Whether it be the fear of rejection or the fear of success, we will take a look at how your fears deals with motivation.  According to Princeton University, motivation is:

” (n) motivation, motive, need (the psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal; the reason for the action; that which gives purpose and direction to behavior) “we did not understand his motivation”; “he acted with the best of motives”

(n) motivation (the condition of being motivated) “his motivation was at a high level”

(n) motivation motivating (the act of motivating; providing incentive)”

Is Fear Motivating You?

Les Brown
“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.”
From Jody - Loved this quote!

Motivation is not always a good thing. Fear is crippling. However, we can never be totally fear free as it is a natural and usable emotion that helps keep us safe.   Many of us take so many actions throughout our day because we are motivated by negative things such as fear. By letting fear motivate us, it is essentially crippling our body both physically and mentally. Basically your actions become controlled by fear. We do not try new things because of the fear of the unknown. Your body begins to produce certain chemicals in your body such as adrenaline when fear is motivating you. Golfers that are beating Tiger Woods in a round start tensing up because they focus on their fears of losing their position with a bad shot. Since they are focusing on the fear of the bad shot, which is normally what happens. Your mind becomes blank when giving a speech because you’re worrying so much about screwing up that your mind is focused on screwing up instead of the message you want to get across.

Napoleon Bonaparte
“He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.”

We fear that we will fail. We fear that we will lose our job. We fear that we cannot pay our bill. We fear that we will not be accepted. We fear rejection. We fear that we will succeed. Fear is around almost every corner in people’s lives. What we want to do is lessen fear and then ultimately eliminate us being motivated by fear.

Stop and think of your actions throughout the day. Are you going to work at a job you dread going to because you fear that you cannot provide if you do not? Do you procrastinate on following your life dreams because of fear? Do you not take steps toward your goals because you have a wall of fear that is holding you from taking that next step such as calling a certain someone or whatever the situation might be?

Taking Steps to Eliminate Fear

In order to take continuous and directionally correct steps to lifestyle design and personal development, we should strive to be motivated by our goals. You need to take continuous action toward attaining what goals you set to achieve. Instead of always being controlled by fear, such as always just barely getting by on things, take the opposite step.

Start becoming consciously aware when you’re doing something and ask yourself what is motivating you to do this? If fear is what is currently motivating you, stop, and think of other options toward whatever fear you are currently being controlled by. Look at your goals and see what steps you should be taking toward them.

Jerry Gillies
“Confront your fears, list them, get to know them, and only then will you be able to put them aside and move ahead.”

The Power of the word MUST

If fear is stopping you from taking that next step toward your goal, then think of it as something you MUST do. Tell yourself you MUST take this step and why you MUST do it. Do not keep telling yourself you should. Here are some examples of this:

• I should workout today
• I should write this paper
• I should call the publishing company
• I should set aside some money for retirement

You need to start saying to yourself:

• I MUST work out today because I’ve committed myself to losing 5 pounds of body fat by January 31^st
• I MUST write this paper now because I have no time for it later and it is due in 2 days
• I MUST call the publishing company to arrange a meeting on my book proposal because I have committed to writing this book for months and my goal deadline is soon approaching
• I MUST set 10% of this paycheck aside for retirement because I have committed myself to retire by the age of 50.

  Dale Carnegie
  “Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”

You can even go as far as adding on the consequences of not following through on your steps toward your goals. Such as:

• I MUST work out today because I’ve committed myself to losing 5 pounds of body fat by January 31^st. If I do not starting sticking to my workout plan then my health is slowly going to start slipping away from me and before I know it my doctor will be telling me I have high blood pressure and my cholesterol is through the roof. I do not want my age to play catch up with my heart.

Like your goals, the more specific you go into detail why you should do something, the greater the likelihood you will do it. Put tons of emotions behind your MUST reasons. Put yourself in the situations if you have to.

Final Thoughts

When I finally sat down and actually thought about what was really motivating me in life, I found so many motivational fears. Although many times I still am driven by fear, I slowly have learned to become consciously aware of when I was being driven by negative emotions and learned through some time to control these emotions. By taking control of these emotions, such as fear, I have also began to take more control of my desired lifestyle design and personal development.

What is motivating you?