Unlocking Your Potential: Why Fear Holds You Back from Achieving Your Goals

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Welcome to your ultimate life.

This is a beginning.

I'm going to do eight, actually, eight episodes on fear, and this comes from a mastermind.

I was on this morning.

It was really good.

It was a little.

Anyway, it doesn't matter.

It was a group, and we talked about why we're held back, why we hesitate, why we don't do what we know we could do, should do, even would swear we want to do, but we still don't.

And the question is, why not?

And there can be lots of reasons.

We can have a lot of reasons.

But I want to talk about one of the biggest that I've seen in my own life and in 17 years of being a coach, write books, helping people accomplish goals, creating all the music that I have and everything else for myself and others.

And that thing is fear.

And that's way, way, way too big to talk about in one episode.

Now, I've done a few episodes some months ago about fear, but we're going to do some more.

So for the next, this one and seven more, we're going to talk about different aspects of fear.

And here's what I want you to do.

I'm going to describe some stories, some examples, and I'm hoping that you make a choice to explore, like listen and see.

Is this affecting me?

Is this like getting in my way?

And how is it getting in my way?

And more importantly, what can I do to get, get done, get it out of my way?

Because it's easy to point out, well, it's easier to point out things that are in the way than to get around them.

It's easier to sit and point fingers at the government or this party or that party.

If you're talking about politics or the economy or some relative or a partner or someone else that's causing you problems, that is the cause of your lack of success.

And I'm not downplaying any of those things.

Those happen.

They happen to you, they happen to me.

But the question is now, given that it's up to us to do something about it, and that's a separate whole set of shows, this one I'm talking about for the next several episodes is internal, like your stuff inside, your own beliefs, your own feelings, your own barriers that you invent.

And you say, well, why would I invent barriers.

I don't know.

Why would you?

So one of the biggest that we invent is fear.

And I said in the meeting this morning, I said, you know, fear kills more dreams, buries more people, removes possibility than anything else, anything else.

Fear, that's actually really, it's sad and it's really good news.

It's sad because it does get in the way of so many people's growth and aspirations.

It really does.

It stops us from doing what we could do.

Okay?

And the good news is, because it's internal, no one can force me to create the neurochemistry of fear.

Nobody can make me do that.

And you might think that's not true.

And in order for this to make any sense, we're going to set aside someone attacking you with a baseball bat or a saber tooth tiger or whatever.

We're going to set those aside because if someone comes at you like that, then your response is appropriately, fear and self defense and running away or defending yourself or whatever.

I'm talking about the internal chatter, dialogue barriers, imaginations and so forth.

Okay.

All right.

So today I titled the episode why you hate goals.

Now, I don't know what youre immediate reaction as to why you hate goals.

Maybe you don't.

Maybe you love them.

Maybe you're all married to the smart goal framework, the specific, measurable, actionable, actionable, relevant, time bound.

And if you are in your, and you're crushing goals, if you are setting goals and crushing them, then fear in this particular manifestation isn't, doesn't seem to be blocking you from getting stuff done.

That's great.

I still want you to listen, and I want to talk about what it does.

And perhaps you can and are being of service to others in the context of eliminating fear.

I have a client who I dearly love who hates goals, and they're doing very well and they're very successful.

So what is, and when we talk about them, you know, the idea of not liking goals, hating goals, sometimes they hate them.

Sometimes they're just irrelevant or whatever.

So goals has a bad rap.

The word goals, setting goals, stretch goals, goals that work, department goals, company goals, personal goals, health goals, weight goals, on and on and on.

It's really simple.

We hate.

If we do, we dislike the feeling of goals because they always seem to end up to be this external measure that someone is holding up that we're not measuring up to, and therefore we suck.

And so goals sometimes, often, if you will, end up being a tool that we beat ourselves with.

So no wonder we hate them.

We hate them because they're poison.

We hate them because there's something that others, especially if we share them.

Ooh, right.

If you're talking about weight goals, I was listening to someone talk about that the other day, and they're, their feeling and thought about it was that if you share a goal, if you make a public, you make a public pronouncement, you're more likely, more likely to accomplish the goal.

Well, that's spectacular.

Wonderful.

