Fear

What's Stopping You?

Originally posted on December 30, 2015.
​I’m sitting here creating a new youth talk and inside of that I found myself struggling with what to write. I ask myself what do I have to offer that would making a difference with youth. I noticed myself going down this rabbit hole of “I’m not good enough”. It’s so funny how quick I dive down that hole and hide out in the “I’m not good enough” head-space. Hey it’s comfy down here, I have everything thing I need to survive. I noticed as well that there is noting to prove down here. I have it that I can’t lose if I hide out in I’m not good enough. However I am only fooling myself. There is lots to loose, I never reach my goals and I never make the difference I am out to make.

I was sitting here this morning trying to figure out why the “I’m not good enough” conversation in my head has such a grip on and it hit me. It has a grip on me because I choose to let it have a grip on me. I saw that it was an old conversation and it wasn’t even me that said it. It was said to me by someone who I looked to for guidance and acceptance at a very young and impressionable age. So I decided that it must be true. I wasn’t good enough because it seemed to fit. Well it must be true if someone I look up to said it. Well that is the little boy conversation that is in my head and I lived my life striving to be good enough. It’s funny how I never achieved enough and I say in my head that it’s because I’m not good enough. I can give you a ton of examples. I even try to please everyone because if I was good enough everyone would like me. It’s funny how the mind works and will rationalize the thoughts we think.

I also saw that I never really try too hard because I never wanted to fail and prove I’m not good enough. I’d put in the effort and all, but I wouldn’t give the 100% effort encase I failed. I had it that if I give 100% and I failed, then it must be true that I am not good enough and that would be the proof. It’s funny when I think how fearful I am to fail. I am truly afraid to fail because I have it be something fundamental about me. I also get that failure is just a conversation in my head and that it has nothing to do with me as a person unless I choose to believe that. I know there is no failure unless I stop trying. I am choosing to giving up the conversation that I am a failure. I am taking on playing 100% and it’s OK if I fail because it has nothing to do with me(John Westhaver) or me being good enough. I am choosing to to put all those dis-empowering conversations in head aside. I’m giving myself the space and freedom to mess-up and that there is no failure. Out of this I am creating a new talk titled “What’s Stopping You?”.
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Do you struggle with the fear of failure? What are you making it mean about you? Where are you letting it hold you back? What would be possible if you couldn’t fail?