Good. Better. Best. Which self do you want to be?

The 3-Minute Coach

October 9, 2000, Issue #6
Fear of Firsts

Welcome to The 3-Minute Coach

What an incredible two weeks this has been! Thanks to two of my articles appearing in other newsletters, I am also welcoming 343 new readers with this issue. In addition to most of the 50 states, countries now include Scotland, France, Germany, Ireland, Costa Rica, Australia, Canada, England, Wales, India, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Istanbul/Turkey, [If your country isn't listed here, please let me know!]

If you haven't already, please check out both of these sites. I think you'll enjoy both of them:

Maria Gracia's GET ORGANIZED NOW
http://www.getorganizednow.com
Josh Hind's MOTIVATIONAL MECCA
http://www.joshhinds.com/excite.html

The website continues to develop. I've added a "What's New" page on the website to help you quickly figure out if anything is different since the last time you visited. You'll notice I added a few new (recent) articles in Coaching in the Media" and updated the links and quotes pages. To check it out: www.touchpointcoaching.com .

If you have any ideas for the "Keep it Simple" portion of the newsletter, please email me. They can be on any area of life (home, office, relationships, finance, etc)-- anything you've find helpful in simplifying your life. Share your wisdom! If your suggestion is used in the newsletter, I will also include your name, unless you specifically request not to have it included. Send me your suggestions.

Have a wonderful two weeks!

Louise

Food for Thought

"When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." --- Richard Buckminster Fuller

Keep It Simple

Some Quick Ideas

OPERATION HIDE-AWAY. If you are the person responsible for doing laundry, this is a painless way to get others to weed out their clothing. Pick a person and one type of their clothing. Identify an area (box, drawer, closet shelf, etc) that you can store items and that particular person is unlikely to notice. Everytime you do the laundry, instead of replacing the clean clothing back in the appropriate drawer or shelf, put it in your "Hide-away" spot.

Continue doing this until the person asks "Where are all my T-shirts?" That's the time to go to the place they keep their T-shirts, and get rid of everything left there. These are obviously items that don't fit or they don't like and it's time to toss or give away. This works particularly well with comfortable clothes you wear around the house. For some reason, these seem to be especially difficult to part with!

FOIL IS YOUR FRIEND. Use foil paper to line pans when roasting or baking. When you're done, don't forget to rinse the foil and put it in your recycle bin.

WASTEBASKET PALS. Use the plastic bags you get while shopping to line your wastebaskets. Keep a couple of spares in the bottom of the waste- basket. This way, you can replace them quickly, and it only takes a few seconds to "empty" the wastebasket.

Feature Article

Fear of Firsts

Have you ever noticed that there is a surge of energy anytime you try anything for the first time. Sometimes it's pure excitement, anticipation of the good feeling you know you're going to have after you've done it. Sometimes it's nervousness, usually because you don't know exactly how you're going to feel once it's done, but the potential good feeling seems more likely than the potential bad feeling. And sometimes it's good old-fashioned fear, anticipation that the outcome of what we want to do will hurt us in some way, either physically or emotionally.

Excitement and nervousness could be considered beneficial (or at the least, neutral), in that they don't stop us from doing what we want to do. Fear, on the other hand, can be positive or negative. It's positive when it stops us from doing something stupid that could potentially harm us. [I should point out that habitual risk-takers might approach those same events with excitement. This is probably a better way to approach life, as long as common sense is involved!]

"Negative" fear, however, usually just stops us from doing what we want to do, what makes sense for us to do, what takes us closer to our goals. In this case, we're usually afraid of not getting what we want and/or of looking silly/stupid/inadequate while we're doing it. The longer we give in to this fear, the stronger it becomes, the harder it is to do the new thing, and the further away from our goals we get.

The only thing gained by allowing the fear to stop us is to GUARANTEE that we won't get what we want! This is probably pretty obvious to you, but I needed it pointed out to me, so maybe it helps to state it here!

