In fear of failure? In fear of success?

It’s taken me a while to get around to writing this post. Classic procrastination of what to write, how to find my voice, who to write the post to and many many more doubts, questions and hesitations.

Two years ago I designed my flagship programme, Your Genius Equation. It's been sitting around on paper, in my mind, in my computer waiting for me to be ready to let the world know what it is I do, jsut waiting to be created. 

To say it's been frustrating at times would be an understatment! In fact many peopel who know me and what I have to offer have been driven half crazy at my lack of action. Lately I was wondering what was actually stopping me from launching the Genius Equation and sharing my work with those who want to follow and experience it.

You see this is not typical of me. When I started working at the University of Cambridge I created over 30 courses in 6 months and delivered them to over 1200 people in that time. I went on to create a team that served every dicipline and department in the Unversity, a minor audience of 10,000!

Within 3 years I had created a reputation for creatign things noone thought possible and was sought after by other Universities and organisations to impliment the smae sort of programmes and change for them. That was my first job after completing my PhD in Physics and my last J.O.B before I made the leap form employee to Entrepreneur!  

Not exactly the profile of someone who is not capable is it?! With over 10,000 hours of coaching, training design and delivery, and putting on events that change lives I know I have a lot to offer those who resonate with me and what I can assist them to create for themselves. 

So what's been holding me back?
Why have I been hiding all this time? 
Why might you be hiding you Genius right now?

The answer …….and i’d be willing to bet that this has happened to you at some point, it may be happening right now in fact!….was that I was afraid!

Now I know what you’re thinking… afraid of the judgement from others, afraid of being vulnerable, afraid of criticism, afraid of not beign good enough, affraid of ….. you fill in the blanks.

In fact what I realised I was afraid of was in fact slightly paradoxical… I was afraid of both failure and success.

Now let me break that down a little … fear of failure: my business, my courses, my programmes are created from everything I have learnt, studied, practiced, developed to date and it will evolve as I learn and grow as a person through interactions I have with the words and experiences of others.

It is a creation from my heart and my gift to those who can and wish to benefit from living the life they dream of, doing the work they love and experiencing the happiness, freedom and connection that goes with truly living as you.

So what if no one wants to know? What if I put it out there and it resonates with no-one? 

Arghhhh first level of procrastination, hesitation, threat and fear!

Then you become aware of all the other peole doing pretty much what you're doing who are further down the road. They already have the audience, they know how to build and scale a busienss, how to market themselves, they have a bigger budget, a wider reach, they are more establised than me ...... Arghhhhhh the voices are deafining!!! 

Thing is the minute you get clear on what YOU do, who you do it for and WHY you do it all that melts into insignificance because NOONE is YOU! That's what makes you stand out from the crowd ... pure and simple being you! 

I talk more about exactly what that's about and how to overcome it in my post about Bursting Bubbles of Baloney!  

So now lets take the opposite…… fear of success.

Lets just say that I put what I have to offer out there and let people know it exists – an invitation to come experience something new to create a busieness, to change your life to create your legacy so you can live it now. 

Lets say that you love it, in fact that lots of people love it and it starts to change the way I live my life taking me away from the carefully designed rhythm I have chosen because I am at my best when living that way. There you go – fear of success.

Brene Brown (someone who’s work resonates with me) talked about how she realised she had been playing just small enough to stay under the radar, that was until her first TED talk on vulnerability went viral (if you’ve never watched it go take a look and if you have then have another look anyway!).

The fear of success has as much power as the fear of failure and possibly more power to prevent us from achieving what we are truly capable of.

So how did I get past it? How come my programmes and even this post even exists?

Well to be honest I felt pretty frustrated at feeling like I wasn’t progressing with the business, like I wasn’t practicing what I preach, that I wasn’t living my life full out.

You see I really believe in what I do, in what I’ve created. This might sound a bit esoteric (and that’s a whole other blog post) but it’s what I was born to do, my purpose, its what drives, its what I love and know from friends and clients that what I do really works for people so why would I want to hide that?

So here it is… another blog post and one of many more to come!

Your turn now what are you avoiding because of fear?

What is the fear really about?

Failure? Success? Something completely different?

I’d love to hear your thoughts, fears and what you’re not doing that you’d like to so pop your comments below. 

#employeetoentrepreneur 

#stoworkingstartliving

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