When Lissa says, "if you're never failing, you're probably not risking enough" really is meaningful to me. To play it safe all the time and just live to be and get by doesn't put any juicy-ness into life. It is like bland regular oatmeal. If that's what you want fine...but me I want raisins and spice in mine, bits of strawberry, butter, sugar milk ....something to spice it up!
Secret Sauce Writing Exercise
- Write your worst case scenario:
I will have wasted my time with each business. I will be stuck with all this art and crafts that I can't use, don't need and won't be able to sell without giving away. I will feel as though I was wrong to start my businesses and that I went on the wrong path. I will be back where I started, dissatisfied with where my life is and unsure of where I want it to be. I will owe even more money, failing at each business. No one will like what I make, no one will buy my products. I will be lost with no direction. I will still not know where I want to go or what I want to be "when I grow up"
Secret Sauce Writing Exercise: Name Your Fear
- Name your biggest fear.
That I will have put all this effort (several years worth of time, effort, training, and money) and not be able to make money in my businesses, owe lots of taxes, get further in debt, and have to start all over again; to not be on the "right" path.
Listening to the meditation at the end of "Befriending Your Fear" I feel good when I think of reaching out across the state and country...I actually smile.
* * *
I hadn't realized that I had in fact already read through this lesson and so I started it again. (I believe there is some meaning in this...) I made a contour drawing of my gremlin, Joseph, and boy is he an ugly little monster!
For me while I think about this I don't feel that fear is a big issue. The only fear I really see that is daunting is that I'll fail. But failure means what? I won't sell anything? I won't sell everything? It'll take too long to succeed? It'll be too hard for me to do on my own? Some of these things I've already proved wrong...I've had my businesses a few years and sold things. Eventually I will sell everything but by that time I'll have added more so do I really want to sell everything all at once? No, the stretching out of that allows me to steadily keep stock and develop new things. How long is too long? At 26 is it going to take till 30 to work? Maybe, but even it it takes to 45, so what. Is it going to kill me? No, frustrate perhaps, but no bodily harm or death. As for hard...things are only as hard as you make them. If you believe everything is difficult so will it be.
Reading through the final article I recognize now that I also have a fear of success. It causes an overwhelming paralysis that makes me want to quickly back away and "not bother" with my work. I worry that I will sell everything (or nearly everything) and then have nothing else to add so my store will look barren. I will get swamped with orders, not want to say no and not be able to get them out on time because I took too much on and then lose out on the business because I took too long to deliver. I worry that I won't have the time, that I'll hit "my big break" but be too worn and too exhausted to go with it because I've been stretching myself thin for so long...
So I believe fearing that I am too small and not enough to accomplish the big success I want is the biggest thing right now (I have looked and thought about my task list and instantly become overwhelmed many times lately). When I think of what I would draw to represent it, I see myself sad/in tears and small in the bottom left hand corner of the paper with all my success looming huge (& scary) over me threatening to bury me...
What my fear has to say to me:
Alana,
You're setting yourself up for failure and I've got to say that even without my help you're doing a stellar job. You stretch yourself too thin, don't ask for help, and burnout is threatening you daily. You've done my job for me basically. You've got to realize though that I am your creation, I come from you and am defined by you. All you have to do is take care of yourself, and do the "ass in chair" (just not "ass in chair all the time non stop"). You need to live the model you want to show to others...take care of you first, be in the now, and treat yourself as well as you treat others.
Looking forward to being conquered by you.
Your (silly) Fear
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