When the fear is really strong, we sometimes look for deep, unconscious motivation for the fear. This trap is particularly deadly because we all have experienced times when our fear WAS rooted deep in our subconscious from events early in our lives. Very often, that type of fear does need some awareness or healing before you can move past it. The trap is that every time you feel a fear that you can't put aside easily, you decide it's deep and you need to do some specific work around the fear. This shifts our focus from the action we want to take to the fear itself. We start thinking about the fear, what's causing it, and how we can get over it. The bottom line is that we end up by giving ourselves permission NOT TO ACT!

If it's truly not the right time for something to happen then, in my experience, it usually doesn't. But we shouldn't under-estimate the power of not wanting to look silly or inadequate, and the fear that might happen often makes us delay taking action long past the right time. How often have you finally done something you'd been putting off and then asked yourself, "Why in the world did I wait so long to do this?" If you can think of a lot of examples, then you've got a classic case of "Fear of Firsts"!

Gaining awareness that your fear is related to the unfamiliarity of the situation may go a long way in allowing you to face it squarely and do the thing you're putting off. Here are some additional suggestions to help move you through the fear:

TAKE A DEEP BREATH
Breathe slowly and become aware of your breathing. As you focus on your breathing, you will notice that you automatically begin breathing slower and more deeply. This allows you to get to that "centered" space, the space where you can view the situation objectively, where you know what you are capable of, and where you can again see the potential in what you want to do. Focusing on your breathing very often brings you from fear to nervousness to excitement about the event in a matter of moments.

FOCUS ON THE OTHER PEOPLE INVOLVED
If others are involved, shift the focus from you to them. We sometimes worry so much about what the other person is thinking about us that we miss the opportunity to identify what they need and to help them achieve it. A dear friend shared a story of her early days in real estate and how her fear of what the clients were thinking jeopardized her ability to sell. It wasn't until she started focusing on the clients, and how she could help them through this stressful time (and anyone who's ever searched for a new home knows how stressful it can be!) that she was able to turn the business around and enjoy success. Tuning in to the other people puts a whole new slant on things, allowing our fears to recede long enough for us to figure out that there's nothing to be scared of!

BLOW UP YOUR FEAR
This is an effective exercise that you can do in just a few short minutes.

Close your eyes and take a few slow breaths. Visualize yourself in your mind's eye in a calm, peaceful place. Allow yourself to think of the situation you're avoiding until you can firmly feel the fear around it. "See" yourself identifying the place inside you where the fear is (usually the stomach) and put both hands in and pull it out. Hold the fear in your hands and look at it for a moment. Then notice that there is a brown cardboard box, just large enough to hold the fear, on the ground in front of you. Place the fear in the box and close it. Keep your eyes on the box and see it get larger. As you stand and watch the box (breathing slowly all the time), see it grow and grow. See it become as large as you, as large as the room, as large as the house, as large as the town, as large as the country, as large as the world --- until it grows so large it just explodes like a balloon. Once it's gone, take a moment to notice how you feel without the fear. Take a few more deep breaths and open your eyes. [If the fear has really taken hold, you may need to do this a few times. But each time you do it, you'll notice that the box explodes at a smaller and smaller size.]

Related Quotes

Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make you a far happier and more productive person. Dr. David M. Burns

Don't fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have. Louis E. Boone

No matter how hard you work for success if your thought is saturated with the fear of failure, it will kill your efforts, neutralize your endeavors and make success impossible. Baudjuin

"The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of successful experiences behind you. Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved." William Jennings Bryant

"Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is a freedom." Marilyn Ferguson

All That BIZ

Louise Morganti Kaelin is a Life Success Coach who partners with others to help them turn their dreams into reality.
Phone: 1-617-984-2868
Email: louise@touchpointcoaching.com
Web: http://touchpointcoaching.com
While you're there, register to win a free month of coaching.

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