Unique Results Blog

Don’t Think, FEEL!

When I ask people what they would love to achieve, REALLY love to achieve or to DREAM of how they wish to be, or wish to feel they usually smile.

If we ask ourselves the questions ‘Who do I want to be? What do I want to do? What do I want to have? If I knew I could not fail’ we should get excited, almost childlike in our levels of unbounded enthusiasm!

You see, when you were young you believed anything was possible. If you could dream it, it could become real. You allowed yourself to daydream and fantasise about the future and what it may hold and your outlook would have been positive and optimistic (if we go back far enough!). It’s only as we grow older and sometimes have the stuffing knocked out of us and maybe start to accept certain limitations that we self-censor our expectations and dreams.

It’s fun to dream. It’s fun to visualise. It’s fun to set big, grand and compelling goals. The problem for most is what happens next. We THINK. Now, thinking is not a bad thing, in fact it’s a very good, almost essential thing. But most of us see thinking as ‘getting realistic’ or more accurately ‘getting negative’ and there is a difference!

The initial stages of goal setting are all about the big picture, the exciting, compelling future you want to create or attract. What gets in the way? usually FEAR of FAILURE or to be more honest FEAR of EMBARRASSMENT or SHAME or RIDICULE. You see, I think this whole fear of failure concept is a big red herring! Most people would happily fail time and time again until they succeeded if no one was watching or aware that they were even trying!

What we really start to think is ‘What will people think and say if they hear that I want to better myself?’ ‘Will they feel I am making a judgement call on their circumstances?’ and most importantly ‘What will they say if I fail and how will that make me feel?’

Playing small is easy. 95% of people do it everyday. It takes courage to stand up and be prepared to stand out and possibly fall flat on your face and fail. Just look at the way the press (and vast numbers of the public) react when someone prominent f**ks up in a big way! A few sporting examples spring to mind 1) Paula Radcliffe pulling out of the Marathon in the Athens Olympics 2004. 2) Amir Khan getting knocked out within 90secs against Breidis Prescott. 3) David Beckham getting sent off in the World Cup 1998 in the game that saw England leave the tournament.

In pubs, cafes and workplaces up and down the country you would have seen countless unfit, untrained, overweight and unmotivated individuals reflecting and dissecting these FAILURES. I heard people moaning about Paula ‘giving up’ David being ‘selfish’ and Amir being ‘finished and washed up’ in his early twenties!

It is commonly known as ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’ wait till someone demonstrates the courage and sheer cheek to strive for the best they can be and just wait for the opportune moment to chop them down. Bring them down a peg or two and then feel a bit more comfortable with your own existence.

The take away message is this. Get comfortable with upsetting a few people, get comfortable with temporary failure, get comfortable with the fact that some will try and talk you out of aiming high. Most importantly get comfortable with setting goals that make you nervous and that if you really ‘THOUGHT’ about them, chances are you would probably talk yourself out of them.

As a mentor of mine says ‘Dare to dream & make each day an epic adventure!’

Yours in health,

James St Pierre