Resolve to Build a Business: Leave the F.U.D. in 2011

What does the new year hold for you? Are you waiting — holding your breath — looking for the courage to start a new business or launch a new idea?

Does your entire body ache for a new direction, but your brain seems paralyzed to act?  Are you dreaming of a new career, a new future, a new lifestyle, but you can’t quite get your own cynical self on board?

You are not alone.

Fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) are strong emotions that often get the better of us.  And why not? When mastodons and saber-toothed tigers lurked outside our cave doors, a good dose of caution was called for.  But its time to come out of your cave.

Fear is an emotion that serves us best as we approach a rocky cliff or a hot stove.  It is not an emotion that should enter our financial life, our career, or our human relationships.  Fear is an emotion that holds us back at times when we really want — need — to move forward.  Set Fear aside.  Kick it out of your home.  Banish it from your workspace. Resolve not to allow Fear to become part of the fabric of your decision-making.

Next, look Uncertainty in the eye and understand it for what it really is.  Uncertainty is the flip side of Anticipation.  They are two sides of the same coin called the Future.  We can acknowledge that the Future is unknown and unknowable.  But then we must choose to flip the coin — will we approach the future with Anticipation or with Uncertainty.  I’ll take Anticipation every day.  So turn the coin over, then nail it to the desk.  Force Uncertainty to hide its head in shame while you enjoy the breathless Anticipation of what the future holds for you.

Finally, conquer Doubt by knowing that you are in control of your life.  Just as simply as you decided what clothes to wear, you can make the necessary decisions in life to go where ever your dreams lead you.  There is no room for doubt — and no need for it.  Advancing Confidently toward a goal does not mean that you arrive instantly or unscathed, it means that each day you make a few decisions that bring the goal closer. There is no doubt that you can do that.  It is the human condition to build visions from reality and reality from visions. Just as your sleeping dreams are reflections of real events or people, your waking dreams are also just different combinations of the reality in which you already live.  Take Confidence in the fact that everything you need, everything you are, is already sufficient to make those dreams come to life.  With that kind of Confidence in mind, Doubt begins to melt away.

So as the new year approaches us, resolve with me to make it the year that you live the change – and begin to change your life.

In the new year, I hope you will will live as if you cannot fail. Take each action as if it’s results were already known to you.  Do not act in half-measures, because half-measures bring  no results — and your results are already whole and complete, waiting for you to act wholly and completely.

In the new year, allow your waking dreams to be as wild and free as if you were asleep. Let your imagination leap to points that are not connected by reason or logic.  Then gather these points around you and build your waking reality on their foundation.

In the new year, know that you are enough. Allow your consciousness to see what is already right in front of you and awaken to the fact that you already have everything you need to make the change you want.  Know that your dreams and your reality are, in fact, made of the same stuff.

In the new year, align your logic and your emotion. Find the common ground between the creative and imaginative dreamer and the thoughtful, planning builder.   Bring both sides of you to bear by focusing not on what you would have, but on what you would create.  Allow the spark of your dream to burst into a bonfire so bright that your conscious brain can’t help but take notice.  You will find that its light will easily illuminate the necessary next step.

In the new year, take action: for seeing the next step and taking the next step are still two very different things.  Just as the slightest action of touch produces a cascade of feeling and the simple act of looking produces boundless sight, so too the smallest step in the right direction can reveal more opportunity and more reward than you can ever imagine from your current perch.  And if the future is not clear after one small step, resolve to take another until it is.

In the new year, let your actions be without Fear Uncertainty or Doubt.

Wishing you boundless Surety, Anticipation and Confidence… in the new year and always.

David Worrell