Take a couple of moments to ponder the photo that is part of this post.
As I look these two images a couple of questions come to mind for me.
Question number one is about the branch in the road. How far out in the road would that branch have to be in order for the driver of the paint line truck get out and do something about it? Apparently, this branch wasn’t far enough out as the driver simply went around it leaving a visual reminder of his or her failure to do something.
The second question regarding the raccoon image is similar to the first. How big of an animal would have to have been in the road before the driver got out to move it. Again, this animal wasn’t big enough.
I contend we treat our fears much the way these drivers treated these obstacles. Fear is something we don’t want to deal with those we do similar things to what these drivers did.
How does fear show up in your life? I contend there are some consistencies for us in the different ways that happens. I’ll tell you some of the ways fear shows up in my life.
Avoidance – We simply pretend the fear isn’t there and then we don’t have to do anything about it. This is what the paint drivers did. In the first, they pretended it wasn’t there and simply drove around it. In the second, they simply drove over it.
Procrastination – We put off the dealing with our fears. Many times our fears don’t require immediate action. I used to have a neighbor who allowed their dog to run the neighborhood. The dog loved to leave large deposits on my lawn that I would find when I would mow. I knew I needed to talk to the neighbor but I was afraid of their reaction. I continued to put it off and to be more frustrated every week when I would mow and find a new “gift.”
Blame – Blame allows us to shift responsibility to someone else and not have to look at ourselves and make the changes we need to make in our lives. I must admit to a guilty pleasure of watching a show on Amazon Prime called Parking Wars. The premise of the show is following parking officers in Philadelphia and Detroit who ticket illegally parked cars and their interactions with those who have been ticketed. They also follow the “boot patrol.” These are teams that put boots on cars so they can’t be driven. The boots are placed on vehicles when they have accrued a certain number of tickets without paying their fines. The tickets and boots are always the fault of someone else rather than the owner of the car. If they’d have just paid their tickets they wouldn’t be in the situation they are in. Blame keeps us from having to look at ourselves and to take responsibility for our actions.
Perfection – This is one that I must admit I had to process through a bit. My sister-in -law suggested that I might suffer from this. At first, I didn’t think there was any way. I am not a perfectionist. As we discussed it I began to realize she was right. I was putting a lot of things off early in my speaking career because it wasn’t quite ready or it wasn’t where I thought it needed to be before bringing it into the public or into my talk. I wanted it to be perfect. The reality is, most of what we do is never perfect. In fact, our imperfections often make things better and more appealing to others.
Can you relate to any of these? How does fear show up in your life? Fear does show up in more ways than I’ve mentioned here. I’d love to hear from you on what you do to keep from dealing with your fears.
It takes courage to stop avoiding and procrastinating and blaming and waiting for perfect. It takes courage to stop going around or over or through our fears. What courageous step do you need to take today to stop these self-defeating behaviors?
Looking for a speaker for an upcoming event? I’d love to be that guy. You can reach me at dave@cultivatecourage.com or 952-200-7499.
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