Hi Donna, my Fairy Godmother

Thank you to you and Michelle, the DreamCatcher, for the webseminar, it was truly magical and inspirational. It’s not easy to open up to people, especially with intimate things like dreams. I did not feel judged and more than ever feel that my dreams and goals are relevant and achievable.

Ever since I attended the Dream Mapping and Goal Setting workshop, I’ve been noticing that the good/positive is on my side and anything is possible. I’ve found out that if I truly ask with faith then my request is granted, it’s fantastic! The other day I was short on a funds to complete a home project, I let go of the worry and doubt and asked ‘with all of my being’ and in two days time I had more than I asked! Im still not sure how it works but I know it works and abundance is alive and everywhere!

Im ready and rearing to take AGGRESSIVE ACTION on my dreams and goals…

Lately, I’m less fearful and more faithful – I believe that’s the reason for my assertiveness when I recently spoke with my bosses at my job. I know that I’ll resign soon, just not sure when – is that strange? The fear of the unknown is still with me but as I said I would like to leave my comfort zone and need your help and support to do that please – I know that is why I joined the community, to have that ongoing help and support.

With that said, please prepare those spring boards – my launch time to the sky is here!

Regards
Oageng – A daring dreamer

One of my key intentions for 2010 is…

“to live and act out of a place of faith rather than fear”

In January this was hard, but at the end of January some magic and miracles occurred in my life that have now shifted me into a place deep faith.  It is a feeling of trusting that life is on my side and having the courage to believe that EVERYTHING (and I mean everything) that happens serves my life for the best.

I am finding that as I act out of this place of faith my life becomes magical, playful and fun…. Wheeeeuw!  How refreshing!

Read here about how to overcome your fears

So I urge you to use this last week in February to develop your faith – and I don’t mean only religion – I mean the simple belief, trust and knowing that everything is going to be okay.

Have faith!

1.    It is possible to live your dreams – no matter how wild, strange or unrealistic it initially seems. You can do anything.

2.    You are never given a dream or vision that you can’t achieve – if you can see it in your mind’s eye then you can have it, be it or do it.

3.    The first step is always the hardest, it is that leap of faith and then the net appears and the momentum of living your dreams begins.

4.    Listen to your body and your emotions, they are a clear indication of whether you are on the right path for you or not.  If you are continuously getting sick or feeling negative and down, it is your body’s way of telling you to make changes in your life.

5.    The fear never goes away.  Living an extraordinary life is about conquering the new fears as they come up.

6.    When you get an ANSWER from the Universe – take ACTION.   Actions are most effective when they follow an answer.

7.    Be brave enough to be your Authentic Self – when you express who you are and express your unique brand of genius and your incredible gifts that you have brought to the world, then the world comes up to meet you with opportunity.

8.    That having a few key people around who support your BIG dreams is so important during the times when you are experiencing self doubt.

9.    Take time in your day to connect to spirit – to connect to that which is ALL and EVERYTHING.

10.    The quality of your life is based on the quality of the questions that you ask.  Ask good questions and the universe will ALWAYS provide the answers.

11.    That life is about having fun. It is about learning how to play again and rediscovering the magic, which we all knew and experienced in our childhoods but lost somewhere along the way as we grew up.

12.    Ask daily, “how can I serve today?”

13.    If it is not fun, stop doing it!

14.    Be grateful for everything that you have and for everything that you are creating.

What are some of your lessons that you have learned?

Please comment on your lessons below…

Everywhere you go you can’t escape the pervasive story about the credit crunch and economic crisis.  If it is not the TV blabbing about economic doom-and-gloom, then it is probably your friend or colleague in the cubicle next to you moaning about money.

My concern as a Fairy Godmother around this ‘recession’ mentality is that stories of economic crisis are disempowering stories, negative stories that increase personal stress, anxiety, fear and decrease your ability to be empowered and manifest and create your dream life.

Here are 5 reasons why you should drop the ‘recession’ mentality.

1.    It is just a Story and Stories Create Your Life

Whatever stories you fill your mind with will quickly become your reality.  Do you really want to be in poverty, misery and have to scrimp and save for the next decade?  No?
Well then STOP filling your head with stories about the economic crisis.  Stop listening to the media and most importantly stop talking to friends about it.  Get responsible and create another EMPOWERING story.

