Continuing on from last week:

• Expecting unrealistic ease: We want peace, ease, and balance, but life is an upward climb. Sometimes people tell me that I am “lucky” to be a doctor and have a good income from what I do. Well, that may be the case but it took over 15 years of striving to come to a point of making a high income. It took years of study, leaving whole countries in search of better opportunities, and singular focus. I spent all my single years studying, not partying, not traveling, not making a living, just to get to this point. The fact that something is not easy does not mean that you should abandon it. Most things are not easy.
• Fear of loss: To make money, you may lose some money along the way. To get better relationships, you might need to lose some not too good ones. To get a to get a better life you might have to leave the familiar, for the unfamiliar. Everything you want is on the other side of fear.
•  Fear of failure: What if I fall? To which I reply: what if you fly? The fact is, so called failure is an integral part of life. What if the first time a baby took a few steps and fell, she said: “Well walking is not for me. I will crawl for the rest of my life”. That sound silly right? However, so many of us do this all the time. We do not try things because we are afraid of not getting it right the first time. We try something once, it doesn’t work out, we give up, because we are afraid to fail. Even if you are afraid, do it anyway.
• Fear of success: This is the one that most people will not admit to having, and while I can say that I have more or less conquered fear of loss and fear of failure, the fear of success still gets me every now and then. What if you can’t handle it? What if you get rich and “relatives” start coming out of the woodwork? What if I finally become a doctor and have responsibility for all these lives? What if I finally make it to the C -suite and I can’t deliver? Fear of success leads to self sabotage. Until you deal with fear of success, you will constantly get in your own way!
•  Desperation: Desperation is a killer of common sense and it is a sure method to completely give your power away to your circumstances. Unless you are in a true desperate situation, that is immediate threat of loss of life or limb, the rest is just details. If you are reading this, it is unlikely that that is the case. Whatever it is that you think you are desperate for, pause take a breath, break state, and focus on what you do have that is working for you. As you do that, you will start to feel better. Now, think about all the times that God helped you out of a sticky situation. Pray on whatever is bothering you (take however long you need) and then write the solution that you want in a journal. The whole point of this exercise is to be at peace and get rid of feelings of desperation. Solutions will come when you least expect. Do not give up, but do not put desperation out there. You will not get good results.

What other disempowering behaviors have you learned to avoid?