Stop Building the Future From Fear

Feb 20

I don't listen to a ton of podcasts, which feels ironic since I have one. But the other day I was driving home listening to my favorite podcast, and they started talking about the end of the snake year and the start of the year of the horse.

As I was listening, the cohost started talking about a recurring dream she's been having.

It was the same dream I've been having. Not exactly the same in detail, but close enough that it stopped me in my tracks.

I've been having this dream over and over for months now, and I hadn't put any meaning to it. I just wake up thinking, why is my life so chaotic during the day and so chaotic at night? Sometimes it gives me anxiety to fall asleep because my dreams can be so stressful.

Here's the dream. I'm going somewhere new and exciting. Sometimes I'm traveling by train, sometimes by plane, sometimes by bus. But every time, I'm packing, and I'm trying to fit everything I can into a suitcase. I'm shoving things in, and I can't get it closed. Everything's bursting, and it's slowing me down. I'm running behind, and I'm going to miss my train to this new place because I cannot fit all this stuff in my baggage.

In one version of the dream, I get off the plane to catch a connecting flight, but I have to wait for my suitcase. These big, cumbersome suitcases. I'm dragging them through the airport, and now I'm going to miss my flight to South Africa or Australia or some other amazing destination.

When I had this aha moment listening to that podcast, I realized what this dream was trying to tell me.

I am trying to cram all of this baggage and all of these things that no longer serve me into this suitcase to take with me into this new year.

I know there are things I need to leave behind. I did a ton of journaling around that at the start of the year. But my subconscious isn't ready to let go of those things. So I'm trying to cram them into this bag to go where I want to go, but I can't, because I'm going to miss the plane to my next destination.

What We're Really Packing

So what is it that I'm trying to bring with me? Things like working more hours than I intend to. Letting work creep into my personal life. Doubting myself. Letting imposter syndrome get in the way. Being afraid to step out and show up in new ways that are going to really challenge me.

These are all patterns and behaviors and ways of doing business that aren't fitting in the suitcase for this next chapter.

As I was digesting this, I started thinking about how the future that we paint for ourselves, this vision of the life that we want, is actually formed by our past.

If I look at my past, I can go back to 2020. This was a really pivotal year for me in my business and in my life. I had been running my business on the side for about four years. It didn't bring in income that could sustain me, so I had other jobs and ventures to bring in money.

But in 2020, when the world shut down, I lost the two startups that were bringing in money and my freelance job. I had very few clients, and I definitely wasn't in the driver's seat of how to bring in more. I was in pure panic and pure fear.

Not only that, I got the phone call that my rental house was being sold and that I was going to have to be out in 30 days. So I had nowhere to live, no money in the bank, and no income coming in.

It is something that I still carry with me. I never want to go back there. And there's so much of the decision making in my life and in my business that is trying to run away from or stay away from that experience.

The Past That Colors the Future

I make decisions in order to keep me from ever being in that position again. Broke, scared, not knowing where my next dollar was coming from.

What that means is that I'm making decisions based on that experience and on multiple experiences along the way. Difficult business experiences. Fear-based experiences. They're shaping the decisions I make and coloring the future I'm envisioning.

Because I cannot imagine a different future if I'm not comparing it to a past.

When I look at this future vision of my life and business, it is me trying to continue to keep myself separated from this terrible, scary experience in 2020.

We build our future based on our past because I cannot envision a future without having a reference of what happened in the past. But what happens is I start to build a vision of the future based on past experiences that were negative, more often than not the things I want to avoid.

We're typically running from something or running towards something, and you can be doing both at the same time. I start to find myself in a position where I'm making fear-based decisions.

What You Can Change

Now I can't change the past. I can't change what happened to me in 2020. I can't go back and have a million dollars in the bank account and own my house and have a spouse that made a bunch of money and just change that past. I absolutely cannot do that.

But the thing I can do is change the way I look at that past experience.

Instead of looking at it and going, here's a list of the really scary, terrible things that happened to me, I can look at it and say, I figured out a way to move from that rental house into a new rental. I couldn't afford that next rental house. It was way out of my budget, but it was one of the only houses available. And I figured out a way to put food on the table and pay my rent month after month.

I put myself out there and hustled in a way that I didn't even know was possible for myself.

I can lean into the lessons and the wins from this past experience and change the color of the past that I'm running from into something positive. I can take time and write down the things I'm grateful for and the lessons I learned in that past experience.

I am so grateful for one of my clients who allowed me to advertise my services in her Facebook group and on her website because I had nowhere else to go to find clients. I am so grateful to my family who gave me space and emotional support as I built this business. I'm so grateful to my clients who came to me and trusted me to build their websites and create their marketing materials and coach them and do their branding.

I can look for moments of gratitude in the past. I can take the wins and the lessons and the gratitude, and I can use that to color my future.

The vision of the future may not change all that much, but the feeling and the energy around that vision completely changes.

When I shift from, I am avoiding at all costs my ground zero breaking point that I had in 2020, to, I am building upon all of these amazing things that I accomplished and all this gratitude I have for all of those clients in those early days, and I am building upon that to achieve this vision, I've taken the energy from fear to positivity.

