Fear, Discipline, Motivation…Are they linked?
Fear and Uncertainty
Today started like almost every day. I woke up about 5 a.m. got the studio ready to train some awesome clients and tried to suppress the fact that I felt kind of like an impostor. Do you ever suffer from impostor syndrome? It seems like almost every day I wake up with a slight feeling of fear and uncertainty. A fear of not succeeding for my clients, a fear of them not getting amazing results, a fear of disappointing them, a fear of not getting the tasks that I have set up the day before done. Can you relate to that?
What’s crazy is my clients are having phenomenal results. They report having way more energy, losing tons of weight and inches. Shoot, one of my clients who started about 6 weeks ago has lost 30 pounds. I have another client who started five months ago and is down 80 pounds as of last night!
But despite what my eyes are seeing, what my ears are hearing, I still have this nagging sense of fear and uncertainty. It’s hard for me to get motivated to try to overcome it. What my body and what my mind tell me to do is to just sit back and try to suppress it and deny it’s there. That is what “feels” right. Unfortunately denying that it’s there doesn’t work, instead we need to actively do something to try to remove this fear and uncertainty.
So what is that look like for me?
It’’s actually really simple and easy to do, even though at first it seems daunting. I overcome fear by creating a list of daily things that I need to accomplish the following day to get closer to my goals. What I have found is once I have a list of what I need to accomplish and take action on those tasks, despite how I feel, regardless if I feel motivated or not, step-by-step I begin to feel more certain and less fearful and THIS makes be feel motivated.
I begin to feel energized and accomplished. That’s why when you read books or when you hear stories of Highly Successful People generally one of the common threads that they all share is that they accomplish the hardest tasks of the day first cuz this helps to create momentum.
Discipline
This is where discipline comes in. The above narrative is all about discipline. Discipline doesn’t require you to feel like doing anything. Discipline just requires you to do to act for the sake of acting. It’s like when I hear a client say, “I don’t feel like doing split squats.” Guess what? Nobody, I think, EVER : ) feels like doing split squats. But, the blessing is that you get to do split squats regardless of how you feel. That’s discipline, discipline is a lot about performing the tasks and execution. Here’s the thing about discipline, as you perform the task over and over again you create a habit, and this habit then builds up increases momentum, which then helps you accomplish other tasks and…OVERCOME fear and uncertainty!
Fear is gone! Did you almost forget that was the main point of this rant? It was about fear and how at the beginning of my day it seems like fear is present and it suppresses me and keeps me down. But as I go through my list, as I celebrate little victories, my fear and uncertainty dissipates.
What do I do?
For me, I start everyday the same way. I start every morning by writing down 3 things I am grateful for. So for example today’s three things were: Frist, I am thankful that Axel is enjoying preschool. Second, I am thankful that I get to spend extra time with Kenna. Three, I’m super excited that I get to attend Mercy Hill Church this evening.
The second task that I do is write and send out emails. Sitting down to write out emails each day seems overwhelming at first, but I finish each email, it builds momentum and stops fear and is a catalyst for completing other tasks throughout my day.
The third task that I have is Facebook posts. Once again, it seems like a lot at first, but I just did the above, so generally this part third task seems easy now.
Those are three things that I do on a daily basis that help me CRUSH fear and uncertainty. Developing discipline and ultimately gaining motivation allows me to better serve others make sure they continue to get awesome results!
This was kind of a long rant, but I felt it was important. I hope you have a great Thursday.
Go be awesome!
KELLEN LAKE – Discipline beats talent and fear : )
