Since I’ve started exercising more regularly, there’s a pain that I sometimes have in my right shoulder.
It reminds me of the fear that I have, that there might come a day, where I won’t be able to write anything in this blog of mine.
Fear of running out. Of ideas, relationships, resources, and opportunities. Of myself.
What is this fear, and how’s it stopping me?
Fear of running out
At its heart, all of fear, is a fear of loss.
Losing opportunities, reputation, respect, relationships, and resources.
When I fear, I’m caught in the grip of scarcity mentality. Of there not having enough good things in the world, so I have to go out and get what’s mine.
On the flip side, I have to be careful, extra careful, with what I already have, because I might lose it all.
But there have been successful people who have lost it all, and have regained it back more than twicefold.
For the longest time, I’ve always told myself that money was hard to earn. Having watched my parents and other relatives have a hard time earn money, that belief was deeply ingrained in me.
So even though I had money, I was always so careful with it, and I was afraid to risk it. The one time I decided to risk a large sum of money, I was met with failure. And I couldn’t take it. I hid, licking my wounds, afraid that I’d be a failure forever.
Because I believed that the opportunities we get in life are limited.
There’s such a thing as being too careful, and it’s run by the belief that failure is bad, and that we’ll never get back what we have already lost.
Because you keep cutting back, you have less, and so you cut back some more, only to find that you have less again, and the cycle continues, until you have nothing.
If you give it, you get more of it
I’ve never found truth in that statement, until I found myself almost at rock-bottom, having close to nothing.
Until I was forced to try new approaches, because everything I was trying that was based on the scarcity mentality I had, was not working.
They were only draining me further, creating a false sense of comfort of where I was, only to have the bottom fall out from under me when I least expect it.
I found that the more I was willing to give – my time, resources, and goodwill, the more that I got them back in return.
And it all began with my mindset. If I believed resources and opportunities to be scarce, they were.
But, if I believed them to be abundant – that I’d be able to find new opportunities and resources when I needed them, then I was able to find a way.
It’s such a paradox, and yet, that is how the world works.
Take a simple case of respect. If I give respect to other people, then they are more likely to treat me with respect as well. But if I expect people to treat me with respect first, while I don’t, then I will find that a lot of people won’t give me the respect that I want to receive.
The world listens to what you want, through the actions that you do.
The more you give it, the more you will get it back in return.
Don’t let fear stop you
Because I find in my life, that which I am deathly afraid of, and always worry about, come true.
Whatever you think about on a constant basis comes true, whether it’s negative or positive.
Focus on the solutions, and the way forward, instead of being chained to your fear and worry.
The more I worried about people not accepting me, and people judging me, the more I got rejected and judged.
Now, I don’t think too much about those, and to my surprise, other people don’t too.
Don’t let the fear stop you.
Find a way through it.
Have you ever been stopped by a fear of running out? Please share your story in the comments below!
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