Your fear comes from something you might know
Mar 10, 2024
Reading the 5 AM Club by Robin Sharma really got me thinking about why up until the last couple of years of the Pandemic of 2020 I was the kind of person who liked to sleep in.
I realize that growing up, my mom liked to sleep in. She worked nights, and so sleeping in was something we did as kids. One might defend us as night owls, that is, we get our best work done at night. But truly, what work do you have as kids? Let’s face it, we stayed up too late and therefore got up late.
Fast forward into adulthood, I am now realizing that I have a life after I leave this earth to “sleep” all I want, the way nature intended for any mortal human being.
Yes, we need sleep. Maybe at an older age, I started to determine that there are so many things I want to do, and sleeping, for me, is a waste of time. Yes, you need to sleep. But technically, you can be just as productive with 7 hours of sleep as you can with 10.
This brings me to the whole subject of FEAR.
I was the type of person who “liked to sleep in”. This is what I told myself. This was not the fear. But this is something I told myself and therefore was.
How many of us tell ourselves we are a certain type of person? How many of us tell ourselves things that are not actually factual, but things we have just come up with?
There are so many people who might say they do not have enough time to start something new, like waking up at 5 am to fit more into a day, for instance. Or in my case for many years, that I was not a “morning person”. But this thought can be changed at any time. For instance, if someone paid me a million dollars to wake up at 5 am for a whole year, I think I might be that person to all of a sudden change. Wouldn’t you?
The reason many people don’t think twice about coming up with reasons not to do certain things is fear.
Instead of admitting fear of failure, or fear of making a mistake, it is easier to say you have no time, isn’t it?
It’s the fight or flight part of the human condition that causes us to just say you have no time than it is to say you are afraid to try. It is easier to “fly” than it is to “fight”.
I knew that failing at getting up at 5 am was going to make me feel uncomfortable. So it is easier to say that I am not a morning person than it is to work on something that will give me 2-3 hours of my life back to me literally, PER DAY, for the rest of my life.
2 hours a day, for another 47 years, is 4 years added back to my life, because I faced the discomfort or fear of changing who I was. That is 4 extra years that I can be doing anything else I love, all because I chose discomfort for a while, instead of fleeing it.
What are you afraid of? What is holding you back from doing and becoming?