My Reality Check Bounced! - Jason Ryan Dorsey [70]
Many twentysomethings I interviewed struggled with fear of the unknown in some way, but they usually expressed it as, “Sure I would like to do ____, but what if ____ happens?” Here’s how to get a more positive grip on reality:
1. Research and talk to people in the know. Why do you think fortune-tellers ask for payment in advance? Because they can’t predict the future! Neither can you. But you can do research to see what’s going on in the world and talk to other people who have had the experiences you seek.
2. Get real. Choose a path that creates outcomes you can touch, taste, smell, hear, and see. When caught in a bind use your senses to test potential outcomes to see which are real and which are only in your imagination. I knew one person who was convinced she would get robbed if she ever went downtown. Her friends finally persuaded her to go downtown with them for dinner. Afterward they walked around looking in shop windows and talking to people. Now that she has experienced what was once unknown, she thinks it was silly that she was ever afraid to go downtown!
3. Limit your unknowns. Choose a path with fewer unknowns until you build the confidence to take a riskier path.
4. Imagine a positive future. You control your imagination. Challenge negative “What if…?” scenarios with positive “What if…?” dreams. The more positive the future you imagine, the more positive you’ll feel about your future.
5. Create or find your safe place. If you take a risk and experience too much pain, retreat to your safe place and regroup. Once you feel okay again, identify what you can do differently next time and start in that direction with baby steps.
CHOOSE YOUR FUTURE PICTURE OVER YOUR FEARS
Fear may be a natural part of life, but it shouldn’t keep you from living. Get real about the fears that hold you back. Choose to face them head-on. Challenge them until they are afraid of you!
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INSTANT MESSAGE
Everyone has fears; they’re a biological alarm for keeping you safe.
If your fears grow unchallenged, they will eventually steal your confidence.
Overcome your fears, and you turn that emotion into your power!
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BOUNCED: My fears keep me on a path that is not completely satisfying.
CASHED: I feel the fear, but do it anyway.
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ONLINE: Read more about Stephen’s new business at
www.myrealitycheckbounced.com/book
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10
LIFE IN THE BALANCE
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What you do with your time shows what you most prize.
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REALITY-CHECK MOMENT:
SURE, I’M SUCCESSFUL, BUT I HAVE NO LIFE!
Are you always in a rush, running from home to work to play to work to food to work to friends to work to bed and then to repeat the cycle? Maybe you seek extra projects to take on during weekends and never get off your cell phone, Blackberry, or laptop. You find comfort juggling more then what you could ever possibly accomplish. You rush and rush but never seem to catch whatever it is you’re chasing. And when you actually take a few rare free seconds to stop and take inventory of your life, you realize that you’re completely off balance. You’ve been eating the same greasy take-out food for weeks; you haven’t called your mom or your friends for months; you work so many hours that people think you actually live in your office. In short, you’re busy but miserable.
For Sara, twenty-seven, entry into the real world was one most young professionals only dream about. It started when she landed the prized sales position every marketing graduate at her top-tier business school wanted. Her new multibillion-dollar employers were well known, well established, and well respected. Getting hired by them was a huge vote of confidence.
Their famed training program paired Sara with the best and the brightest from premier universities across the globe. As one elite group, these