James Smith’s Info Serv

“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” Dale Carnegie Doubt. Everyone suffers from it now and then. I do, regularly! “They” say it is inherent to me being a Pisces, but I feel that is a cheap excuse and absolutely no justification. Nevertheless, this is what happens: we think we are on the right track. We KNOW it. Everything goes great. We’ve got a goal; we’ve got a vision. And then………………we start to ask ourselves those lovely “what if…..?”-questions, or come up with the “just suppose…..”-statements, or the “maybe I should…..”-assumptions. Suddenly we feel our spirits sink, and wonder if our dreams will ever come true. We stop in our tracks and start spinning in vicious circles; our goals and visions seem miles away………

The problem is the same as with fear (see several of my other articles): we have certain thoughts about our perceived future that make us feel doubtful. We fear the consequences of our actions (what might other people think?), fear the consequences of not getting what we put out for (just suppose it all goes wrong?), or fear the consequences of actually getting what we want. The last one is usually described as “fear of success”. For instance: if I have a dream of becoming an international coach, lecturing and teaching all over the world –quite a realistic dream, I might add- I have to face the fact that people may not like what I say, or will criticise me. That actual thought, that fear, may keep me from pursuing my dream, even though I may not be consciously aware of the fear-thought!

Usually we are not aware of the actual thought that makes us doubt what we are doing or pursuing. We “just” feel doubtful, and don’t question the origin and/or validity of that doubtful thought. BUT, if we are able to bring the causing thought of our feelings of doubt to the surface, we can then assess it, and ask ourselves if that thought is actually valid. If not, we can then discard it straight away. It is the process of getting the thought that makes you feel negative OUT of your subconscious mind INTO your conscious mind, and then looking at it from an observer standpoint. The very fact of bringing your subconscious programme into your conscious awareness gives us back control, instead of letting us be the victim of our feelings. Very often we can come to the conclusion that what made us feel negative has really no “weight”; it was nothing important, and we can feel good (or at least better) again and pursue our goal.

Set a Landmarc:

Firstly: Keep firm track of where you are headed. Always hold on to your goals as long as they serve you. Stay as focused as you can. Secondly: be aware of your feelings when heading towards your future. Your emotions are your emotional guidance system, and will always tell you how you are doing on a “feeling” basis. Thirdly: When you feel fear or doubt coming up, ask yourself “why am I feeling this? What am I afraid of?” Keep asking “why”, until you sense you have answered the question sufficiently, until you hit the “core belief”. Lastly: Assess the validity of the thought that actually made you feel doubtful. If it hasn’t got validity, or if your goal is worth more, consciously decide to let that fearful thought go, and commit to manifesting your goal. Don’t suppress the doubtful thought; that is useless. You will have to accept that you have been feeling the way you have been feeling, but can THEN make the choice to feel differently from that point forward.

In the unlikely case that you conclude that your doubtful thought HAS validity –why would you want to do that anyway?? You were going for something else, weren’t you??-, then a limiting belief may be in the way, that can easily and effortlessly be resolved through coaching and NLP. I’ll take about that topic in another article.

Fears and doubts are nothing more that thoughts about the future, based upon experiences in the past. If my beautiful daughter Kyara, after falling down for the 30th time when learning to walk, had decided at one point: “that’s it! I’ll never be a walker!”, she wouldn’t be running the way she does now. She did not let her “stuff” from the past determine her future. I urge you to do the same! Keep moving forward!!

Always create excellence!

Keywords: inspiration, motivation, goal setting, NLP, coaching, life, business, focus, purpose, mentor, secret, law of attraction, cause and effect

About the Author
Marc DeBruin
marc [Email address: marc #AT# landmarc.info - replace #AT# with @ ]
Marc is a certified life/business coach, master NLP Practitioner on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia. He specialises in restoring people’s health, and coaching professionals and small business owners at critical junctions in their careers and/or lives, so they can move to the “next level”.