Figure out your greatest fears in life and you’ll have the path you should follow. ~Chad Howse
We let fear deter us, but it should act as a magnet, guiding us to a life well lived, a flourishing life. (Read This: Embrace Your Fears)
Fear is one of the best barometers for whether or not we should do something. The things we fear most in life, failing at this or that, death, bodily harm, even loneliness, should be things we head into and deal with head on.
We cannot be among those who run from the darkness, as men, we have to run to it.
There are a few things that I’ve been nervous about in my life that I had to hunt down and do.
1. Boxing.
Getting in a ring for the first time with someone who’s better than you is a nerve-racking proposition. But oh is it glorious. Getting your nose bloodied, your eye blackened, does wonders for your ability to endure in life.
Conquering those nerves, especially the ones before my first fight, have done wonders for what I’ll attempt to accomplish in life. Paying attention to the initial fear before and then the exhilaration and focus during and the pride after, I’m incredibly thankful that I didn’t cower or avoid something that made me uneasy.
2. Starting a business
I left a job I was comfortable at to create a job that made me very uncomfortable, especially financially, as failure was essentially my roommate for the first 3 years of starting said business.
This fear of failure still keeps pushing me to do more, create more, and learn more. Fear of failure can help you do great things in comparison to what you would do if you avoided that fear altogether. (Read This: 10 Ways to Go From Victim to Victory)
3. Travel
Going to a place I knew very little about where they spoke languages I knew not was an empowering event. I hate that word empowering. It sounds like something a full of hot air self-help guru would say, but that’s what it was.
Going into the unknown is always the best way to forge a stronger, more courageous persona.
Had I stayed in a land I was comfortable in I’d still be a shell of the man I am now, which is a shell of the man I’m aiming to become.
LET FEAR BE YOUR GUIDE
Let it tell you where to go not what to avoid.
We should be doing things we’re afraid of – REALLY afraid of – every day if we want to reach anything near our potential or become anything close to what we can become.
So let it guide you to a flourishing life filled with adventure and daring and greatness.
