I've Failed And Been Rejected So Many Times, And I Have Never Been Happier In My Life
Growing up as a kid, I was always scared of my own shadow. I lived in a constant state of self-consciousness and as a result repressed my human expression in all its rawness and uniqueness.
I was always calculating in my mind the most appropriate thing to say in social situations to avoid being judged and made fun of by other people. The fear of rejection by society was eating me up from inside out leaving very little room for my true self to express himself. The fear of failure was haunting me like a shadow in the dark. I didn't want to say the wrong thing or make mistakes and as a result I was afraid to try anything new where I would risk making mistakes and failing.I knew deep down I had to overcome the fear of failure. I was so afraid of making mistakes that I decided to make it my mission in life to become a fearless soul. From there on, I started learning how to live outside my comfort zone and so a new chapter in my life began. I can tell you this, the minute you decide to step out of your comfort zone is the minute you declare a state of chaos and turmoil in your life. It is similar to throwing yourself to the wolves, and your mission is to come back leading them. You are about to experience a never ending battle with your own ego. You will experience failure and rejection more than most people around you because most people don't have the courage to try new things and put themselves out there in vulnerable situations where the odds or rejection and failure seem to be high, at least in the beginning.
You will start to question yourself in so many ways. Have I gone crazy? What drives me to take such chances? Maybe I should just shut my mouth and get back to my little protective shell to avoid embarrassment, failure, and rejection. Your ego will constantly try to bring you back to a fearful state of mind. And guess what, often times you will listen to your ego and get back to your little shell even after you tried to step outside your comfort zone. However, that little voice of courage deep within you, the one that drove you to step outside your comfort zone in the first place will come back and talk to you, and your job is to feed that courageous voice and force yourself to step outside your comfort zone once again and open yourself up for failure and rejection. There is a certain excitement that builds up within you each time you are about to do something new, a sweet little drug known as adrenaline which I happen to be addicted to. I like to call adrenaline the drug of courage and liberation. Adrenaline doesn't care if you succeed or fail, all it wants to do is protect you from a perceived physical or emotional danger, and that's where you become in a fight or flight state of mind. The trick is to train your mind and body to respond to adrenaline by fighting instead of flying. This means whatever scares you let that be talking to a girl, confronting someone, jumping out of an airplane or experiencing failure in any shape or form must be faced head on in order to train your subconscious to fight instead of flight in dangerous situations.
The more you expose yourself to seemingly dangerous situations, the more you fail and get rejected, the more you get out of your comfort zone, the more you realize these fears were simply illusions in your mind set there to limit your potential and capacity and keep you timid in a system that feeds on robotic and fearful behaviour. The adrenaline resides and eventually a fearful thought that was once your arch enemy becomes your best friend. But before you form that friendship with your fear, you have to go through chaos and inner turmoil, and you have to be prepared to make a lot of mistakes along the way before you conquer your fear of rejection and failure. Then, you will develop a love story with failure and your life will never be the same.
"Do the thing you fear the most, and the death of fear is certain." - Mark Twain
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