Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?

Why are we not achieving the results we want in our lives? In a previous post, I postulated that dreams are not achieved because of a lack of clearly defined goals coupled with an inability to act. So let's go deeper into the inability to act. Is it laziness, fear or something else?

Every year around December 31, we hear the words "New Year's Resolutions". Funny enough, we don't hear these words anymore around the 15th of January. Many people start off a new year with new dreams of changing their present state of body or mind, yet by the two week mark most jump off the bandwagon and revert to old habits. Why?

Some generalities I've heard is that people in the western world today are just plain lazy. There are handouts at various levels of government to people that could legitimately work but choose not to for reasons of drug abuse, illness, or pure laziness (as my dad calls it). However, we are focusing on the minority from a physical perspective. 

From a mental perspective, have the majority of us become lazy? We stopped reading, which means we don't learn like we used to. When we were in school, we were forced to read. We acquired the skill and put it down when real work came calling. The desire to learn and grow has left most of us. I don't believe that is called laziness. I think we've lost our focus. We focused on getting a good job, getting fairly paid, raising a family and then thinking about retirement. We forgot that none of that could have happened unless we had the appropriate baseline skills. Those skills translated to experience and then nothing else really mattered. Yet if some hotshot 25 year old steals your job, you'll remember that learning was a key ingredient to your success in the beginning and it was your inability to act that forced you out. 

An inability to act mainly is derived from fear. As babies we are born into this world with two fears: loud noises and being dropped. As adults we have fears of many things: death, public speaking, loss, heights, rejection, etc. All of these fears are learned fears that we developed since our birth. So why are we afraid? One of the biggest fears that I have is the fear of what others might think. I believe I developed this fear in the 7th grade when all I wanted to do was conform with the cool kids. And man alive, I have to work everyday to shake it. 

I was taught recently to look at fear in the face and slap it silly. When faced with a difficult task or a frozen ability to act, ask yourself, "What's the worst that could happen?". Then ask yourself, "What's the best possible outcome if I do this despite my fear?".  Worst case scenarios happen far less often than we think. I've come to notice that worst case scenarios happen about 10% of the time. Yet my fear would hold me back 100% of the time. When you can live with the worst knowing that it has a small chance of happening, you'll see phenomenal results with your goals.

In Simon Synek's book, "Start with Why", he teaches us that no effect or desire can be lasting unless we have a clear profound reason why we need to continue acting in a positive way on this difficult journey. The reason has to be so profound that reverting to our old ways would be unacceptable and ludicrous.

Let's get passed our fears by finding our "Why" in our goals. Focus on them so intensely that they burn a hole in our brain. Let's achieve amazing results in 2014.