More likely to get it done.

All right.

So yet some people don't want to, and for that very reason, because they're afraid they'll fail at it.

They're afraid they won't get there.

And then the embarrassment, shame, ridicule, teasing, they'll get beat up with the goal, et cetera.

We've accepted goals sometimes at work or not.

Sometimes.

Often they're imposed from management or executives.

And in the executive position, I was often the one setting them, because we have to have some kind of measurable process, measure of what gets measured, gets done.

We know that.

I'm just right now in the process of working on push ups.

When I started, I could do about 25 or 30, and I'm up to about 50.

If I didn't measure them, I wouldn't know what progress is.

You do that in the gym.

You do that if you're losing or gaining weight.

You do that if you're trying to make some money, the number of calls or actions or sales or whatever.

So goals are important in that context.

They become poison when you hate them, when you don't believe in them, or when you're afraid you're going to get beat with them.

So hating goals, being afraid of setting goals is a real thing.

So let's talk a little bit about what happens.

I want to talk about two, two separate things.

One is what happens when we don't set goals because nobody said you had to.

You can go through your life and maybe you can get away with it at work.

If you're an entrepreneur, you can get away with it.

You can just go day to day and set no goals and just do whatever shows up for you.

You can do that.

And then the question is, what, what happens?

What does not setting any goals accomplish for you?

Well, according to the fellow that I know who's a client and also very successful, his thought about it is, I don't set goals.

I just show up every day and do the very best that I can.

That's wonderful.

That's absolutely wonderful.

Great commitment to show up every day and do the best you can.

One of the things that happens when you don't have a goal at all is that you don't know where you're going.

Like if I sit out on a walk and I don't have a place to go, then anywhere is exactly right.

Now for some activities that might be just right.

If I'm just going out for a walk and I'm going out for a walk because I want to relax or because I want to enjoy the weather or because I want to take time to meditate, meditate while walking or I'm listening to an audiobook or something like that, then I don't need a destination.

But I still have a goal.

I'm relaxing, I'm taking some time off.

I'm taking some time to rejuvenate, I'm taking some time to learn.

So I still have a purpose.

And if the word goal brings up resentment and negativity in you, well, okay, what is the purpose?

Substitute the word purpose.

Why are you doing a thing?

And the second part of it is, what do you hope that doing that thing will do for you?

So if I go take a walk, I hope that I feel better, I hope that my leg gets stretched, I hope legs get stressed, I hope that I have, you know, more steps if I'm trying to get 10,000 or 20,000 steps in a day.

So I have a hope that I move toward that goal now, that purpose, right?

My purpose is to get exercise and to feel good and to relax.

And it moves me toward my intent then of getting 10,000 or 20,000 or whatever your number is for steps, if you measure them, okay?

Without vision or direction, you don't know what, you don't know where you're going.

Like I said, some things in life are perfect for that.

I don't have a goal.

When I go to sleep, I want to relax, get deep and good sleep.

In fact, I do have a goal.

See, this is why I want to talk about this.

Because when I go to sleep, I have in my fitbit, I have 7 hours is the number that I'm looking to accomplish.

And I go to bed in a time that allows me to have 7 hours in bed seven and a half, maybe try to get to bed at 930 and get up at five.

But my goal really isn't the hours of sleep.

My goal is how do I refresh my body and refresh my mind.

So I wake up tomorrow ready to have a good day and do good things and live the ultimate life.

So there are steps there too.

I have to relax.

I have to dismiss all the other things in my mind.

I have to breathe.

I don't have to, obviously, but if I do some breathing exercises, then it slows my heartbeat, and I have a way better sleep.

My mind is empty, my body is calm.

My mind is calm.

And then I sleep really good.

So you all know the deal.

You can be in bed for seven, seven or 8 hours and have terrible sleep, get up the next morning and feel awful.

You can be in bed for six and a half or seven and feel wonderful.

And the difference was how I prepared myself and how much I allowed my thinking to interfere with my sleep.

So therein is the crux.

If I hate goals, it's because of my thinking.

I have some thoughts about them that are poison.

I have some thoughts about them that bring up negative associations.

