Self

The One Change I Made To Become Fearless And Transform My Life

Photo: Dmytro Buianskyi / Shutterstock
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If you do not currently have happiness in any area of your life, it's because you are not living fearlessly. Pain is just the universe telling you that you need to grow here, and growth requires you to live fearlessly.

One of my mentors, Keith Cunningham, once told me something that I never forgot and use daily. He said, "the solution to every problem you currently have is sitting just outside your current comfort zone, or it would not be a problem right now." Keith is 100% correct. As he always asked next, "the question is, are you gonna go get it?" Keith is from Texas so that always sounds better with his Texan accent.

And my answer is always "hell yes." That's why living a magnificent and abundant life requires you to live fearlessly. Because to keep growing, you need to continually break through your current comfort zone into your next one.

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Today, I have cultivated my emotional fitness, peak psychology, and decision-making process to the point that I move through comfort zones quickly and constantly. I look forward to breaking through my comfort zone today. Even in the depths of fear and pain, I feel with 100% of my being that I am about to blow through another comfort zone (and I'm in the discomfort part of the process).

But I didn't start here. I started as a control freak who lived small, tried to control every outcome, and showed up to "get" my result in nearly every situation, avoiding pain and discomfort at all costs. The quality of my life directly matched my mindset—it was small, fearful, self-involved, and scarcity based. I was not happy and I had no idea that my lack of happiness had anything to do with my fear driving me.

Like most people, back then I blamed everyone and everything else for my unhappiness. I felt I was too fat, so I blamed my body and my genes. I didn't like my job so I blamed the people I worked for. I wasn't happy in my relationship, so I blamed my boyfriend (at the time). I didn't have enough cash, so I blamed my job, taxes, the government, and the price of gas. And you know what all that blame got me? A whole lotta nothing.

When I had a life-changing experience and turned my focus on myself, everything started to change for the better. That's when I began to harness my courage and live fearlessly (by the way, courage is not being fearless; it's just not). Courage is feeling fear but taking the action anyway. Don't think for a second that I don't feel fear, because I sure do.

Actually, if you are not feeling fear on a regular basis (small or big), then you are living too small. You are not going for it. And living fearlessly, like every change in life, happens on a spectrum. You do not go from living in fear to blowing through comfort zones on a weekly basis, all overnight. You take steps, baby steps. My personal journey has taken me 19 years so far and I'm still growing and cultivating my fearlessness.

The greatest gift I can give you is one strategy for living fearlessly that will shortcut this process for you, and give you the biggest results with the least amount of time, effort, and discomfort. 

In any area of your life where you have pain or discomfort and you want more, the key strategy is to seek out someone who is already successfully living the result you want, lean on their comfort zone, and take massive action to follow their proven process. This is the ultimate discomfort shortcut to your next comfort zone, the secret that truly successful people know.

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Here are a few keys to making this really work for you:

  • Seek out someone who is successfully enjoying the results that you want. Said differently, they are living in your "after" story and you are currently in the "before."
  • Pick someone who is also successfully and repeatedly teaching others to achieve those same results consistently.
  • Follow their step-by-step, take their programs, read their books, then learn and implement their proven process.
  • If they offer coaching or implementation assistance, take it. When they reach their hand out and offer to pull you right through to your next comfort zone, say "yes."

You still must live fearlessly, because you must say "yes" and you must take action. You are reducing the risk, fear, and discomfort by using a proven process, working with a proven expert, and surrounding yourself with support and love while you blow through to your next comfort zone.

I'm serious. I've been in personal development for two decades. I am blessed to work with some of the greatest coaches, experts, and leaders in the world. I've traveled all over to do that and I've invested multiple six figures to do so.

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Question #1: Where in your life do you feel unhappy, stuck, frustrated, or downright miserable? 

Question #2: Who is the 'after; story you want? Whoever it is, say "yes" and take massive action.

If you feel the "fear," harness your courage and do it anyway. Remind yourself that this woman has already done it and has taught many other women to create the same results for themselves. That's what will make it easier, quicker, and more effective for you.

Living fearlessly isn't an abstract concept or something big and crazy that happens to "those people," but not to you.

Living fearlessly is deciding to feel the fear and take action anyway. I hope our secret strategy to model others and work with an expert will help you to take massive action, get out of your current comfort zone and charge forth into your next one. That's where the solution to every problem you currently have is waiting for you, darling.

So go live fearlessly and surround yourself with love and support on your journey.

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Stacey Martino helps people through targeted, strategic private coaching, programs, and events to help them with the challenges that intimate relationship brings.