Fear… less.
“Be bold and ask big questions without fear of intimidation.” – Michael S. Robinson, One Hundred Pennies
They say a messy desk is a busy desk. But is it really? At what point do our desks, our minds and our lives become so cluttered that we are unable to move forward because we’ve misplaced something or have acquired so much stuff that we lose sight of the things that should matter to us the most? For many of us, a highly disorganized and filthy work or home environment is enough to induce a full blown panic attack. Think about it. Have you ever allowed your bedroom or office to get only so messy before it’s teetered beyond what was acceptable, and you became paralyzed to do anything else until you cleaned it up? If so, you’re not alone. (If not, you’re a slob and should probably reconsider the importance you place on personal hygiene. But that’s neither here nor there.)
Our minds and our lives function much like a messy desk. A compliment is that 30-page document you printed out a month ago while researching an assignment. It sits soiled beneath that coffee mug of criticism you acquired this morning. Your job stressors are your computer, keyboard, stapler, phone and iPad complete with accessories. Your family concerns are that pile of files that you really should have put away the minute you were finished with them, but got too lazy to do so. Piece by piece, we acquire knick after knack until we are stuck sitting in chaos without a way forward or back.
We must clean up.
Fear works much like our cluttered desks. We learn the feeling of fear early in life from our family, our friends, our teachers. They teach us to be fearful of certain things as a means of protecting us from harm. However, soon we stop needing any help to collect fears of our own– many of which have no salubrious value to us.
We fear what might happen if we cut our hair a certain way. We worry what people will think of our relationships. We allow the chatterbox in our minds to convince us that that we are not smart enough, educated enough, rich enough or charismatic enough to start our own businesses or be authors of our own destinies.
We must clean up.
We must address the Chatty Charlie or Cathy who only seems to say, “I can’t… because…” We must utilize our spiritual, physical and intellectual tools to quiet our self-doubt and conquer our fears. We must stop using the failures of others as an excuse for why we cannot succeed ourselves. We must let go of our past mistakes and stand back from the crutch of fear in order to walk confidently into our desired futures.
To clean is to organize.
We need organize our minds, realign our energies and sharpen our focus so that we can attack our daily challenges head on. We need to call Charlie out as the reason we have not been able to move forward, and to retrain him to say, “I can.” We need to reinvent the way we approach fear and to start to see it as an opportunity to straighten up.
We need to tune in to One Hundred Pennies with Michael S. Robinson this Sunday at noon on AM970 The Answer for tips on building our metaphorical fear tool sheds. On the show, I’ll be chatting with The Fearless Factor author and motivational speaker, Jacqueline Wales and White House appointed Champion of Change, Thabiti Boone about the importance of overcoming fear and methods that you can use to do so.
(For more information follow me on Twitter @msrobinsonny and Facebook. Send me your messages, leave your comments about fear here, and call me at 866-970-9622 with your questions during Sunday’s show.)
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