Payoffs, Excuses and Fears

I am committed to living the journey that is my passionate life. I am committed to walking my path and choosing happiness over mere survival mode. I no longer wish to follow the routine that I have become so engrained in and I want to expand my boundaries, actually live my life and help other people do the same. I was able to make this commitment easily once I saw what life would be like when living my passion. I spent time visioning what I see, hear, feel and do while I am on my path. I asked myself several questions;

•Am I living a life of passion right now?
•How far away from that life am I in my current situation?
•How would I see, hear and feel if I were living a life of passion?
•What would be different in my life if I was living a passionate life?
I answered them honestly and began working the answers and visions through my head and made them a part of me as if they were already happening. From there it was a simple choice to move towards my vision.

Once I made the commitment I fell into the trap that many people do and let my guard down. The pressure was off a little as I knew where I wanted to go with my life. I took on the “build it and they will come” attitude. I had seen what life was going to be like, opened my arms and said, “Bring it on”. I didn’t realize it wasn’t going to just show up at my door knocking and begging to come in. Realization of what I was doing was like a V-8 moment. I drew up a task list of steps I needed to take to get to the life I wanted and worked furiously the first week or two. Taking steps helped in so many ways. My attitude at work became a little more positive. I had a mission and nothing was going to stop me. That is, right up until the moment I noticed I was doing nothing again.

I felt I was committed to my goal. I visualized life as if I were living my dream. I had a pretty good idea of the initial steps to make it a reality but something was stopping me. I had to look at my situation again and figure out what was happening.

I felt like a failure and spent more time focused on my current situation than on my vision. After beating myself up pretty good and stopped playing the blame game on myself, I was able to look deeper into what was happening inside of me. I realized that three things were happening. First, I was receiving a payoff with every bad experience that jumped up and slapped me in the face. Second, I could make sound excuses for not stepping forward with my life and I could actually convince myself of their validity. Third, there is a genuine fear in breaking free from the hold my comfort zone has on me.

The first hurdle I found is that there are payoffs in being where I was. I had a job that offered little opportunity to live the passionate life I know I am to live. The drudgery of waking every morning and dragging myself to work was becoming a more difficult battle with every sunrise. My attitude was taking a dive and depression was lurking around the corner waiting to pounce. There were many promises left unfulfilled and I basically sat in a dead-end job with no hope for the future. In fact, I was not sure the next payroll check was going to clear the bank.

So why stay? I had plenty of reason to leave and in reality, no reason to stay. Reality does not always coincide with what is happening in our heads. It took much searching but I finally became aware of the fact that there were powerful things happening to keep me locked in place. Believe it or not, there are some huge payoffs for staying on that dead end path.

•I could go home at night and complain to family and friends about how horrible the conditions were at work and they gave me sympathy. They cared about me and showed it.
•I could go through the day and complete assigned tasks and convince myself how strong I was to rise above the desire to quit and walk away. I was better than the situation.
•I traveled quite a bit at that job and would be gone for as long as two months straight. I would get major pats on the back from co-workers and family for the sacrifice I made. I heard time and time again, “I don’t know how you do it”.
•The paycheck fortunatly did not bounce. I provided for my family and overcame many hurdles.
The list went on and on. The point is this; I had to look at my payoffs for being where I was. They were not pretty and that is okay. I saw those payoffs for what they were; blocks and hurdles that kept me from getting what I so greatly desired; happiness, joy and a passion filled life.

The excuses surfaced next in my soul searching. I was a master at making excuses and giving power to them that gave me reasons to not take the next step. For me the excuses sounded like this:

•It cost too much.
•I won’t be able to make it without my steady paycheck.
•There are too many others doing the same thing and they are probably better at it than me.
•With all the other people doing this, how am I going to ever get any business?
•Who would want to use my services when I can’t even help myself?
•There is no way I can make it as big as I want it to be so why do it if I can’t have it all?
•And there are so many more.
These excuses were powerful, enough so that I believed them myself. While some of these statements hold bits of truth, they are simply hurdles not blockades. I had to get creative with the financial parts, change the way I looked at my competition, actually practice what I preach to my clients and believe I can make it as big as I want. If I were to let any one of these things stop me, I will never be able to see my passion come to life.

The fears came next. The excuses were no longer as strong as I had seen them before. My excuses for staying put were dissolving but the fear jumped in to replace them. It was not a subtle jump, either. I had a legitimate concern for every one of the excuses and knew I had choices to make. I could either cower, staying right where I was or meet the fear head on and reap the benefits.

Now, there are two types of fear that introduce themselves into our lives:

Future Events Appearing Real and Forget Everything And Run

I knew it couldn’t be the forget everything and run as that is reserved for a tornado bearing down on me or a rattlesnake coiled and ready to strike; anything dangerous enough to make me literally forget what I am doing, leave all of my possessions behind and get away from the situation. That left Future Events Appearing Real, or some people refer to this as False Evidence Appearing Real. Obviously that does not work too well; I know this because that is exactly what I had been doing all along by listening to the payoffs and excuses. I let the worse case scenarios running through my head create my reality. It feels very real and is a bit scary but the truth is that it is all a perception. There is only reality in this type of fear if I focus on it and allow it to remain.

I choose to meet it head on and pursue my vision, my passionate life; after all I really was committed to living my passion. I knew I needed a tool to help me stay focused as the fears, payoffs and excuses were still threatening to pop up. I could no longer allow them to continue sabotaging my efforts. A dear friend once told me to ask myself a simple question anytime I faced a decision, “Is this taking me towards or away from my goal?” That question guides me to this day. When I catch myself watching a TV show that I have absolutely no interest in, I ask myself that question, and get up and take another step towards realizing my vision. When I am faced with a decision about an idea I want to work on, I ask myself this question. If the idea moves me further along my path, I run with it. I use this question on myself many times each day and it has been a great tool to help stay on track.