Fight Your DNA: 3 Ways to Get Started

For many of us, the thought of starting something new is exciting and scary except for kids.?You see as kids we’re born with only two fears: the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises.?All other fears are learned.

If you hear a loud noise your instincts tell you to move away from it.?If you believe your falling, your instincts tell you to reach out for something to break or soften the fall.?The single aim of these two innate fears is to keep us humans alive and away from potential danger.

Again, all other fears are acquired through personal experience and social interaction.??

• You may fear beginning a relationship because you witnessed firsthand how your parents always fought or were unable to cohabitate without something going wrong.??

• You’re afraid of math because you may (or may not) remember the time in second grade when the teacher asked you to come to the board to solve a simple problem and you locked up and couldn’t do it.?The other kids in the class laughed and that singular event marked you emotionally.??

• You may be afraid to start your own business because everyone you know who started a new business failed.??You hear about the failure rate of startups and you’re further paralyzed by the thought of going it alone.??

It’s the start that stops us from ever achieving whatever success we desire.? Our brain is naturally wired for survival which is why it is always biased towards “do nothing unless absolutely necessary”.?

This ‘do nothing’ mindset, albeit meant to protect us, is incapable of forecasting the damage of inaction (i.e., the real cost of doing nothing over time).??You have to learn to fight your own inherent bias towards a ‘do nothing' attitude.??Here are three ways to get going:

1. Begin with a small investment in time; 15 minutes a day.?Everyone can find at least 15 minutes.
2. Build small momentum by lower your expectation of something you know you can do, then exceed that expectation.
3. Forecast yourself into the future if you do nothing.?How will you feel 1 year from now??I imagine, not good.?

Lastly, keep in mind that Nature is brutal and all living creatures within it are subject to an unbreakable law; things that stand still never survive.

Fight your DNA to always seek safety and play it safe. Take a chance. Roll the dice. Play to win versus playing not to lose!

Victor Antonio

But standing still, doing nothing is not a smart survival move either.