When we can raise our energy and our vibration and our vision, we start to shift the way we make decisions as we move towards that future. The future becomes something we're moving towards instead of something we're running away from.

The Trap of Tying Worth to Outcomes

Energy is important when we are in business and making decisions. So many of us make decisions from fear. We make a decision to avoid something we don't want instead of going after what we want.

Most of the time, this is because we make the results of the action mean something.

Instead of having it just be a data point, we say, if I do this thing and it's successful, then I am worthy. If I do this thing and it is not successful, something's wrong with me.

Raise your hand if you've ever done that. If you've ever walked into a pediatrician's office and promoted your services, and when you didn't get a referral, you made it mean something about you. Or when you had a phone call with a potential client and you won the business, how worthy you felt.

That is one of the traps in business. We tie our self-worth to the outcome and the results of the decisions and actions that we make.

Our job is to start to separate those and to simply look at them as data points. I tried this thing, it didn't work. Now I know XYZ as a result of that. Back to the drawing board.

When we make outcomes mean something, we shift into a place of making decisions based out of fear and avoidance instead of going after our big dreams.

When we are so attached to something working out, to avoiding failure or mistakes, we shrink our visions and we shrink our goals. Because it is really difficult to have big goals and big visions and lofty dreams if it's going to require us to really put ourselves out there. More often than not, every time we take an action, we're going to have a lesson on the other side as opposed to an instant success.

At the end of the day, you get what you need or you get what you want. Either way, it is actually a win. But when we get what we need, which is the lesson, the information we need to refine and learn and grow so we can do better next time, instead of taking that as a lesson and a blessing, we put it in the negative column.

One point for having done it wrong.

Keep Going Anyway

I don't think there's some magic solution. I don't think one day we wake up and say, that was so great, look at all those things I tried, they didn't work out, I feel amazing. No, it can suck. It's okay if you go, ugh, that sucks. I put some time and energy into it and it didn't work.

But you can't let that stop you in your tracks. You have to look at the data.

Why didn't people show up? Why didn't that service offering work? I put that group or that summer camp out there and nobody registered. Why? It's not because they don't like you and it's not because you're not worthy. It's because there is a lesson to learn in how you put it out into the world. So you can take that lesson and refine it and try again.

The people who win in business and in life don't let the mistakes and the failures stop them in their tracks. They just keep going. They do it anyway.

I try a lot of things in my business, from free offers to workshops to different services. Most of them don't work. But every single one of those things I put out there teaches me something so that I can refine what I'm doing inside the business, what offer I'm putting out there, what freebie I'm bringing to the table, what my next workshop might be, so that I can do better next time.

I cannot let the failures stop me in my tracks, and I cannot let running from a past color my future.

It's my job and it's your job to look for the wins, to look at the lessons as blessings, so that we can make decisions and take action quickly and not get stuck or beaten down because we've made some outcome mean something about us.

Your worthiness is innate. If you try something and it doesn't work, you're not any less worthy. It's impossible. Anything that you try, running a business, taking an insurance, offering a summer camp, hosting a parent workshop, any of those things, if they do not work out, has nothing to do with you or your worth.

It's simply a data point that you get to take, learn something, apply it, and try again.

You only lose in business if you stop trying. You cannot lose if you keep trying. You cannot lose if you keep taking action. Because the success and the win is not being perfect every time. It's the fact that you keep going and you keep doing it, and there will be wins and there will be losses.

Did you know that the best tennis players in the world win around 54% of their points? That means if you are one of the best tennis players in the world, you lose 46% of the time. One of the best athletes in the world is losing almost as much as they are winning.

The same is true in business.

There's not one business that you walk into or follow on social media that is not failing a large percentage of the time because they are trying things. Advertising campaigns and sales and promos. Hiring new team members. Trying a new offer. They are trying things, and it's not going to always work out.

The thing is, you don't see that because it happens behind the scenes. You might see a promotion or an offer get put out there, a workshop being promoted, but you have no idea how many people signed up for it. We only see the surface level, the tip of the iceberg, of the businesses and the people around us that we compare ourselves to.

They're not always so successful. They just aren't quitting.

Rewrite the Story

My message to you is this. Let's rewrite the way we look at our past experiences. The thing we're running away from, the things that are coloring how we feel about who we are today and the future that we want, let's rewrite them. Let's look for the lessons and the wins and the things that we can be grateful for, because that's going to increase our vibration and our energy around this future we're moving towards so that we are moving in forward momentum instead of running away from something.

Look at one thing you have been holding back doing because you are afraid it's not going to work out the way you want it to.

In business, there is no certainty. Everything that you try is 100% guaranteed to have an uncertain outcome.

The only thing you can control is how you react to that outcome.

If it goes your way, data point. Win. What did I do right? I can repeat that. If it doesn't go the way you wanted it to, data point. Why didn't that work? What can I refine so I can try that again?

Nothing about the outcome of any action you take says anything about who you are, your worthiness, and your right to be in business.

Let's make this a year where we are no longer ruled by fear, but instead trust that we will get what we want or we will get what we need, and either one is a win.