Somewhere in my past grades, at school, times on a sports field, you know, competition of some kind, where I was judged and found wanting, makes us allergic to goals.

So rather than say, and you can stay allergic to goals all the rest of your life if you want, but I want to offer you a new invitation, rather than stay allergic to goals, I'm never going to set goals.

Why don't you examine the thinking that got you there?

Because fear, which is our topic for the next eight, shows fear of setting goals will hinder your growth and progress.

Number one, fear in any of its forms produces chemistry in the body that is anti creative, anti love, anti growth.

The elements of fear in the neurochemistry are destructive.

Okay?

Fear, neurotransmitters and anger.

Neurotransmitters are closely related.

But if you live in fear or you live in anger, you die sooner.

Your body is corroded.

That shouldn't come as a surprise.

I mentioned this before, but I read a book called Anger Kills, which was a study by a doctor in New York, done over many years, that talked about, on the average, people who live mostly angry live five to ten years less.

And it's because of the poison of the neurotransmitters.

Fear is the same.

Okay.

Other studies say that 90 something percent of the things we worry about or are afraid of don't ever happen.

Yet the neurochemistry still eats our gut.

So this, we're talking about this one narrow piece here, fear of setting goals.

So I invite you to do one thing first.

Number one, examine what is the fear?

What is the thinking?

What are you thinking?

What are you believing about this goal process?

Are you believing that it will beat you up, that you will beat yourself up.

Are you believing that there's something limiting about a goal, that you can only go that far instead of farther or faster?

Are you afraid that it will be the wrong goal?

Are you afraid you'll be laughed at?

Are you afraid that if someone knows, they'll either tell you it's a stupid goal or laugh at you if you don't get it?

Like, let's figure out what's going on with that, and here's why.

Okay?

We can't control what anybody else does or says.

You know that I know that.

What we can do is make a choice about how important what they do or say is.

How important is someone else's agreement with your goal?

How important is their understanding of your goal?

I'll give you a personal example.

When I started writing books now, twelve or so years ago, I didn't get a very good reception from my brothers and sisters and my kids, they knew I was writing a book.

One of the books I wrote first was tightrope of depression, which was a book about my own journey through life.

The struggles that I had with depression, mental illness, you know, the dark places that it led me.

And when they read the book, some of them were vocally critical of it.

Negative.

Da da da da, da, da da.

Okay, so that was a real thing.

And here's my point.

That was one of the early books that I've written.

I've written now 20, and I have one underway right now and three more for the next couple of years that I've planned.

So if I were afraid to set goals about when I'm going to finish these books, and the fear was based on others criticism, which was real and which I received, I would never have finished those.

And the benefit I got from writing them and the benefit that others who have read them and used them to help themselves, that wouldn't happen either.

So I want you to think about that, because I got to decide.

The choice I made was that others opinions of the books didn't count, especially those that I was most worried about.

Family, kids, friends, that kind of stuff.

Now, as it turns out, lots of other people have read them and found them to be very helpful and good, and I've gotten lots of good feedback.

But that was my choice, to not allow the feedback about these goals from people that I wanted badly to, quote, approve.

I chose that to make that not important.

So, fear of goals.

Why are you afraid of them?

What happens when you set them?

Look in your history.

Look what your relationship is.

When you think about setting a goal, doesn't matter what it is, what comes up for you, what kind of feeling in your stomach or your body?

Where does it show up in your body?

What is going on with that fear of gold goals?

I mean, because the truth is, if I have no goals, that's like having no vision.

That's like not being able to see.

I don't have any, you know, I have no clear idea of where I'm going.

Even if I say I'm going to do the best that I can.

I'm not measuring it.

I'm not measuring it against something.

I want to accomplish a certain thing this year, a certain amount of, you know, getting in shape, weight loss or make money or, you know, position or promotion.

If I don't have a port, then any port will do.

Now you can say, well, that's okay, I love living life that way.

But the truth is we always are judging ourselves about how well we did all that.

Not setting goals does is it gives us the opportunity to pretend we don't care.

And that whole pretense creates another set of negative feelings.

So why would we do that?

So first of all, let's get rid of the idea that objectives or intentions or goals are somehow bad.

If your life experience has made them bad, then let's change that.

