VII. How to Become Fearless & Forward Moving
A Modern Spartan moves in one direction and one direction only on the battlefield of life: FORWARD.
No retreat, no surrender.
He relentlessly plows through the inevitable frustrations, mistakes and obstacles guaranteed to appear in life without wincing.
He drives & competes to best himself daily.
He is not paralyzed by fear.
Instead he embraces it, and channels the fear energy into a deeper strength by taking action immediately. He knows any hesitation and the battle is lost.
He recognizes that common men will criticize, him point out his failures and project their fears onto him; but he has chosen to be unmoved by this.
Hesitation, fear, indecision.
They’re all things even the strongest of us face at one time or another.
You can probably think about examples in your own life of where you were afraid. Maybe it was a fear of heights, or snakes or maybe even of taking action on something. Fear holds a lot of guys back not just in training but it ALL areas of life.
The first mistake we make is WE DON’T SEE IT FOR WHAT IT IS!
Fear doesn’t always have to be something really big and scary that we are terrified of. It can simply be the fear of making a mistake and that’s sometimes harder for us to recognize.
Let’s look as a few examples.
Some guys will spend hours and hours researching exercise routines in the hope of seeking perfection instead of spending the time actually getting out there and doing a workout.
Maybe they research how many reps to do – 6 or 10 per set.
They’ll read, study, watch videos, search the internet, etc. all in a quest to find the “right” answer.
They spend an inordinate amount of time studying it because they are afraid to take a risk.
Well, you know what? It’s not that big of a deal and there isn’t a big enough difference between the two to really matter.
So you know what’s worse?
Their inaction – doing nothing.
You have to recognize that fear exists and work to meet it head on.
Fear, and the behavior it sometimes causes, can be related to a bicycle.
What happens to a bicycle when you stop moving? It falls over.
The same happens in with life.
Sometimes it’s better to make a wrong decision (and keep moving forward) than to make no decision (standing still.)
A motionless bicycle doesn’t take you anywhere.
So take action.
Don’t fall into the analysis paralysis trap! Keep the momentum up so you keep moving forward!
Another problem some guys have is that they want a guarantee for things they spend their time on.
Whether it’s a relationship or a project at work. They feel like if they’re going to invest in something, they want a guarantee that its going to work out 100% of the time in their favor.
They even rationalize in their mind that they’ll put themselves into something full force but only if the have some type of up-front guarantee (i.e. raise, promotion, recognition) for what happens at the end of the effort.
Well there are no guarantees in life and this type of attitude keeps you from moving forward.
The sooner you can accept that it’s okay to not have guarantees, the better off you’re going to be.
Where does the fear come from?
Fear comes from deep down in our subconscious.
It’s like a little voice inside our head saying ‘I can’t handle an outcome that’s different from what I’m hoping for.’ Like asking a girl out or asking your boss for a raise. What if they say ‘no’. You need to stop, turn the table around and say to yourself – if they say ‘no’ – is it the end of the world? Probably not. But you can learn from it and you can handle it.
Another good cure for fear is to ask yourself what the worse case scenario is.
Pretend you want to ask this girl out that you’ve been noticing for a while but you’re afraid.
What’s the worse that can happen? She’ll throw her drink in your face?
Doubtful, but probably the worse case in this situation.
Now think about how that worse case scenario would impact your life on a scale of 1-10, a “1” being I’ll forget all about it in a 5 minutes, a “10” meaning I’ll still be upset 20 years from now. If she throws her drink in your face it’s probably about a 2 on that scale right? Doesn’t seem as scary anymore does it?
A buddy of mine once took a public speaking class and he told me that part of the course dealt with fear and worrying. As part of the course, he had to read a book called “How to stop worrying and start living”. The premise of the book was that we worry about a lot of things in life and most (approx 95%) never actually happen.
The other 5% might happen but at the end of the day there isn’t a whole lot we can can do about it. The point is that we create most of the fear ourselves. We are at times our own worse enemy.
Don’t believe me? Try this exercise.
The next time you’re worried about something write down on a piece of paper all the things you think might actually happen, then put it in an envelop and forward date it a month or so and put it away for safe keeping. (Don’t forget where you put it though.) When that date comes open it up and read what you wrote down. I’ll be willing to bet that 9 times out of 10 you’ll chuckle to yourself and say ‘What was I so worried about?”. If you do this little exercise a few times you will start to see a pattern that may help you stop the unnecessary worrying and related fear.
Apply this all back to working out. Don’t be afraid to try new things with your workout. Try it for a couple of weeks and if it doesn’t do anything – worse case you may have lost some time but you’re still going to make some forward progress (e.g. going to gym and working out). Again – back to that scale of 1-10 – maybe its a 1 or a 2, but again its not a big deal. What did you really lose? Not much I’m sure.
Worry is interest you pay on a debt you don’t owe.
So remember – no matter what you are afraid of in life, never retreat, never surrender and keep moving forward!