Day 19 -21 (includes the weekend review time)

Today, we’re drilling down to observe how to overcome fears of failure and success.  Both of these fears can paralyze one from taking any action at all, and of course, success in anything is tied up in taking massive action.

In order to eliminate fears, we must change our mental rules. First, what must happen for you to feel successful and to feel like a failure? Define specifically what that looks like for you. Then, you must create new definitions for what has to happen for you to feel successful and to feel like a failure.  Developing new rules by which you can happily achieve your goals, well, that really can make for a more satisfying life.

For example, at the beginning of this lesson, my old definition of success was:
I wanted to achieve reasonable goals by accomplishing several things each day directly related to financial gain. I wanted time left over for hobbies, play and other areas of endeavor.  Achieving that felt like success to me. Your definition is bound to be different, but the idea is to identify where you are NOW. make success achievable so it can easily be attained.

To feel like a failure, my definition was:
I let things go that I know are good for me. That includes not following through on actions that are directly connected to success.

Where did our rules come from? Who designed the success and failure rules we live by? Are they empowering or dis-empowering? Can they be improved?

I didn’t think my old rules were wrong.. just maybe not complete.

So, here’s my new definition of success:
To live in a forward posture, learn and grow with expectancy and curiosity. To Boldly, confidently experience my life so that no matter what happens, I will be able, to the best of my ability,  choose my attitude and my desired outcome, without fear.

And my new definition of failure:
To live in fear with no hope of improvement. But even then, I’d learn something, so then it wouldn’t really be failure, would it?

Huge difference! Changing those definitions have given me ways to be far more successful, more often, and basically eliminate failure.

Let’s look at taking a core fear and getting rid of it. This is called the “erasure technique” and it really blew my mind! I don’t know if you’re like me, but I’ve had several events in my life with strong negative emotions connected to them. From time to time, they just run themselves like a movie and the same angry, sad, fearful, emotions come up again. I have tried various techniques to try and diffuse them (and it has helped quite a bit), but I wanted to see if I could get even more leverage.

OK, are you ready? Here’s the technique. Stand up tall and straight, feeling really great.  Say “boom” or “great” or some other word to anchor the feeling. Now, watch the memory of some old, big mistake you made. Pick a really big one!  Run it forward, but at a distance like you’re in the audience watching. Now run it backwards faster and faster. Repeat it several times, but add clown suits, costumes, funny voices, big ears, just make it silly. Run it back and forth in your mind until you actually smile when you think about this. What you’ve just done is break up the old pattern, much like scratching a record until it can’t play anymore.

Think about the pain connected to not being free of these old memories and get yourself enough leverage to take the time to do this. You can do this technique for each one.

The second part of today’s lesson had to do with rejection. Many people have allowed rejection to influence their lives. Tony talks about making similar changes when dealing with this emotion as when dealing with success and failure.

1).   Decide that rejection will not control your life.

2).   Get leverage by understanding the price you pay if you fear rejection. Also, what are all the benefits for not being affected by rejection.

Create a new set of rules for rejection. Learn that no matter what someone says or how they respond, it may be their issue. Massive rejection is really one of the keys to success. As you get stronger, sometimes the old friendships and associations you had may drift away. The dynamic changes you are adopting causes you to attract in new friends that reflect the new values you are developing. Condition yourself to feel strong when you get rejected. Create helpful anchors to control access to the strength you wish to feel.

Assignment:

Write down 2 failure and 2 rejection events.

What benefits were there from those 4 experiences?

Now, use the erasure technique to change them.

Don’t forget to also write down three money making ideas. Grow your mental portfolio for your future.

I’d love to hear from you about the results or questions you might have.

See you for day 22 (two days off for review and subliminal tapes or CDs if you have them).

And, of course, onward!