And how you change it is to consciously become aware of what were the experiences that made me hate goals or find them uncomfortable.

1st, 2nd, recognize those circumstances are no longer operational.

If you got whacked for grades at school, I did when I was young, I got in bad trouble for bad grades and so that could make me hate goals.

But I'm not in school anymore.

And the people that were judging me or whacking me for not getting good grades, they're not in my life anymore.

They have no power or authority.

So it's my choice as to whether their opinion or actions of years ago, in some cases decades ago, has any influence on my life.

Well, that's a declaration of independence and freedom.

And as we go through the next, this and seven more episodes on fear, you'll find that this declaration of freedom idea is super, super powerful and useful because here's the fundamental truth, and I'll probably repeat this in every episode.

Fear is not real.

What I mean by that is this is a computer mouse.

I can't hold up a blob of fear.

I had a friend who told me he'd give me a million dollars, and this is someone that had the million to give if I could bring a cup of fear.

And of course you can't so what is it?

Well, it is a collection of neurotransmitters.

That collection of neurotransmitters comes only because I believe something.

I believe I'm going to fail.

I believe I'll get in trouble.

I believe I'll get embarrassed.

I believe I won't make the goals.

I believe the goals will hinder me.

In this case, we're talking about goals.

But I have to have a negative belief in order to create those negative transmitters.

So that is subject to change.

And one idea that came up in the mastermind that is really important to me, that I want to discuss with you, is these beliefs.

Everybody understands it has to do with what we believe.

But then there was the thought of, well, these beliefs are so deep, they're just so longstanding, we can't change them.

That is, I can't scream loud enough from the rooftops.

That's not true.

It is not true.

It never was true.

It never will be true.

You can change your beliefs.

We do that.

Let me give you an example.

If you saw someone screaming at someone else and you didn't have the full context, you might assume they were angry and that the person being screamed at was somehow in danger.

If looking at.

And so you might get all upset and you want to rush to their defense, and you have an entire reaction to that.

If in 15 more seconds of observation, you come to realize that the screaming was because they were going to get hit by a car or were in some other mortal danger, all of a sudden, literally all of a sudden, that entire feeling changes because your belief about the situation changed.

So that is demonstration.

You probably experienced something like that in your life where you thought something, and suddenly an additional piece of info came and your belief completely changed, and so did your body chemistry.

So did your feeling.

All of a sudden, you're worried and you want to help instead of being angry.

All right, so even with beliefs that are deep, they're changeable.

Now, the last thing I want to talk about, about why we might be afraid of goals is it's a fail safety.

One of the most difficult things that we're going to talk about next episode, and that warrants its whole episode, is fear of failure.

Now, fear of setting goals has one little hook in the fear of failure thought, but it is by no means complete.

It is simply one tiny manifestation of it.

Not setting goals obviously means what?

I can't fail if I sit down to write, and I don't care how much I write.

I can't fail if I sit down or walk or do anything, and I don't, absolutely don't care what happens then.

I can't fail.

Now, as we mentioned, there can be lots of situations where that's exactly right.

But in much of life, business, money, financial goals, relationship goals, raising your kids, creating friendships, creating relationships, having no goals at all usually means you go nowhere.

So if I refuse to set goals as a fail safe, meaning I can't fail if I don't have a direction or don't have a destination, that's true.

But there are some other things that come with that truth, and that is leadership is gone.

Also, I can't lead without goals.

Now, as you know, I spent many years in leadership positions, management positions and even executive positions, c suite positions, CEO and COO, those kinds of positions.

And leadership requires you to have a goal, good leadership.

Like, you can stand in front of a group and you can give them encouraging speeches and encourage them to move in a direction.

And that's good and worthwhile and helpful.

But you can't lead effectively for very long at all if you don't have objectives, measurable, clear goals, and you don't share those with everybody.

So if you don't have common objectives, you can't lead.

You can't lead effectively and people will get confused.

People make up their own objectives.

Oh, this is good enough.

This is good enough because you as a leader, haven't given clear outcomes that you're looking for, whether they're a day, a week, a month, a year.

You know, you haven't given clear goalposts.

Sports is a good example.

