Five Steps to Make Your leap of Faith Less Scary
The very thought of a leap of faith brings chills to each of us. From the moment we are born, we take both small and big leaps of faith, sometimes with a lot of stress and thought behind it, and other times without even blinking our eyes.
Sometimes we take a leap of faith not because we believe we can do it, but because someone else believes in us so much that it makes us believe, too.
Other times, we take a leap of faith because we just can’t bear the situation we’re in anymore and we have to believe there’s something better on the other side.
As for me, my biggest leaps of faith have always been about following my heart. Not just following my heart in love, but also for my passions, believing that I can do whatever I set out to do, even though there is no indication of future success except my ability to believe.
Through my numerous leaps of faith, I’ve learned a few steps that have eventually made each leap a little less scary and less overwhelming:
Set aside the emotions and look at the facts.
Emotions are a wonderful part of our everyday existence; however, they can be completely false. Just think about simple day-to-day things, like how you react to things when you’re hungry versus how you react when you just had a nice meal.
Emotions change every second, so take a little time to be quiet and look beyond the emotions to the actual facts. Fear is an emotion and it will play with your mind over and over again until you decide to conquer it and move forward, regardless of what fear plants in your mind.
What will you lose if you don’t take it?
Sometimes it’s easy to see what we can lose if we take the leap of faith. However, the real question is not what we lose if we take the leap of faith, but what we lose if we don’t.
Not making a decision or postponing it long enough so that it is not needed anymore is also a way of making a decision. It’s a way of saying that what’s on the other end is not important enough for your leap of faith.
Imagine the two options in the future.
I have found this one to be the most effective of all. Imagine yourself a few months from now or even a year, looking back at your decision. Which one are you most proud of? The leap of faith or the staying put?
Stop beating yourself up.
You can’t make the right decision from a place where you’re just putting yourself down. A decision should be empowering, even if it’s scary, and it should never make you feel lesser about yourself or unworthy.
Remember that you can always go back.
Sometimes the only way to know what’s on the other side is to actually take the leap of faith. The direction is sometimes a coin toss, but you know you have to leap in one direction or another.
Sometimes it will be the right direction; other times, it will be the wrong one. If it’s the right one, keep going. If it’s the wrong one, pick yourself up, go back to your safe place, recover and take another leap.
Sometimes we soar high; other times we fall flat on our faces. What matters in the end is the ability to look back and be able to say you tried your best.
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