FEAR – get over it!

Public speaking is apparently one of the most feared things – next to death that is.

I can remember when I was at school being told to speak in front of the class – and I can still remember how scared I was, and whenever possible, I’d avoid it.

In the first 10 years of my working life, I’d get embarrassed to speak even in the lunchroom, if more than one or two people where looking at me.

In fact, when I applied for a Supervisory position at the Credit Union where I had worked for the previous 3 years, the CEO was astounded that I’d even considered applying.

There was another strong candidate for the same position, but the CEO decided to let me have a go – but just for 3 months. If I didn’t pass the necessary courses or meet the challenge of supervising staff, then at best I would be found another lesser position, and at worst I’d be out of work.

So what made me want to change? What made me push myself to overcome my fears? It certainly wasn’t the difference in pay.

I think, looking back, that it was during a time when my marriage was stressful and perhaps focusing on overcoming work related fears, allowed me to ignore the issues at home.

Of course my marriage didn’t last – which is no surprise. Once my husband left, I had even more reason to concentrate on my career, and avoid focussing on the legal and emotional issues outside of my working area.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining one bit!
Its arguably been one of the best lessons I've had in life.

Now, several years on, I’ve achieved my employment goals, I have a wonderful relationship, we’ve achieved a number of our investing goals, and yet having ‘retired’ from employment over 2 years ago I still find that I’m pushing myself to still keep achieving more.

A good part of the challenge is sharing my investing experience with participants at the Real Women Real Estate, Next Level property investing courses that I’m running with my business partner, Debbie Williams.

Some participants who attended had already been investing but wanted to do more, some hadn’t started but wanted to, and others were considering whether property investing was the best option for them. Quite a diverse audience really!

But there is one thing that they do have in common - they are doing something to improve themselves. They are taking some action towards their goals. They are taking themselves outside of their comfort zone and using their valuable time to improve their knowledge and make changes to their current lives.

Perhaps we realise that although we may fear change, fear the unknown, fear making mistakes, we realise that if we don’t do anything differently, then nothing different will happen. Our fear should be that our life doesn’t change, doesn’t improve – we get in a rut and life passes us by. What are we trying to do – get safely to our death?

It shouldn’t take a major health issue before we look back at how far we’ve come and realise that it's just not far enough, considering all the things we yet want to do.

It shouldn’t take the loss of loved ones to make us realise that yes, we are all mortal and we should make the most of life.

It shouldn’t have taken an unhappy marriage and messy divorce for me to come out of my shell and start making the most of my life – and expecting more of myself.

However it seems that often it takes such major issues before we make any changes. And even then, it can be very easy to consider ourselves ‘victims’ of circumstance. It’s always easy to blame others and not accept any responsibility ourselves.

Now, when I feel I’m procrastinating about something, I have to ask myself, is it fear of change, of doing something different, or fear of failing.

Then I have to consider …what is the worst thing that can happen if I stop procrastinating and just do it? Will it kill me?!

So now, public speaking, which I’ve decided won’t kill me, is not one of my fears – in fact I’m really quite enjoying it.