(See previous blog post on How to Create empowering Stories)

2.    There are Two Economies – yours and the Macro-Economy

Yes, the Macro-economy may be experiencing a slow down, however at this time there are still people making millions of dollars and some are making more money than ever before.  The difference between these people and the majority are that they realise that there are TWO economies – YOUR Economy and your country or world economy i.e. the macro-economy.  As an individual there is not much you can do about the world economy but there is a HUGE amount you can do to influence your own personal bank balance.

When the ‘crisis’ began, I realised that I needed to make up an empowering story that would influence my personal economy. My Fairy Godmother story about the current situation is that “in times of crisis people need inspiration, so now is the time for my business to boom.” Guess what?  Business is booming for me!
And because I am aware of this story doing the rounds called ‘economic crisis’, I have started an early bird special on my workshops, where if people book and pay early they get a good discount and those offers are being snapped up. I am now filling up my workshops and am sold out four weeks in advance!  I have created my own booming economy despite the macro conditions.

3.    Look for Opportunities

Warren Buffet has a quote “When everyone is greedy be fearful and when everyone is fearful, be greedy”. People in the marketplace are fearful, so now is the perfect time to capitalize on opportunities that others are too fearful to take.

A friend of mine in New York who runs www.urbandaddy.com is using this time as an opportunity. He has gone on a massive PR campaign and instead of firing, he is hiring.  Why? He chuckled when he told me that he is now able to hire top MBA talent at a fraction of their previous cost.  The result is his business is booming.

The courageous will prosper and thrive. So get courageous, do things differently to the majority.  Will it take something?  Certainly, but the rewards will be huge. Now is the time.

4.    Fear doesn’t create anything

Creation as an energy form is expansive and growing. Fear as an energy type contracts and debilitates.  When you are fearful you don’t take action in your life and live in a constant state of negativity and mediocrity.  The story of ‘economic crisis’ is a fear based story of scarcity, lack and victimhood.   If you really want to live a life of your dreams, where you are turning your goals into reality you will need to conquer the fears around you, so that you can step into the expansive and thriving energy of creation.

picture above from www.gapingvoid.com

5.    Your country needs you

Your country needs you to be an opportunist, an optimist and someone who is creating value and moving the world out of this macro financial state.  The longer people are paralysed by fear and scarcity, the longer it will take the macro world economy to move out of recession.  The longer you remain in the ‘story’ of financial crisis, the longer the world will remain in the same story.   Your country and the world needs you to adopt an empowering story of creation, opportunity, wealth and abundance to shift the current energy. It is all up to you.

Part 2 – Overcoming your Fears

Part 1 of this post highlighted the 7 Deadly Fears that stop us from living our dreams.
If you are under attack by one of these fears, how would you know?  How would you know that you are in fear?

Due to the stealthy nature of these fears, you would probably not feel or even sense any physical changes that would indicate the presence of fear.  It is only when we are in heightened states of fear that we get the sweaty palms, the beating heart and the physical symptoms of fear.    The only way to catch these fears and to detect their lurking is to recognize that you are NOT TAKING ACTION. If you are not taking action in line with your dreams and goals, then you are in FEAR.

NOT TAKING ACTION = FEAR

In fact PROCRASTINATION is just a nice long word for fear!

There is an exercise for fear that thousands of people, who have attended my workshops, now use to step through their fears and into action.

The first step is to become aware that you are in fear.  If you have read part 1 of this post, the signs of fear will be more apparent.    When you are doing all those trivial little bits and pieces so that you avoid making that important phone call – then you are in fear.   When you go to fridge and spend an hour baking a cake and then eating it, so that you don’t have time to write that proposal – then you are fear.  If you go out partying with your friends or sit and watch three hours of meaningless television instead of doing the paper work required to form a new company – then you are in fear.   Lethargy, distraction, procrastination and busy-ness are all great cover-ups for fear.

Once you are aware that you are not taking action then you go down the list of fears to determine which fear it is that is prevalent and is preventing you from moving forward.

Once you have determined the fear that is creating the inertia (and it may be a combination of two or three of these fears).  Then you do the written exercise below

What action am I not taking?

What is the underlying fear(s)?

If I take this action

What is the best thing that can happen?

What is the worst thing that can happen?

