“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” – Joseph Campbell
In absence of clearly defined goals, we truly become victims and loyal to performing daily trivia, until we ultimately become enslaved by it. Do you really know what holds you back from pursuing your dreams and heart desires?
One of my main fears is living an empty life, small life and not leave a legacy in the world. It is the fear of being haunted by the ‘what ifs’ on my death bed. This fear has been the major driving force in my life. I am talking about the fear of not shining my light that God gave me at birth. It is my belief that I was not born to tip-toe through life and walk quietly towards my grave as if I never lived. I was born to express my gifts and talents and definitely not to be held at ransom by fear and hide away from life.
The fear of not wanting to be mediocre and live a small life gives you courage to be fearless towards unnecessary fears. The unnecessary fears I am referring to here are: The fear of being mocked and ridiculed; the fear of being criticised; the fear of being rejected; the fear of being prejudiced against and of course the fear of what people will say when you do something different because we have been socialised to be the same or like others. Most of us prefer to do things that we know are not in alignment with our hearts and desires just to appear cool, relevant and understanding or accommodating.
Remember that when you were born you cried while the world was rejoicing, so, live your life in such a way that when you die the world will cry while you are rejoicing, because you did the best you could. Sadly the vast majority of people don’t rejoice when they die, instead they cry when they die because they are haunted by ‘what ifs’, things they didn’t do, they die wondering how things could have turned out had they tried them out.
Does your fear disgusts you and propel you to move forward or does it hold you back and keep you in a place of discomfort? Think about it.
You can see for yourself that fear is not bad at all, it all depends on what that fear does to you. I am thankful to my fears and I embrace them because if it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be where I am right now.
Veli Ndaba is a professional and motivational speaker, Life-Coach and Neuro Linguistic Programming Practitioner, Author of two books (You Are Born to Win and Your Dream is Calling You), Newspaper Columnist and Entrepreneur. To book him to help you and your team to unleash your greatness, contact him on veli@velindaba.co.za , www.velindaba.co.za and 083 304 9773
