Be fearless! Get rid of the safety that keeps you trapped.. Now!

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Yeah. Not just negativity.. That little mind chatter, the one we all have, the one that prevents us from doing anything, the ‘I‘m not going to succeed‘ and ‘I’m not good enough’ block in our lives?.. it’s also good.. but here’s the thing, you allow it to rule over you and you might as well pull up a chair, your food deliveries, your laptop and your dressing gown.. it’s going to be a long ass wait before you move.

I’m sure everyone knows the origins of this is from our cave days, our instincts for survival and getting round a woolley mammoth unscathed has some part in it. It certainly kept us safe then.

The point is, in today’s modern day ‘survival’ it’s generally less necessary.. and if it is, count yourself lucky to be living in a part of this planet that has peace. So why have we not evolved this side of us along with our ability to walk two-legged? It would be nice if our survival instincts could be switched off sometimes, like a button, where we can be fearless and bold without anything holding us back! Wouldn’t it? Because it’s this animal quality for our species that helps keep us safe.. but it is also this quality that helps keep us stagnant!

If you find yourself procrastinating, uncertain, worried or scared about making a decision the chances are you have an incredibly high survival instincts. At least, this is what I have been telling myself. The trouble with that is that rather than take action like moving jobs, buying a house, selling your car.. you might find yourself tangled up in a web of small head melt downs, underpinning it is our primordial instinct making sure we never do anything dangerous and as such, preventing us from truly seeking our dreams. The fact is, our survival instincts block us from ever doing anything that is out of the norm or our comfort zone. Annoying, right? Means most of us don’t take that quantum leap of faith and take what we feel is a risk when in fact it’s development, happiness and growth!

I was in a songwriting course with The Songwriting Academy. There we listened to a lecture by Bob James, teaching us about copywrite laws in the uk regarding music, of which he is absolutely proficient at, but he also expertly runs a life coaching business on breaking through this exact instinctive fear we have to be able to attain our goals.

So this is what I learnt on this inspirational course relevant to what I’m talking about here.

We have 60 to 70 thousand thoughts a day.. a day!! Out of those thoughts only 10% is conscious and 90% is subconscious.

It’s amazing to me that 10% powers our logical and critical thinking & that 90% is the one that powers our beliefs, habits, emotions, values, imagination and intuition. Not only that.. this 90% also powers out creativity so why aren’t we flying high with our dreams and diving into things head first? Get this.. both the percentages above have long term longevity so all of our day-to-day tasks and thoughts, situations we encounter from each day from when we are born through to us now, me writing, you potentially reading as far as this line if I’m lucky. It’s no surprise, to me, that out of our 60-70 thousand thoughts a day..

80% of those are negative, because negative thoughts keep you safe. What’s even more incredible is that 95% of those 80% is from the previous day!

Not only are we having 48-56 thousand negative thoughts a day.. almost all of them aren’t even from today!

It‘s like the universe is cranking up the ‘jokes on us‘ along the way and we are the innocent bystanders but it’s not quite like that.

Taking a chance and following your dreams used to be easy as children.

Did you know that as children we score a whopping 98% creativity whilst as adults it drops to 2%?

So why does this drop to 2% from a massive 98%?. I don’t feel the system we grow up in, educationally and socially, is built for taking risks and dreaming. It’s built for security and to keep us safe. So, believe it or not most of our fears actually comes from being safe, the safe bet, safe job.. safety.

Don't touch the stove door when it’s on, seems a fairly logical lesson of survival. Touching this will burn and harm me. But how about never walking in a room without having a friend with you because when you were 6, you did that and it made you so embarrassed and made such a negative impact on you that your subconscious mind now says that entering a room on your own will make you feel bad. Your subconscious mind and survival instincts crafted a unique little bag to add to our endless string of baggage we collect through our lives.

How about when your family moved and you had to leave all your friends behind and you were bullied at your new school? New school = unhappiness and not fitting in; New friends = judgement, they don’t like me; It’s unsafe to be in a new school and make new friends; I’m better off staying home and keeping to myself.. you see where I’m going with this.

The fact is, our bodies are each unique and incredible machines yet we still are animals with instincts for survival to boot.. and it’s this that stops us from revolutionising our lives because it may have been compartmentalised by our bodies as being unsafe.

So how do i recognise if this is a habit or good instincts right? I do believe we all come with a sixth sense, some more predisposed to picking up on this than others.. but figuring out what is really just fear or real danger isn’t easy to decipher between them.

Knowing where you stand now, look at what habits you have in life.. basically look at what makes you feel safe and compare it to what makes you feel fearful. Bob James discussed this in much more detail but for the purpose of this blog post..

If the outcome is not what I want, make a different choice, form a new habit!

It is all about figuring out what programmes are running behind our subconscious mind and fix them. But it takes time to reflect, coaching from someone like Bob and then the work putting in to change your mindset and behaviour.

For me, my slate was almost entirely wiped clean after going through breast cancer last year.. if anything I became a little too fearless, possibly bordering reckless, with the attitude that life is too short for worries and fear. The only problem I deal with is getting overwhelmed by so much to do that I end up doing nothing. It’s like having a smaller list suits me better, it’s more achievable, I can hold myself accountable for that but when it’s a page of stuff, big stuff like getting someone to sort out my drive, changing bill providers, clear the spare room or loft, sell second hand clothes and cook a roast dinner.. well it’s pretty unlikely I’m going to get through that today and rather than look at it as a list that transpires through months, maybe, I just freeze, bunny in the headlights. I have a feeling it comes from being the big sister and being scolded for a lot of what my little brother did, haha. Not always though, I’m lucky I come from a very loving family, fyi, plus mum will be reading this. But wherever it comes from, I’ve managed to find a way to work around it and assign a doable thing to do a day. Just one singular task and if I’m on a roll, then I fish out the next doable thing and do that. I don’t write lists and if I do I tend to stick them on separate paper so it doesn’t seem ridiculous. Not saying this solves the issue but it’s a way I get round it.

The main thing is if you switch off your survival/safe button then does this mean you automatically walk into traffic, fearlessly, spiderman up your wall to fix the roof because, you can or shoot yourself from a canon towards your work in the hopes to grabbing a tree?.. I‘m sure someone would have thought of that..

Do it’s not about switching your survival off but it is about asking yourself this question:

Is this life or death? If not, then it doesn’t matter!

So starting off with the question, ‘will this kill me?’ seems pretty sensible to me. Most of our fears today really haven’t got to do with being run over by a herd of bison. Yes in our likely urban existence, depending where you find yourself in the world, you already have wifi reading this, we look before we cross the road, are careful not to fall into holes or off a building. These are all actively avoided obviously but also subconsciously after a fair amount of learned behaviours. But should I stop myself from reaching out to a new job, new dream, new home, new relationship if I’m unhappy? Would that kill me?

Do this weekend, think about what your dreams are and how to attain them, do what makes you feel uncomfortable and if you ask yourself, ‘will it kill me?’ and the answer is a flat out NO.. then try something new. You never know where that will lead you! I know you are absolutely equipped with everything you need right now to be successful and happy at whatever you desire!

The key is to feel the fear and do it anyways.. so as our well coined phrase dictates.. what are you waiting for?

Love & Light☀️

* All quoted information is from Bob James’ lecture. The rest is my personal view and supposition.

Thank you Bob.

Partner, Life Coach, Mentor and Well-being Consultant at Parga Sims Personal Development