How to Use Your Fear to Seize Powerful Opportunities

This post, “How to Use Your Fear to Seize Powerful Opportunities”, is a sequel to “Do You Respect Your Opportunities?“.

When an opportunity isn’t just any old opportunity, but is actually your moment, you might not realize it.

You might not see the life-changing qualities that this opportunity is offering you.

But even when you don’t see it, there is a part of you that gets excited. It knows that this is the event separating you from what you have now and what you want to have one day.

This part of you starts to paint pictures in your mind of what your success is going to look like after you live in this moment.

And, if you’re being honest, this part of you feels like this is inevitable. Like this was always the necessary step you needed to take to get what you want.

This part of you comes with the tiniest voice that tells you that “you can do this”—even if you think you can’t.

Even if you think someone’s asking too much or thinking too highly of you.

This is the part of you that releases butterflies in your belly.

Even if you think it’s too hard of a task.

This is the part that’s ready to start celebrating once it feels the opportunity coming towards you.

Even when you know that the fact that you’re even considering this right now is crazy because it’s way too ambitious.

Still, this is the part of you that you should listen to.

Even if your fear is louder.

Because this is the part of you that’s going to make sure you ride this until the wheels fall off and not just until you’re out of gas.

It’s the part of you that bets on you—and mama does not make bad bets.

But it’s also the part of you that you can’t hear when you’re listening to other people’s fears or watching other people fail and expect yourself to fail like they’re failing.

You should listen carefully though, because this part of you knows when it’s your moment.

Your moment.

Do you know what that looks like?

Do you know what that feels like?

I’ll tell you what: if you’re not used to seizing your moment, then you might not even feel those butterflies or hear the voice that tells you that you can do this.

You may only feel paralyzing fear—even if only for a second—when your moment pulls up on you.

Instead of tuning in to the voice that believes in you, you think about how you could lose everything. You listen to fear.

Instead of celebrating the new life ahead, you surrender to the panic of failing. You live in fear.

But you have nothing to fear.

When you embrace your moment, you won’t fail.

You can’t fail.

Because when it’s your moment, the only way to fail is by doing nothing at all.

You fail by watching your moment pass you by and telling yourself that it wasn’t meant to be.

You fail by watching other people take their moments by the horns, while doing nothing with your moment, and asking yourself why big things aren’t happening for you.

You might even start giving so little attention to your moments that your moments stop coming.

That’s failure.

Failure isn’t living in your moment and not executing everything perfectly.

Your moment doesn’t require your perfection.

Failure isn’t “putting yourself out there” and not getting the response you want.

Failure is hiding your gifts for years and years without giving them a chance to grow.

Failure isn’t saying the wrong thing.

Failure is remaining silent when you’re called upon to speak.

But you’re probably not hearing me because you still think that making a mistake is the same thing as failing.

Read that again. Out loud.

We make mistakes all day, every day. But we aren’t always given a chance to fail.

However, if you still believe that “messing up” or “getting it wrong” is failing, then think about how failure can be a good thing for you.

When you fail small, you can win big. So fail when no one’s watching you and then win while everyone is staring at you.

Go ahead and fail early. Learn why you failed. Learn how you failed. Don’t fail like that again.

Because if you fail right, you won’t fail twice.

But if you’re still afraid to fail, if the fear of failing stops you, then stay where you are.

You’re not ready to win.

Because you will fail before you win. And you will make a lot of mistakes before you fail. And you will make more mistakes even after you fail.

But if you’re afraid of mistakes and failure, then you are absolutely afraid of winning.

Does that sound like a mantra you want to recite everyday?

“I am afraid of winning.”

And the idea of winning more than once probably isn’t even occurring to you.

You don’t want to believe you’re that person.

You don’t want to be that person.

That tiny voice inside of you refuses to believe you’re that person.

Funniest part is, every day that you walk away from your moment—from your chance—you fail.

But you’re not a failure. You’re scared.

And you’re scared because you let fear control you instead of controlling your fear.

You can use fear to get shit done. To get your shit done.

You have to reposition your fear.

Move your fear from in front of you to behind you. Move your fear out of your way and use it as a force to push you forward.

How do you do that? Learn to fear something else.

Instead of fearing what happens if you upload that Youtube video, fear watching someone else become successful with your idea. Or, fear the years of recurring thoughts that come from the regret of never having done it.

Instead of fearing what happens if you take that leap into a new career, fear the years you’ll be unhappy knowing there’s something out there that you really want to do. And fear the disappointment you will live with for not taking a chance on you.

Instead of fearing taking the stage and being disliked or booed, fear the possibility of losing your touch and never being able to tell your story again.

Most of all, fear losing the opportunity to try.

If your fear has been building up for this long—if you’ve been feeding it your self-doubt and self-fulfilling prophecies all of this time—then your fear is probably a strong enough beast to push you in any direction.

And if you already let your fear tell you what to and what not to do, how about you let it give you new marching orders?

Use your fear to push you forwards instead of backwards.

Use your fear to strengthen the part of you that tells you to go for it before you’ve even figured out a plan to make it happen—the part of you that knows good and damn well that you can do this well if you just lean into it.

Can you imagine combining those two forces?

Don’t let fear force you to miss your moment.

Your moment might not come back.