Football, hockey, you know, there are rules and goals.

Otherwise there's no game.

Life is like that.

So I want to not.

I want to take this away from just the business context of being a business leader.

I want to take it clear down into your life because this, right now, this last few minutes, is the most important.

My discoveries, my deepest learning is that if I don't have goals for myself, I can't lead myself very well.

Examples, songs.

I'm going to finish in the studio and get released podcasts.

I'm going to get finished and released to you coaching clients that I'm going to love and help accomplish impossible things, physical things.

Like, I got a lot of physical bustedness right now.

My back still bothered me, and you don't need the list, but I have goals for those things.

So I have something I'm working towards.

The key to making them effective and not fearful is there is no drama associated with that.

I have chosen to create a framework where there's no beat up at the end, there's no stick, there is encouragement, there is love, there are clear goals, there are descriptions of the goals, there's vision boards and things more powerful than that, powerful statements and so forth that are very much goals, but they are all coated, covered, powered by love.

Now, I want you to think about a little kid learning to walk.

The goal of the parent, maybe the kid, at some point, the toddler, is to learn to walk.

If the goal is presented and enforced with negative language, tonality, emotion, dumb kid, keeps falling down.

You create one outcome.

If the goal is created, presented, and, you know, encouraged with love, and like most do, you know, oh, come on.

And all the things you see, right?

When parents and grandparents and sometimes brothers and sisters are helping, you know, toddler take their first step, the goal is the same.

Learn to walk, get some independence, get your locomotor thing, moving yourself, etcetera.

But the flavor of the goal is completely different.

So if you have a fear of goals for any reason, doesn't matter.

I've given you a whole bunch of possible let's get over it.

Because goals are critical for self leadership.

Goals are critical for your ultimate life purpose, prosperity and joy.

And they need not be fearful, negative, hurtful, or any other thing.

They can be positive, reinforcing, loving, energizing.

And in fact, they can be the most positive of influences, not negative.

So the question for you and me is, if I've got a negative feeling about goals, what am I willing to do to change that?

Because they can be more encouraging and positive than anything else.

If they're founded in love and they're founded on real growth and a desire for elevating myself, you, and those around us.

So here's my invitations.

I invite you to get a hold of me.

I am an expert at setting goals with love, at using the encouragement method that causes people to do more than they ever thought they could.

I'm an expert at helping you learn to love yourself.

If you find yourself struggling in any of this stuff, please reach out the URL on the screen.

Kellenfluekigermedia.com.

you can go learn some stuff there.

There's a URL there to get a hold of me, an email.

So go there.

Let's talk.

Because I want you to live the ultimate life if you want it.

Purpose, prosperity and joy, or whatever.

Three words are your heartfelt and meaningful words.

If you have a story about massive goal accomplishment of your own, whether it's resilience, overcoming challenges, or achieving some significant milestone where you are focused and adding good to the world.

I want to have you on the show or on la talk radio or on one of the television programs.

Why?

Because I love honoring, acknowledging and featuring people that have done that.

So if you are a goal lover, if you've learned to do it, if you have accomplished things, if you have changed the lives of others, if you have a message and that is your goal, please reach out and let's talk.

If, on the other hand, as I mentioned, you're struggling with goals, you're afraid of them and you're afraid to set them.

For whatever reasons have happened in your, in your past, then reach out to me also, because that's where I can help you change, love them, and have them be the most powerful tool you can have to get to exactly where you want to go every time.

Not sometimes, all the time.

You're a divine being.

You have infinite capability.

There's nothing you can't create.

And like me, you've had a long history of being beat up with goals and being judged inadequate and being, you know, pushed down, laughed at, smashed, etc.

Etcetera, perhaps seriously abuse and all that kind of stuff.

None of that's permanent.

None of it's permanent.

That's the most important thing to hear.

Your fear of anything need not define your life.

You can let it, or you can get the help you need, like I did, and move forward and create your ultimate life.

Never hold back and you'll never ask why.

Open your heart and this time around.

Right here, right now, your opportunity for massive growth is right in front of you.

Every episode gives you practical tips and practices that will change everything.

If you want to know more, go to Kellan Flukey, Gurmanden Media.

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