How would you like to be Fearless? And courageous? How would you like to stop being scared or anxious or nervous so much?
It all starts with my basic formula:
Performance = Potential – Interference
What do these words mean? Well, the word, Performance, means- you playing your sport or game or doing anything you want to do well in.
Potential means, what you have the ability to do, right now, today.
Interference means – whatever holds you back or stops you. Summing it up, the whole formula means this:
You will play/perform your best when you get rid of the interference.
Guess what the #1 Interference is with just about everyone on planet earth?
It’s FEAR.
What happens when you are in Fear? You get nervous, tight, tense and stressed. Fear generates negative self talk, and lack of confidence. Fear creates doubt and sometimes it paralyzes you from taking action.
Let’s first take Fear apart. You see, there’s only 2 kinds of fears.
1. Fear of physical harm to our body.
and
2. Fear of feelings.
Yep, that’s what most people are really afraid of – Feelings!
You might say:
“No Craig, I’m afraid of making mistakes. I’m afraid of what people might think about me. I’m afraid that I won’t make it into college. I’m afraid that I won’t get this thing that I want.”
And if we were talking to each other, I would say back,
“What will happen to you if that thing you’re afraid of occurs? Will somebody shoot you? Beat you up? Physically harm you in any way? Will your parents or coach take away your food clothing and shelter?”
Of course not! No physical harm to your body will happen.
Well, what will happen then that you’re afraid of? The only thing that really happens is that you will feel bad!
At the end of the line to all the things we are afraid of, there’s only physical harm to our body or feelings. there’s nothing else!
When I say difficult feelings, I’m talking about feelings like:
- Disappointment,
- Sad,
- Mad,
- Hurt,
- Upset,
- Angry,
- Lonely,
- No Confidence,
- and maybe the toughest one to deal with – Embarrassment.
That’s what you are fearing and mostly afraid of. Those difficult feelings.
So, what if…what if you weren’t afraid of those feelings? Well then, you would be mostly fearless and courageous!
Let’s take “embarrassment” for example. If you experience that, will it harm your body? Are you at risk of really dying of embarrassment? No.
What really happens to you with difficult feelings like embarrassment then?
The only real thing that happens to you, is that some of your own natural chemicals get released inside your body, the chemicals latch onto your muscles, nerves and tissues and that makes you FEEL something.
That’s why they call them Feelings.
For instance, have you ever felt “butterflies in your stomach?” So let me ask you…are there any six-legged winged insects flying around in your belly? NO! Butterflies in your stomach are just a Feeling that happens when your body sends some of your own natural chemicals down into your stomach area. Those chemicals latch onto the stomach tissues and cause you to FEEL the butterflies feeling.
Get this… all feelings happen this way, including embarrassment.
In other words, all feelings are just your own natural chemicals! When you feel something, it’s just chemicals! Nothing more.
You’ve had the feeling of embarrassment before, right? Or maybe sadness or loneliness, right?
Are you feeling embarrassed right now? Are you feeling butterflies in your stomach right now? No? You know why? Because the chemicals in your body that caused those feelings have gone back to where they came from.
This always happens with feelings! The chemicals always go back to where they came from. Feelings don’t last unless….
You keep thinking about the thing that caused the chemicals to be released.
So here’s the bottom line.
Whenever you are experiencing some difficult chemicals giving you a difficult feeling, all you have to do is think about something else OTHER than the thought that caused the chemicals to be released. If you do this, the Chemicals will always go back to where they came from!
And you will be DONE WITH THE FEELING VERY SOON.
And when you’re done with the feeling, you can then easily go on and work toward fixing the thing that went wrong for you in the first place.
That’s why you get the feeling chemicals in the first place! To help you improve your life!
When you practice and get good at what I just taught you, THEN, you stop being afraid of your feelings because you know you can always send the chemicals back to where they came from. You can ALWAYS go from feeling difficult feelings to better feelings this way. It always works! You can do this! The more you work it, the easier it becomes! The easier it becomes, the more fearless you are.
How does this make you fearless? Because you are not afraid of your feelings anymore. That’s 99% of your fears. It’s all just chemicals anyway. Nothing more. I teach my athletes and competitors that whenever they get a fearful thought or feeling to just say to themselves or out loud:
“It’s just chemicals…”
Let’s do this,
Craig