You must do this as a written exercise.  If you try to do it in your mind instead of writing it all down, the fear inside your head, will try to rationalise and persuade you that the fear is perfectly justifiable.   Once you have done it as a written exercise you will notice that the worst thing that can happen is never as bad as the fear that you feel and often the worst thing that can happen is the current status quo.

Do you have any tips for overcoming fear – please share them with us, so that we can all learn from each other and can conquer our fears.

Overcome your fears, get into ACTION and start living your dreams.  You know you can do it – jump over your fear and DO IT NOW!

Part 1 – Naming the Fears

The biggest deterrent to taking the actions that are necessary to live our dreams is FEAR. 

There are 7 deadly fears that stop us from living our dreams and if you want to fly in life rather than crawl, then mastering these fears is a MUST!

There are two main types of fear – there is rational fear and irrational fear.
The cold, hard, steel barrel of a gun is pressed against your forehead, your heart racing , your adrenaline pumping and you are in a heightened state of fear – this is rational fear.  Rational fear is when your survival is actually in threat, when you are in a situation that is on the hairline between life and death.  Every other fear that we have is completely irrational and exists only in the mind and not out in reality. Irrational fear is incredibly clever at trying to maintain the status quo and keep us away from ‘perceived’ threats to our ego’s survival rather than our physical survival.

There are 7 irrational fears that are deadly assassins of dreams. 

They are

1.    The fear of the power of authority or not fulfilling the wishes of authority

This fear is why the police work in some countries and don’t in others.   In South Africa the fear of the authority of law is not present amongst the criminal element and so they continue to take the action of committing crime.

2.    The fear of not knowing enough

This fear stops many people from following their dreams.  Some dreamers wish to start their own businesses but get paralysed before they even begin because they are concerned that they don’t know enough.  They spend time laboriously writing 100 page business plans because they believe that it is a good way to gain knowledge before starting.  The truth is that if you have a dream or a vision to do something then you have the ability to do it.  We are never sent vision or dreams of things that we can’t accomplish.  You may be stretched to reach your dream, but you will never be able to hold a vision of something that is unattainable.  The adage of “if you can dream it, you can do it” is absolute

3.    The fear of Failure

The threat of failure strikes terror into the hearts of people wanting to live their dreams and then because of this fear the person does not take action and so they sit in a world of failure anyway.  The paradox of success is that the only way to reach your dreams is to fail.  Somehow in a school system with rules of right and wrong we were taught that failure is bad and wrong.  If this is your take on failure then it is time to shift your perception and your view of failure to ensure that it doesn’t stop you from pursuing your goals.  (I will be writing more about ‘How to deal with Failure’ in a future Blog Post!)

4.    Fear that I won’t make enough money

The fear of bills stacked up at the end of the month and no funds in your bank account may be the convenient excuse that your small self uses to keep you in a job that you hate, with colleagues you despise and living a routine life of boredom.

Now examine your life and tell the truth. No matter what the circumstances you have always managed to get by. Somehow when it comes to money and what you need, you have always made a plan to survive.  Perhaps not thrive, but you have always survived.   So why do you think that living the life of following your dreams will be any different?

5.    The fear of losing the respect of a loved one

This was one of my major fears in becoming a Fairy Godmother. I was really concerned about how my mother would react to my creatively outlandish dream of becoming a modern-day fairytale character.

6.    The fear of rejection by society

This fear ripples out beyond the close circle of family, friends and acquaintances.   This fear is one where you are concerned about society as a whole.  This fear keeps Muslim women from venturing out without a male escort in Arab countries.    This fear has seen gay people hide their authentic selves in the proverbial closet because of the anti-gay sentiment prevalent until a few decades ago.   Bill Cosby has a beautiful quote that highlights the absurdity of this fear. He said “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”

7.    The fear of ill health or lack of physical wellbeing

This fear is one of the reasons I have not yet strapped a parachute to my back and hurled myself out of a small plane circling thousands of feet above the earth.  I am worried about the SPLAT.    People who do adrenaline sports do not have this fear and consequently push themselves and their bodies through the envelope of possibility to kiss the beautiful rush that comes from moving beyond fear.

Now that you have become aware of these different types of fears that exist – which ones can you relate to?  There are probably two or three that really resonate for you – these are the fears that stop you.    I would love to hear from you as to how some of these fears show up in your life and stop you – comment below.

Next week you will be able to read Part 2 on how to Overcome these Fears!