Sometimes you have to conquer your fears to achieve your goals.
Two boys dove into a lake one day, challenging each other to swim across, a distance of about two miles.
They swam with a strong and steady stroke, and the lead swimmer, not looking back, continued swimming on toward the other shore.
When he emerged on the shore after completing his swim, he looked back to see that his friend was nowhere near.
When they met back up, he asked, “How was it that you did not follow me across?”
The boy who turned back said, “Oh, after I got about halfway out, I looked back and saw how far I had come, and I was afraid I could not make it, so I turned back.”
“But,” said the boy who swam across couldn’t you see that it was just as hard to turn back to safety as it was to continue swimming to your goal?”
One of the biggest obstacles to reaching our goals is fear.
Fear is an emotion that overrides our intelligence. It stops us from moving toward our goals, and it plays havoc with our quality of life. People often fail to recognize the impact of fear—sometimes because we don’t even use the word. Instead we talk about things like worry, nervousness, stress, shyness, or anxiety. But the only way to diminish fear is to conquer it.
And this is how you conquer it:
Develop self-confidence: Self-confidence is not absence of fear but the mastery of fear. The key is to know it is a state of mind you can create anytime you want, no matter what the circumstances.
Master motivation: Motivation is a vital component of reaching any goal. Since most goals tend to involve pushing through short-term pain to achieve a long-term gain, staying connected to your motivation keeps you on the path to success. Goals themselves are highly motivating, but to get even greater leverage you need to keep that motivation up front in your mind.
Proceed past procrastination: When you procrastinate, you’re waiting for the right time, the right place, the right person— external things you can never count on. When you find yourself becoming paralyzed by inaction, learn to power through. Start with small tasks to build momentum and move past the obstacle of procrastination.
Build self-discipline: To achieve a goal, you must be willing to do what you know you should do when you should do it, whether you like or not. Underlining all great achievements is the quality of self-discipline. It is the ability to delay short-term gratification to enjoy even greater rewards in the long term.
Carry out commitment: One of the fastest ways to move past fear is to commit to what you are doing. When you commit, you’re putting your integrity on the line, making yourself accountable to do what you say you will do. If you need help, enlist support to keep yourself accountable.
Conquer your fears and achieve your goals. When you realize that you have come just so far and then you find yourself tempted to turn back instead of moving forward because of worry, anxiety, or fear, conquer your fear and enhance your motivation and self-discipline, block procrastination, and carry out your commitment.
Lead From Within: Self-awareness can be life-changing, and doing what you need to do to reach your goals is transforms leadership. Keep swimming in the direction of achievement.
N A T I O N A L B E S T S E L L E R
The Leadership Gap
What Gets Between You and Your Greatness
After decades of coaching powerful executives around the world, Lolly Daskal has observed that leaders rise to their positions relying on a specific set of values and traits. But in time, every executive reaches a point when their performance suffers and failure persists. Very few understand why or how to prevent it.
Additional Reading you might enjoy:
- 12 Successful Leadership Principles That Never Grow Old
- A Leadership Manifesto: A Guide To Greatness
- How to Succeed as A New Leader
- 12 of The Most Common Lies Leaders Tell Themselves
- 4 Proven Reasons Why Intuitive Leaders Make Great Leaders
- The One Quality Every Leader Needs To Succeed
- The Deception Trap of Leadership
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Of Lolly’s many awards and accolades, Lolly was designated a Top-50 Leadership and Management Expert by Inc. magazine. Huffington Post honored Lolly with the title of The Most Inspiring Woman in the World. Her writing has appeared in HBR, Inc.com, Fast Company (Ask The Expert), Huffington Post, and Psychology Today, and others. Her newest book, The Leadership Gap: What Gets Between You and Your Greatness has become a national bestseller.
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30 Responses
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Terri Klass
20. May, 2014
What an extraordinary post, Lolly and especially the line:
“Goals themselves are highly motivating, but to get even greater leverage you need to keep that motivation up front in your mind.”
Goals, even broken down into smaller milestone may not be powerful enough to keep us going. We do need to keep the reason of why we are doing things in the first place at the forefront of our thinking. We also need to keep our core values and priorities in plain site at all times.
Thanks Lolly for inspiring me today!
Terri
lollydaskal
22. May, 2014
Thank you Terri. Goals by themselves are just plans, we must motivate ourselves to implement them.
Thanks for sharing.
Lolly
lollydaskal
22. May, 2014
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’
Actually, who are you not to be?
― Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles”
Louisa
06. Jun, 2014
I love this. It is just beautiful. Thank you for sharing.
Panteli Tritchew
20. May, 2014
“One of the biggest obstacles to reaching our goals is fear.” So true, Lolly. Although we no longer encounter sabre-toothed tigers or cave bears, our evolutionary flight-or-flight response is genetically hard-wired. When we encounter resistance, we are programmed to pick up the club or turn tail and run.
The path of least resistance leads directly to the safety of our caves where we seek solace with a good book, a movie, a conversation, or a snack.
We can’t stop the evolutionary response of our limbic systems, but we can reprogram ourselves if we recognize that “Fear is an emotion that overrides our intelligence.”
With the self-confidence, motivation, self-discipline and commitment you mention, we can harness the power of our minds to come to the aid of our hearts when they are beating a little too fast.
Have a great day!
lollydaskal
22. May, 2014
We need inner resources to help us achieve our goals, especially when we are staring fear in the face.
Goals are easy when fear is not present.
Lolly
lollydaskal
22. May, 2014
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’
Actually, who are you not to be?
― Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles”
LaRae Quy
20. May, 2014
Love this article, Lolly!
Once we learn how to conquer our fears, we can conquer the world.
If we move forward from the heart, we can be mentally tough and step forward with confidence as we meet our fears.
Have a great week!
lollydaskal
22. May, 2014
Conquering our fear is all where it starts.
Having goals are easy, they are fun to plan, fun to list, fun to achieve.
But when fear is present – goals are truly hard to accomplish on our own.
We need the inner resources to lead us from within to achieve what we want to be successful.
Lolly
lollydaskal
22. May, 2014
“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love.
When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance.
We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections.
If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create.
Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.”
― John Lennon
lollydaskal
22. May, 2014
There is no fear without some hope, and no hope without some fear. ”
— Baruch Spinoza
Dorothy Dalton
21. May, 2014
Great parable Lolly.
lollydaskal
22. May, 2014
Thanks Dorothy!
THANKS for stopping by.
Lolly
Julie @ Millennial Cents
22. May, 2014
Great article. “Proceeding past procrastination” is key for me. I’m still in the habit of waiting to the last minute and then pulling an all nighter to finish something up. Need to break free of dumb college habits 🙂
lollydaskal
22. May, 2014
There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.
Vince Nix
22. May, 2014
Superb post, extremely timely for me personally. Thanks, as always, Lolly, for being YOU!
lollydaskal
22. May, 2014
Do one thing every day that scares you.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
She knew what she was talking about….
Brandon
05. Jun, 2014
This was an amazing Post. Literally at the end of that story I had a “Whoa!” moment! I appreciate your light!! Feel free to pay be a visit over at http://www.brich4life.com (My purpose is to help other find purpose and peace).
Again, I appreciate you!!
Brandon
05. Jun, 2014
This was an amazing Post. Literally at the end of that story I had a “Whoa!” moment! I appreciate your light!! Feel free to pay be a visit over at http://www.brich4life.com (My purpose is to help other find purpose and peace).
Again, I appreciate you!!
Dawood Chishti
19. Jul, 2014
Be immune to fear, get your goals. It’s exciting.
inspiration
01. Feb, 2015
I blog frequently and I really thank you for your content.
Your article has really peaked my interest. I’m going
to take a note of your site and keep checking for new details about once a week.
I subscribed to your Feed as well.
Bombshell Drawer Blog
26. Sep, 2015
I can’t agree more! I’m glad I have read this post today to remind me of my realmmotivation and developing my conference which I am really working on the last two weeks!
Ingrid Eneheim
02. Mar, 2016
I really love your post Lolly.
Our fear come back over and over again.
Right now I need to go forward. My fears come
immediately. What do I do?
For moving forward I need to be present.
Conscious. Meet my fear.
I love when you wrote that we are actually
afraid of our shining light and streghts.
I believe that.
My son loves Star Wars. That is about feeling
the force. Accept that we have it.
Our limits and our fear is in the head.
They don’t exist.
Antony
12. May, 2016
fear really affected my life but I thank you lolly, I’m from Kenya and I don’t even know how I found your twitter handle but I really thank you wherever you are
Sohail
22. Dec, 2016
You are a great teacher Miss Lolly. You quote others along with your own great learnings. Great! is what I can say. Only relevant material is shared and so often that I seems that these great guidelines are filled in your mind. Excellent material.
Tetuh
14. Jan, 2017
Thanks Lolly, this has really inspired me