Demystifying Our Fears So We Can Live Ferociously
As a risk manager, limit-setting and monitoring is a fundamental part of my work. I make sure that the unit I oversee abide by the risk limits that are given to them. Limits make us feel safe. And safe is good. However, there are times when what makes us feel safe also keeps us average.
Aim High Pinay’s theme for the month is about Freedom and Ferocity, two especially important attributes of a person who aims high in life. And aiming high and being average is like a square being placed in a triangle – they just do not fit.
I attempted to understand “freedom” by thinking about a person without it. The image that comes to mind is a person who is restrained not by an actual bondage but is limited by fear and beliefs that she imposed on herself. Fear can be crippling. No matter how many options are available to us, sometimes fear can blind us such that we do not see the options at all. Freedom then is not living without fear, but not letting our lives be paralyzed by it.
This is the reason why we must stay on guard, because fear and negative beliefs guise themselves in the form of laziness and procrastination. When we are afraid to fail, it stops us from trying something new or from following our passion because it is safe to just be living an “okay” life. We delay taking action, or we do not act at all. Unfortunately, it is the same safety net that hinders us from being the best version of ourselves.
There is threat in “safety” when it holds us back from squeezing more juice out of life.
I have good and bad news.
The good news is – it is okay to FAIL (except maybe in skydiving). But kidding aside, we are not invalidating our feelings here. We honor them, that sometimes we are afraid to disappoint ourselves. We acknowledge that now and then, we want to save our faces and egos from the embarrassment of making mistakes. But because we want MORE OUT OF LIFE, we are giving ourselves permission to fail.
When we accept that failure can be an option, we open ourselves up to trying new ventures. We become more creative in reinventing ourselves, especially in these times of uncertainties and changing economic landscape. We become more daring to push a little more and follow our curiosities a bit further beyond our comfort zone. This space is the “growth zone”, and we can make it our safe space too.
They say that the most successful people are those with the greatest number of failures. What separates them from the rest is that they were persistent in trying different approaches until they are satisfied with the result. And then they continue to improve and explore other interests because it energizes them to be in the growth zone.
When we can free ourselves from the fear of failure, we too can be unstoppable in the pursuit of our goals. When we understand that the goal is to GROW, we too can be FEROCIOUS.
Now let me break the bad news – we have been living a lie. That is, when we fear, we are not in the present moment. We anticipate unfavorable scenarios that have not even happened. And because we are not in the moment, we can miss opportunities.
Thankfully, there are antidotes to this lie and one of which is freely available to us – our breath. When we breathe, we EXPAND, and we calm our nerves. Deep breaths ground us back to the present and we realize that we are still safe. We can respond rather than react or retract. We can think critically and see different angles and approaches to our growth targets.
There are risks that must be avoided at all cost, but there are also risks that are worth taking. An exploration of what makes us grow, what makes us happy, and what makes living an extraordinary life possible is definitely worth it.
