Fear

"You're afraid? So what. Everybody's afraid. Fear is the common ground of humanity. The question you must wrestle to the ground is 'Will I allow my fear to bind me to mediocrity?'"

-- Andy Stanley. The Next Generation Leader.

Not all fear is bad fear. Being too scared to jump off that proverbial bridge with your friends may just be an intelligent act of self-preservation. And being scared to go bungee jumping may prevent you from having a great story to tell, but it will hardly bind you to mediocrity.

No, the type of fear that does that is irrational fear, fear of failure when failure does not mean life or death but just another life experience. Pop guru Wayne Dyer says fear is an acronym for False Expectations Appearing Real. That's the kind of fear that leads right down the road to Mediocreville.

Susan Jeffers offers a great piece of advice right there in the title of her book -- Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway! Don't suppress the fear, don't deny the fear, don't exploit the fear, just feel it. And then do what you set out to do.

And if you fail? Just begin again more intelligently. You now have one more scrap of knowledge -- you know one more thing that doesn't work. But my bet is that your fear has also been reduced. You tried something, it didn't work, but you survived. You failed. No big deal. There's nothing really to be afraid of. Try again.

Fear requires discernment. You must learn to tell the difference between intelligent fear and irrational fear. Let the first be your advisor. Let the latter be vanquished.

So, today, do a Fear Audit. Search your psyche for those irrational fears that have been holding you back, that have bound you to mediocrity and left you with a less fulfilling life and a smaller self. Feel the fear, honor it, and then move forward, move outside your current comfort zone, and beyond your self-imposed limits. See what the world looks like outside the limits of Mediocreville. It may not feel quite as safe, but I guarantee that it will be alot more exciting!