develop in life.

Fear Can Be Pervasive and Powerful

Fear is a subtle working power in our lives. We are not talking about the concern on the surface, fear of heights, snakes, spiders, or whatever phobia you may have. I am talking about the inner fear of not having our needs met or of being harmed on an emotional level. A relationship ends, and we are then afraid of being replaced or alone, that nobody else could love us. The thoughts we choose to entertain about the situation and the emotions that are automatically attached to them cause all kinds of unhealthy behavior. Fear of what others think, fear of loss, fear of being alone, fear of everything will at the least make you very unhappy and, in the worst-case scenario, destroy your life.

Remember that fear is a subtle visitor; it comes to you a little bit at a time but is pervasively working to make you continually feel the potential for suffering in the entirety of your life. We look at everything as a threat to what we own, who we love, and even how we live our lives. There is a benefit for the powers that be to keep you in a pervasive and perpetual state of fearfulness. It is easier to control a person who is afraid. People are led to purchase things to “feel better” or feel a certain way about a group of people because of their religion or life choices. The mainstream media and social media sites present images and scenarios people aspire to, and if your life is not up to these standards, you should feel bad about yourself. Faith is rarely mentioned in our lives outside of a religious context, and it should be.

Is Fearless Possible?

To live a life totally without fear is a very daunting task. Eliminating fear is a constant struggle because the more you have that you enjoy in life, the more you have to fear losing it. Your attachments to people and things make you vulnerable to stress. An accessory is a rigid thought pattern about someone or something, and it has to be a certain way or in a specific role for a person to be secure with it. Anything outside of that accepted thought is wrong and painful. Love is accepting and allows others to be themselves. The views we choose to entertain about things will dictate our emotions and reveal that it will work out best if we have an attachment to something or faith.

Let’s face it, you can’t control all of the thoughts that pop into your mind, but you have complete control over how you react to them in all ways. Just because you have an idea in your mind of what may happen doesn’t mean it will happen. Most times, it never does. I know I can be vigilant in seeking to keep fearful things out of my thoughts in my mind. But they still creep in bit by bit. Thought by thought. To live a life totally of faith, believing that whatever happens in life will be something we all desire.

A Life of Faith

The challenge is to live your life through this lens of faith. Which is not easy to do because there are things that have hurt us. We all want to avoid this kind of suffering, but a part of life is to suffer and learn how to deal with it. That is how we know what to pursue and which to get away from.

Not doing something or doing something because of fear will lead to nothing but more suffering and sadness. So it is no choice if you are looking for a way to find a life you love. Understand what you want, and then take action toward those things with faith in your heart, mind, and spirit. This is a life of faith that has a chance to bring all you are looking for in the best manner possible.

“If you are programmed to fear something, you will fear it, even though you consciously think it is ridiculous. It is same as the success and failure.”Benny Zhang

“Are you willing to give up what you have to become what you want to be? Most people fear change and, therefore, never grow past the point of mediocrity.”-Richard A. Franks

“What’s on the other side of fear? Nothing.” –Jamie Foxx 

“Fear of success can be just as crippling as the fear of failure.”- John Allen

“Don’t let your fear of failure stop you from realizing your dreams.” 

 

22

Factors In My Fear

Leave a comment

One of the most influential factors in the lives of all people is Fear. It comes to us in various ways and affects what goals we set, what actions we take, our thoughts, and how we interact with other people. The factor of Fear touches almost every moment of our lives. It makes you wonder how we all became so afraid. Fear comes in many different forms to influence us, unease, worry, anxiety, nervousness, tension, dread, and even phobia. These are the faces of Fear that people face and are influenced by every day. The thing to remember is that most of these are not tangible things. There isn’t a real and present danger that will cause you harm. No, these are fears based on something that might happen in the future, perhaps. If they do, I will suffer, making me nervous, anxious, worried, tense, etc. So we live our lives based on something that is just a thought that is not happening now. You can counteract feelings of Fear with thoughts of love, which starts with you, in your mind.

The Present Moment

It is also very peculiar that there is no room for fear when people are faced with things in the present moment. You can be worried about whatever you want, but when faced with that experience in the here and now, most people react without a doubt. They do what must be done, one step at a time. There is no room for fear or anxiety because you are dealing with the problem head-on, and you know the answers to any questioning thoughts you may contain in your head. Later, after the trauma is over, your mind can create wild replays of an incident and create new fears. This thought is post-traumatic stress. The event dominates your thoughts with what-if scenarios, and if that could happen, what about this?

Look at your thoughts, and all of our fearful ones are based on the potential for suffering and avoiding it. We are all scared of monsters in our closets, we all have different closets, but the Fear is the same. I will be hurt, and I want to avoid that at all costs. Try to focus on the thought that we can always deal with the present moment, but we have difficulty coping with things that are a projection of the mind. Because our minds can make up scenarios that make us feel helpless, and that is the scariest thing at all. The future is challenging to deal with as a projection because there is no honest answer to counteract the perceived pain experience. What is this pain?

Our Fears

What exactly are we afraid of?

*One is a fear of loss, that something we care about will be taken away from us. If you have nothing, you have nothing to lose, and it is the loss of things we have that frightens us. If you have love, rather than enjoying it, we destroy it with a fear of losing it.

*Another major fear is a fear of failure. To me, this is a significant impediment to developing to your fullest potential. When you try something new, you will either succeed or fail. Either way, you will learn something valuable that will lead to your ultimate growth and fulfilling your potential. Too often, we let our fear of failure stop us from trying something, and we are defeated before we begin. It isn’t the failure that scares us, and it is what others think the loss says about us.

*Fear of being hurt is another one. I think suffering is one of the parts of this human experience that we need to be conscious of. Of course, we don’t want to experience pain. It is not a good thing. But the pain has a purpose. It tells you that something is wrong and that problem needs to be addressed one way or another. It directs action and forces us to do something. When the pain is happening, most people are not afraid. After the experience of the pain, we are fearful of being hurt again. We remember the experience and, of course, would like to avoid it in the future. The problem is when you let your fear of being hurt stop you from living that you are living in Fear.

**Fear of death is the real problem we have mentally, that this physical journey will end at some point. You have to come to peace with our impending mutual doom at some point. But some people take it to the extreme and need to be right in every argument to defend a mental position they have identified with. To lose the debate is the mind having its sense of self threatened with destruction. If you are wrong about something you believe wholeheartedly, what else could you have been wrong about? Once you realize the mind is not you, it is possible to step back and see that right or wrong makes no difference. You can know what you believe and speak it firmly and clearly.

Shine a Light

Fears will disappear when you shine a light on them. The view of consciousness will eliminate all of your Fear of thought. Hold what scares you in your mind and focus on why it is so frightening to you. Follow the emotion back to its origin, and you will see most of the things we fear have humble origins early in life. They are often punctuated through our experience, but they start in our youth. If you have a fear of trusting someone and being hurt, it began when you were small, and it has probably been plaguing you throughout your adult life. Shining a light on this issue and realizing that there are people you can trust, and often it is your thought pattern that leads to a situation of suffering.

Spend some time documenting and honestly examining your fears. Find their origin and understand that they are just your mind projecting an image that doesn’t exist. The light of knowledge and understanding of yourself will bring courage.

“Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.” —Helen Keller

“One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do.” —Henry Ford

“I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.” —Rosa Parks

“Fears are nothing more than a state of mind.” —Napoleon Hill

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” —Nelson Mandela