Personal Development

False Expectations Appearing Real - FEAR

Often, the one thing that stands in our way of moving toward and fulfilling our dreams is fear. All of us have fears. To some it’s the fear of failure. To others it might be the fear of losing what they’ve gained. Many people seem to fear success because of the thought of leaving their ‘comfortable’ old life behind.

But whatever they are, our fears are usually unfounded. There’s even an acronym for fear. False Expectations Appearing Real. Human beings are only born with two fears; fear of heights and of loud noises. The rest of them we learn along the way. We learn them, quite rightly, to protect ourselves. Only the trouble is that at times we over-protect ourselves and hold back.

We need courage to face and do the things that scare us. To leave a job, start or expand a business, to end or begin a relationship, to speak in public. I remember an old Brian Tracy tape I used to play in my car where he said “do what you fear most and the death of fear is certain” So if more courage is what we need to break through our fears, how do we find it?

There's a story that springs to mind. Well a film actually, called 'Three Kings', which stars George Clooney.

Its set at the end of the 1991 Gulf war and Clooney, a special forces major, together with a handful of his soldiers, get hold of a map that apparently shows where a huge cache of stolen gold, worth $23,000,000, is hidden.

They are determined to find and keep the gold for themselves and set out to find the hiding place. It’s a hazzardous journey as there are still pockets of soldiers that may offer resistance and there are remnants of the war, like burnt out tanks and bodies along the roads.

Initially, they meeet a few dead ends but they eventually find a site that looks promising. It’s populated by Iraqi soldiers, Saddams republican guard, who are torturing starving civilians that are uprising against Saddam following the end of the war. The soldiers are not so much of a problem for Clooney and his men, as far as the gold is concerned, but his conscience is in crisis because of what’s happening to the civilians. Do they take the money and run and leave the civilians to die or do they risk losing the gold and escort the civilians to safety?

They decide to protect the civilians from the Iraqi soldiers and give them safe passage to the Iranian border, while trying to get the gold out at the same time.

Clooney comes up with a plan. They are going to try and fool the Iraqi soldiers into thinking that they are Saddams motorcade about to arrive. Saddam is livid that they have lost the war and he is coming to make his soldiers pay for their incompetence.

Before they set off, one of Clooney’s soldiers walks up to him and says “can we go over this plan just one more time?” Clooney says “you're scared right?” The soldier replies “maybe” and Clooney says “The way it works is this-you do the thing you're scared **itless of and you get the courage after you do it-not before you do it”. The soldier says “that's a dumb ass way-it should be the other way round” Clooney says “I know-but that's the way it works”

The courage we sometimes need is something we only get by doing and not by thinking about it.

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