Nothing Matters:
Last week my awesome business partner, Ryan Colby and I were fortunate enough to navigate and run the health and fitness product launch of 2013.
I literally had to manage over 100 friends and businesses while Ryan took care of technology and helped the customer service team as thousands of new fans
and customers came flooding in.
Although it was extremely exciting and rewarding, it was also VERY stressful.
I experienced a roller coaster of emotions that included an unusually high amount of anxiety, worry, and fear.
– What if something goes wrong?
– What if our site crashes?
– What if people don’t respond positively to my content?
– What if my friends and business partners decide not to support me?
– What if I fail and people make fun of me?
What if? What if? What if?!?!
Of course, most of these thoughts and feelings are natural part of life for many of us.
We all have feelings of worry and anxiety about things: Fear of loss. Fear of failure. Fear of pain.
And if we’re not careful, it can paralyze us mentally and physically.
Author, Max Lucado, reminded me of this during our big launch last week when I was reading his book.
He wrote…
– The German word for worry means “to strangle.”
– The Greek word means “to divide the mind.”
– Worry is a noose around our neck.
– It’s a distraction of the mind.
Oh boy, how I could relate to these all of these feelings.
Fortunately, God has blessed me with wonderful friends and mentors to help guide and counsel me when these feelings of doubt creep in and create irrational thoughts.
I had a conversation with my coach, Craig Ballantyne about it. He reminded me of 3 ways to deal with the fear of failing, and failure itself.
#1: Release It.
Whenever we experience any type of worry or anxiety, it’s typically because we
want a situation in our life to be different than it is…
…But we usually have NO control over it, so these feelings are unfounded and a
waste of time and energy. This is when we need to sit back, relax, take a few deep
breaths, and “release it’.
Release it to the universe. Release it to the world. Release it to God. Whatever floats
your boat, but learn to LET IT GO.
#2: Remember that NOTHING matters.
I know this may sound awkward at first, but your successes and failures really don’t
matter. My successes and failures really don’t matter.
In fact, NOTHING matters.
Even though we took our product all the way to #4 on the Online Best Seller’s List and
ran the biggest fitness product release of the year last week…
…Next week it will be somebody or something else and we’ll be long forgotten.
So whether we succeeded or failed miserably really didn’t matter, because we’re merely
seconds in the clock that’s called time.
When you remember that NOTHING matters in the grand scheme of things, it makes all your worries and anxieties seem futile.
#3: Refocus.
Like Max wrote above, worry means to “divide the mind”.
When we experience feelings of worry and anxiety it’s because we’re not in control of our thoughts. Always remember Proverbs 4:22, “Be careful what you think, because your thoughts run your life.”
During stressful times, negative and irrational thoughts will consume you if you’re not
careful. This is when we need to refocus our thoughts on something positive.
Remember that if you wake up and can turn on running water, flush a toilet and put food your mouth — then you have more than two thirds of the world. In other words, you’re rich whether you realize it or not.
Focus your thoughts on all the positive things in your life and I can guarantee they’ll
outweigh your stress at least ten to one.
I have “trigger” words and positive affirmations that I use to keep my head in the right
spot and control my thoughts. This is a great way to automatically refocus your mind on what really matters.
Last week, when I was “freaking out,” Craig reminded of these 3 tricks, and it immediately changed my thinking and put me in a MUCH healthier spot.
And even though it ended up being the most successful week of my entire career…it was also a great reminder, NOTHING really matters 🙂
Ryan and I will raise our glasses to celebrate our success, it’s really just a “flash in the pan” moment that will quickly be long forgotten.
The next time you’re feeling an unusually high amount of anxiety about something important in your life, just remember these 3 Jedi Mind Tricks to get your head in the
right spot.
The positive outcomes are always worth the effort.
Keep going strong.
Your friend and coach,
Shaun
THANKS!!! I needed that:-)