“I’m worried again. I’m worried I won’t be able to make CGS a self-sustaining business that I can run full time and still survive.”
This was a journal entry I had written on 4/10/2019.
Nearly a year earlier I had made the decision that I wanted to run City Girl Savings full-time…and that’s when the fear started to rear its ugly head.
Over time, I sought out the skills, tools, and resources I needed to become a person who didn’t let a fear of failure stop them.
Journaling was the true game-change for me.
I’ve been writing my goals down for nearly 14 years, but I didn’t start consistently journaling until 2018, coincidentally right after I turned 30 and realized that I wanted to be a full-time business owner!
It’s like some part of me knew that I needed to become a next-level Raya to eventually reach that goal.
I’m a much faster typist than writer, so I’ve been typing my journal entries. I have a document for each year, and I specify the day.
After reading “The Power of Now”, I was able to have effective journaling sessions with myself. I would ask questions and truly seek the answers.
Daily affirmations were a very powerful resource for me as well.
I would journal my beliefs – things I believed to be true about myself.
There were many other journal sessions around my fear of failing and they all lead me to this realization:
I define “Failure” and I’ve already decided that I could never be a failure because of all that I’ve done up until this point. Forget about what hasn’t been done, that’s only icing on the cake.
I also realized that unless I’m dying or on the verge of dying, this “fear” I have is unnecessary.
That’s how I conquered my fear of failure.
As far as redefining success, I stopped defining success by what society says and started thinking about what a successful life really looked like to me.
Once I got clear on that, I was able to see that I’m already a success!
Here’s a glance at this episode:
- [03:25] I learned that typing out my journal entries was much more sustainable. I think much faster than I write, so typing made sense and continues to be a daily practice for my journaling sessions.
- [04:55] I break down a journal entry I had years ago that shows my fears as thoughts and how I shifted the narrative as I was journaling those worries.
- [07:45] After reading The Power of Now, I was able to have conversations with myself and ask questions to get to the root of my thoughts.
- [12:30] The true way to kick the fear of “failure” in the butt is defining what failure means to you and making sure you never get to that place.
