How to Stop Being Controlled by Your Habits, Your Fears and the Opinions of Others

Allow Life To Show You Endless Possibilities

You only have control over three things in your life – the thoughts you think, the images you visualize, and the actions your take. ~ Jack Canfield

It’s fair to say there are many things that hold us back from living an extraordinary life. We are controlled by our habits or lack of them, our fears and the opinions of others. This impacts our self-esteem and prevents us from revealing our unique gifts and talents. Yes, we all have extraordinary gifts to share, even if they are unfamiliar to you. Those who achieve extraordinary things, go on a quest to develop their talents to bring to the world. How about you? What are your exceptional talents and gifts? Are you aware of them or are you still developing those qualities?

Irrespective of where you are, life is about discovering our authentic self and living according to our highest values. Therefore, we mustn’t be restricted by limiting factors as they reduce the potential to become our best selves. It is a given we will make mistakes and encounter setbacks throughout our life. But this serves a purpose, insofar as it strengthens our inner resolve and character. Think about this in your own life. What difficulties have you faced that contributed to the person you are today? What lessons did you discover through your difficulties?

What follows is how we can overcome being controlled by our habits, fears and the opinions of others. An extraordinary life is not one that resembles others, such as rock stars or Hollywood actors. It is an exceptional life established in overcoming your setbacks and challenges and discovering the essence of your core self. To live an extraordinary life needn’t be as terrifying as we think. It requires setting aside our beliefs of what we deserve and allowing life to show us endless possibilities. It entails healing and transforming our former life, such as our past or unnecessary baggage we are still holding on to.

Your Habits

You can influence, direct and control your own environment. You can make your life what you want it to be. ~ Napoleon Hill

Many people are controlled by their habits because they choose less than optimal routines that are easy. But this comes at a price and catches up to us quicker than we expect. I don’t intend to belittle your choices but highlight how we live below what we are capable of. This is my experience coaching clients for over a decade. I have seen a pattern in virtually every individual I’ve coached and that is: many of them are not aware of their potential because of their poor habit choices.

Therefore, we must conquer our limiting habits and move towards what is in our best interest. For example, people often say they don’t feel like going to the gym to work-out. On the other hand, the successful person sets these feelings aside and shows up, irrespective of how they feel. I constantly have this dialogue with myself when I don’t feel like swimming laps at my local pool or going to the gym. I observe my thoughts, thank them and still show up because I know, once I arrive, things inevitably change. The key is to not be dictated by our emotions but rely on strong habits and discipline, to live a remarkable life. It requires setting aside our fleeting emotions to focus on the long game.

Your Fears

Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our fears rule our life, to the degree, they impede our ability to attain happiness. I know an impressive deal about fear since it was imprinted upon me by my well-intentioned mother growing up. She would constantly exclaim: “watch out” or “be careful” and I developed a paranoia about taking risks. Can you identify with this in your own life? Have you experienced something similar that it became a part of your life, unknowingly? In my case, I stopped taking risks because fear dominated my life. This came at a cost to my happiness because I ceased to step outside my comfort zone. I was dictated by my fears, while others refused to allow their fears to dominate them.

What I’m suggesting is, we must transform our fears, instead of allowing them to rule our life. We ought to confront them head-on, since fear isn’t as terrible as we think. It is the fear of fear we are most scared of and why we prefer to stay in our comfort zone. Negative emotions don’t feel good, but we can still learn a lot about our darkness if we stop running away from it. Therefore, confront your fears instead of being owned by them.

The Opinions Of Others

Instead of worrying about what people say of you, why not spend time trying to accomplish something they will admire. ~ Dale Carnegie

I don’t know many people that don’t care about the opinions of others. I recall a well-known celebrity who moved into our neighbourhood long ago, once said to me: what other people think of me is none of my business. At the time, I didn’t understand the impact of that statement until recent years. Similarly, my father rarely cared about what others thought of him because he made choices that were in his family’s best interests. This annoyed others, but my father didn’t care because he chose the welfare of his family over the opinions of others.

We can become imprisoned for what others think of us, which doesn’t matter because they are not living our life. If people-pleasing makes us unhappy, we are not living according to our authentic self. So, I urge you to look within and examine why you want to conform to what others think of you? What advantage do you get pleasing others, at the expense of your own misery? There is often a deep-rooted need for others to like us, but this comes at a cost to our self-esteem and self-worth. Eventually, we must conquer this limiting behaviour and make choices that benefit our future. When we stop being controlled by our habits, our fears and the opinions of others, we are no longer imprisoned by something external to us.