Feeding and Starving
June 06, 2007
Feed your dreams; starve your fears.
Whichever one you feed will grow.
Fears will grow to control you and clip your wings.
Dreams will consume you and cause you to soar.
It is your choice.
You will feed that to which you give the most attention and credit.
If you live by fear, you will live a crippled and limited life. Your best work, your highest aspirations, and your most enchanting creations will go to the grave with you.
If you live as a person of vision, you may not attain all of your goals, but you will attain many and they will live on after you are gone. They will inspire others to dream and create. You will create a ripple that will grow into a mighty tidal wave of dreams and accomplishments.
Feed your dreams and starve your fears. That is my recommendation and below are some ideas for how to feed dreams and starve fears.
FEED Your Dreams
F = Face them. I mean, put a face on them. Find something that represents them that you can gaze upon and be reminded of them.
E = Enliven them. Create activities that remind you of your dreams, move you closer toward them, and let you experience "foretastes" of what it will be like when they come true.
E - Elicit support. Ask people who are positive dreamers to be part of your dream building community. Build them up even as they build you up. Get folks on your team. Someone said that if you ever see a turtle at the top of a telephone pole and he tells you he got there by himself he is either lying or he doesn't understand the nature of things.
D - Determine to pursue them, work for them, and never let them go. Determination will take you from today until tomorrow. It is essential.
STARVE Your Fears
S = Saturate yourself with positive words, thoughts, and deeds. Give negativity no quarter. Make no room for it. Your prior decision to go for the dream has shut out all possibility of fear finding a resting place in your life. You are just too occupied with where you are going.
T - Time them. Go ahead and nod at your fears. Stare them down. Look at them for 30 seconds, a minute, whatever it takes to understand them. When the time is up, say, "Time's up. That's all I can give you." Then walk away. If there was something valid about the fear, you took time to see it and make provisions. The rest is fruitless.
A - Attack your challenges as one who has the upper hand. Be the aggressor with your fears. Be proactive. Get fear on the run by taking charge of the situations that feed it.
R - Rest in God's promises. He has not given us the spirit of fear. He alone is worthy of our reverence and fear (awe). Reverence Him and let Him take care of all the other fears.
V - Value what is valuable. Your dreams are built upon principles you value. Your fears are largely irrational and based upon a concern that you will be severed from something temporal and fleeting. Focus on what endures and has infinite value. It will starve fear because it will take away all of its "junk food" nourishment.
E = Eliminate that which makes you fearful. I don't know what it is in your life, but there is something that feeds your fears. Identify it and eliminate it.
That is your assignment today!