Slaying the Dragon: Overcoming Fear, Resistance & Dangerous Shortcuts

The hardest part about building our dream business is not the sheer amount of work, focus and persistence it takes to ‘make it.”

It is the enormous number of dragons we must slay along the way to the ‘promised land’ (success).

Not dealing with our inner dragons can mean disaster for our business, our life and those we care about.

We MUST deal with these dragons.

So in episode 15, we are going to bring to discuss 8 of the most common dragons that prevent entrepreneurs like you (and us) from getting the results we all want and deep down inside, and believe are possible.

Download episode 15 and enjoy the show notes…

Show Notes: 

“What comes first is the idea, the passion, the dream of the work we are so excited to create that it scares the hell out of us.”

The Dragon of Doubt: This dragon makes you believe the stories in your head that you’re not ready, that it can’t be done, that you’ll never do it, that you’re not good enough or that it’ll never be good enough.

“Rushing is an act of violence.” – Zen Proverb

The Dragon of Time: This dragon causes you to always be rushing, over busy and without enough time to do what you really want to be focusing on. If this is you, then you have let the Dragon of Time get the best of you.

“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?” Vincent van Gogh

The Dragon of Success and Failure: This is a two headed dragon. The one head fears failure, while the other head fears success. The side that fears failure refuses to do anything different, risky, out of the box or that causes uncertainty.

While the head that fears success will do anything to sabotage itself to stay small. It will refuse to study, plan, improve or change its course of action, even if it’s headed straight for a cliff. Deep down inside the Dragon of Success and Failure tries to shrink itself so it goes unseen, unheard and unnoticed. It mixes fear with shame, leaving everything always the same.

This dragon is running your life if you feel like you’ve been putting all your effort forward but haven’t gotten anywhere or if you find yourself playing the small game and focusing on the petty stuff in your business.

“The long route is the shortcut.” – Seth Godin

The Dragon of Shortcuts: This dragon is fat and lazy. It wants it all, but it wants it to be easy, quick, simple and now. This dragon is unwilling to work hard or go the long route, even though the shortcut never provides the results or fulfillment it is seeking. This dragon suffers from “shiny object syndrome,” running from one “opportunity to another,” never fully committing to one path. This dragon is about rushing to the end result, rather than becoming immersed and in love with the journey.

“It is not more money that we need. It is more creativity, more passion, more collaboration, more determination to figure the best and most creative path forward.” – Bradley T Morris

The Dragon of Money: This dragon is a tricky one. It makes you believe that you don’t have enough money to do the things you want or need to do. It makes you feel like you can’t move forward until you have money or until the resources line up. This dragon is deceptive, so be on your guard.

“The opposite of fear is love—love of the challenge, love of the work, the pure joyous passion to take a shot at our dream and see if we can pull it off.”

The Dragon of Details: This dragon can be extremely dangerous. It will make you focus all of your time and energy on just the big vision and big ideas, never grounding that down into the 3rd dimension where all things get created. When only focused on your grandiose vision, you lose site of the strategy and steps that are required to bring that to fruition.

If you struggle with organizing yourself, making a plan and taking action according to that map, then the Dragon of Details is running the show.

“By prevailing over all obstacles and distractions, one may unfailingly arrive at his chosen goal or destination.” – Christopher Columbus

The Dragon of Distractions: This dragon will do anything to sabotage you from moving forward. It will make it impossible for you to get out of bed in the morning, it will lure you away from your work with tantalizing distractions like the Facebook feed or cat videos.

It will suck you into dramas or give you an infinite list of tedious tasks that prevent you from doing the important work. Be warned, this is a dragon of many faces. Pay attention to what distracts you when it comes to doing what you know you must. This is the dragon’s work

“Only idiots refuse to change their minds.” – Brigitte Bardot

The Dragon of Stubbornness: This dragon is a big, hardheaded, one-eyed, near-sited dragon. This dragon lives to be in control. When this dragon is present, it makes you feel like the only way is your way and that you have no choice but to do everything all by yourself. This dragon refuses to ask for help and tends to push all others away.

“Resistance is the response of the frightened, petty, small-time ego to the brave, generous, magnificent impulse of the creative self.”

We offer our solutions for slaying each of these dragons in the actual show. Have a listen and let us know how the epic battle between you and the inner beast goes! Godspeed. 

Leave a Comment:

1 comment
Virginia Reeves says December 13, 2016

The analogy using dragons is clever, concise, and cheeky. I like how you broke down the main points. I even said “puch’ in recognition of some of them.

Reply
Add Your Reply