The #1 Most Irrational Fear

EVERY WOMAN IN THAT ROOM FEARED IT

I remember once, when I met with my Co-mentors on the Strong Women Strong Girls non-profit, we played a bonding game where we wrote down our greatest fear on a scrap piece of paper, and randomly pick them from a basket to read aloud. As we read them one by one, we began noticing a trend - we were all afraid of the same damn thing; Failing. I found myself in a room of nearly 20 strong women I admired, and they all feared failure.

The proper name for this fear is "atychiphobia" but that's too long and syndrome-esque, so let's call it "FoF" and say it's a super annoying evil-genie.

The shittiest thing about the fear of failure is that we (our subconscious) are the ones who nourish it into reality, when it could just remain one single irrational thought. FoF is an imaginary monster we create and the more we fear it, the more we feed it - until it get's so big that it destroys us from the inside out. It's a trap! FoF is SUCH an manipulative a-hole, it stopped many otherwise successful people from living the life they dream of. No body wants to be apart of that statistic.

GIVE FEAR THE STINK-EYE

I'm about to get all Eric Thomas on you... If you want to be successful you're going to have to get rid of FoF. If we think about it in a different way, we can learn to embrace failure when it happens. Fear is simply a liability and failure is an extremely valuable experience.  In every failure, there is a lesson learned and an overall better understanding of self.

"I failed my way to success."
Failure is only the opportunity to more
intelligently begin again."
Henry Ford

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do."
Eleanor Roosevelt

"Our greatest glory consist not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."
Oliver Goldsmith

Seriously, who doesn't like quotes from people who've been there and done that like no else before? It shows us that they felt the same way and they didn't let it stop them - instead they let it fuel them.

With that said, I think the real key to being successful is not in being fearless, but in being courageous. So many people sabotage their own dreams because they're afraid of looking "stupid" or fear they can't reach the finish line and they give up.

I believe the universe gives you what you put into it, so if you are doing everything you can to achieve your goals, then there should be no room for FoF. Try everything that scares you/ you think you won't conquer, because there can only be two outcomes:

1. You'll succeed
2. You'll have a good story to tell. 

Love, Liv.