Fear: an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.
Risk: a situation involving exposure to danger.
Fear typically comes from a perceived risk. There are natural things that cause fear and it’s risky to confront them. That is not what this conversation is about.
This conversation is about fear and perceived risk that we create, for ourselves.
Fear is personal and innate. It’s whatever it is for you. It’s the thing that stops you from moving towards your #BigLifeVision.
I let fear get in the way of my #BigLifeVision for many years. Fear of a failed marriage. Fear of admitting defeat. Fear that my mother was right. Fear of what would happen next. Fear of change. My fears where real, and presented real challenges but they weren’t going away with me ignoring them. Eventually, I used my fears to take the right risks and my life expanded.
Where does personal fear come from. I think it’s a healthy combination of ego, not knowing how to fail and learned avoidance. It’s how we’ve come into the world. Formal education doesn’t leave a lot of room for experimentation and a traditional workplace does not reward risk taking. The systems all around us reward consistency. Until now!
Starting with you, the BLV Collective, let’s change things for ourselves and for the people in our lives. Let’s examine our fears for what they are. Let’s learn to work through the reasonable alarms fear sets off 
and ignore the ones that are irrational. Let’s create a community where we learn from fear, reward risk and gain from failure.
We all have fears, let’s use them to drive action. Let’s take smart risks that move our life forward.
We will all fail at times, it’s inevitable, so let’s learn failure. Let’s redefine failure to mean learned growth.
What would you try if you knew you could not fail?
This week questions are: what are you afraid of and what can you learn, what risks do you need to take that you’re avoiding and what can you learn from failure?
Take a moment and challenge yourself to learn, grow and share to move towards your #BigLifeVision.