Overcoming the FUD in Your Life

“Every moment of your life you are making three decisions:

1. What are you going to focus on?
2. What does that mean to you?
3. What are you going to do about it?”
-Anthony Robbins [speaking at a conference]

On June 14, 1990, I gave my very first speech in front of a huge crowd of seven people on a Wednesday night at a small country church in Tarpon Springs, Florida. The week prior to my speech was one of the most miserable weeks of my life. Why? Because I was focusing on the negative outcome of how terrible that speech would be. I could not eat. I was uptight. Negative thoughts controlled my mind as I continually rehearsed these questions: What if I fail? What if I say the wrong words? What if I forget what I am going to say? What if people do not like what I have to say? I don’t know anything about the Bible. What can a 23 year-old tell a bunch of old people about God?

The day I was to speak, I was a basket case. My palms were sweaty all day and my stomach felt like it was doing summer salts and it caused me to have diarrhea. I was petrified. My mind was focused on this speaking engagement being a total flop. A few minutes before I was supposed to speak I had to rush to the bathroom again. While I was sitting on the toilet, the forces of FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) gripped my mind. For a moment, I wanted to run out to my car and go home.

I suddenly realized at that moment I had spent the entire week focusing on this event in a negative way. In that moment I made the first decision to change my focus on a positive outcome. What if my message turned out great? What if somebody’s life was changed by what I communicated? What if I actually communicate my message in a powerful way? After all, I had been preparing my first speech for over three months.

I made my second decision and changed what this opportunity meant to me…“This is my opportunity to start building my motivational skills as a speaker. I have an opportunity to share how I was able to change my life! I have been allowing Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt to robb me of my confidence.” So then I made the third decision Anthony Robbins said in his quote…I asked myself, “What am I going to do about it?” I decided to get off the toilet, step into fear, march back into the church with a small group of seven people and deliver my speech with great passion and confidence.

The result was incredible! Everybody loved the message. I was then asked by the pastor to give a speech every Wednesday night and crowd started getting bigger as people from the community would come to hear what I had to say.

Confronting your fears, uncertainties and doubts (FUD) is the cost of going to the next level. Overcoming the FUD must become a priority in your life. My responsibility as your coach is to help you face your FUD and overcome it.

How do professional people like police officers and firefighters who face danger everyday do it?

Police officers and firefighters deal with fear on a daily basis. The fear of death hits them every time they prepare to arrest a drug dealer or enter a burning building. Just before they go into action, they experience the feelings of fear and uncertainty—not knowing whether they will survive or not.

However, the force of fear is destroyed when that police officer takes the first action step to knock down the door of a drug dealer’s house or the firefighter takes that first step into the burning building to save a child. They literally step into fear with confidence, and because they do, the fear disappears. They are totally focused on the reward of capturing the crooks or saving a person’s life. By confronting their fears, they can focus on the immediate situation and get the job done.

Confrontation breeds discomfort and this is the reason why most people ignore it. However, discomfort is the cost of going to the next level. What you tolerate or are comfortable with, you cannot change. Whatever you don’t confront you are willing to tolerate. You can only change when you hate the present FUD. You must hate the present FUD and make changes today to qualify for a greater future.

Take the Next Step and Overcome FUD

FUD creates a mental block that will stop you from moving forward. FUD is a paralysis that stops you from creating a solution to your problems. It stops creative thinking. An antidote to FUD is as simple as confidently taking the next step—taking action, doing something positive, creative, innovative and assertive.

Overcoming FUD is a decision to claim destiny over past experiences, small steps forward instead of passive steps backward and moving up instead of sitting down.
Ready to overcome your FUD?

COACHING QUESTIONS:

1. What FUD is restraining you?
2. What lies are you telling yourself that need to cease?

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