Thank you for joining us for our 5 days per week wisdom and legacy building podcast. This is Day 429 of our trek, and today is Motivation Monday. Every Monday we hike the trails of life that will encourage and motivate us to live rich and satisfying lives this week. Today we will explore The Fear of Success.
We are broadcasting from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. If all goes according to plan, when this episode originally airs, we will be back in Charlotte for a couple of weeks. Paula’s quilting retreat went well, and they all had a great time. Paula and her friends were able to accomplish a good bit on their projects.
We all have our areas of strengths and weaknesses, and the detail work of quilting and cross stitching that Paula does so well would not be an area where I would excel. I do enjoy helping pick out the materials, though, as I seem to have an eye for coordinating the colors and patterns, and then Paula makes them look great. It is the same for each of us. We have areas of strength where we should focus the majority of our time to maximize our efforts and bring the most impact to our world as we create our living legacy each day.
As I have had six decades so far to observe and help others, one phenomenon that I have noticed of those who have a limited impact on others is they have an excessive amount of fear in their lives. Many would assume that the lack of impact is the result of fear of failure, but think about it this way…Inactivity, procrastination, and perfectionism automatically produce failure, so if a person truly fears failure, then it would encourage them to be motivated. In most cases, that is not the case. The more I observe, the more evident it is that for most people that are stymied in life because of the fear of success. Success requires action, being uncomfortable, and taking personal responsibility for the outcome…These are traits that many people choose not to possess. As we break camp and head out on today’s trek, let me ask you this question that may spur you to be motivated…
Sometimes you find yourself with a goal you want to achieve, but you just don’t take the appropriate action to reach it. You aren’t really afraid of failure or rejection, and doing nothing will allow you to succeed at failure. The path to the goal seems clear enough and might even be an interesting challenge, and occasionally you’ll make some progress. When you think about moving forward, though, you can’t seem to motivate yourself, and you’re not sure why. This often happens with long-term goals that require intermittent action, like losing weight or transitioning to start a new business and eventually quit your job.
One question I’ve found helpful to ask in these situations is this, “What will happen if you succeed?” Forget about what you hope will happen or...
