I have learned over my 45+ years of life that fear can be one of the most crippling ailments to your motivation in reaching a goal, no matter how small or large that dream or goal might be. Fear allows your mind to run wild with worst case scenarios that quite probably would never happen if you sweated it out and simply took consistent action. The four letter word know as fear can, if you let it, keep you from taking the first step towards your dream or goal – and I have found that in 100% of the cases with no exceptions, if you do not take the first step towards your dream or goal you will never take the second step, because your fear will bleed your motivation out of you. So you will need to sweat now or bleed later.

The lesson of sweating now or bleeding later is another one of the valuable lessons I learned from the military that I have been able to apply to all areas of my life long after having left the military. In the armed forces they teach you, in a number of ways, that the more you sweat in peacetime, the less you bleed in battle. There in hides a lesson I was able to take and apply in everything I attempt. In the military they train and train and train, putting you through situations that you could face under fire. But then they take it one step farther and put you though the next level of situation in an attempt to prepare you for the most extreme types of situations that God forbid you would ever have to face. But this next level of sweating in peace time preps you for these worst case scenarios and enables you to face them with a more level head.

One less extreme example I can share with you would alli best buy be during basic training, when you are taught how to quickly remove your gas mask from its pouch and put it on correctly in seconds. We went through drill after drill after drill on doing this at times when we knew it was coming and times when it was a complete surprise. I remember thinking how fast I was able to do it with all this practice. Then we took a 5+ mile hike out into the woods to a small one story cinder block building which had ‘smoke’ coming out of it. We were told this build was filled with tear gas and were instructed to put our gas masks on. Then in groups of 8 to 10 at a time we were lead into the gas filled building. I remember thinking to myself how glad I was that I paid attention when learning to seal the mask correctly around my face. Once inside we were lined up and a few seconds later instructed to pull our mask off. WHAT??!! You want to talk about heart pound fear! None of us wanted to but we all knew we had to – and we were told that we all had to stand in that gas there until everyone did it AND until everyone took their first breath of the notorious tear gas.

I would love to tell you about how tough I was in handling this experience but sadly I am only human and the gas… well the gas is designed to be very effective. Let me tell you – I never want to experience tear gas again. Imagine if you will your face feeling like it is on fire as if sitting under sun lamp on high, then you eyes burning like all your sweat was pouring right into them. Now add to that an uncontrollable cough, the burning in your lungs makes you think they are going to explode. Then there is your nose – lets just say, the body can be quite effective at trying to push foreign agents out of the body and the nose will try to do this by flooding itself. You get the picture.

I can hear you now, “Wait Tracy what lesson could you have learned from this other then perhaps your fellow soldiers look really funny stumbling out of the gas house with faces washed out with tears and snot?”  Well I realized the value of the gas house lesson two nights later while we were sleeping in the woods and one of the drill sergeants threw a tear gas grenade. My nose got the first hint of that gas and my body snapped to being fully awake and I had that gas mask on faster then I had ever done it previously. Sweat now or bleed later.

The lesson of sweating now or bleeding later has stayed with me long since I learned it. When I was faced with the opportunity to compete at a national level in a humorous speech contest I could feel my fear welling up and impacting my usual practice process. I was avoiding honing my speech for fear of failing on stage. Odd as it might seem the act of avoiding the honing was surely going to result in my failing on stage. It wasn’t speaking in public in general that I was afraid of – it was speaking to an audience of people that I knew would want someone else to win. The friends and family of those I would be up against would be in the audience and I knew they wouldn’t want me to win, that fear was choking off my action. So I faced my fear head on by putting myself into a speaking opportunity where I knew the audience would be even less likely to want me to successful in giving my message. I arranged to give a motivational speech at the Gwinnett County Juvenile Detention Facility. I figured that if I could face this audience of teenagers whose lives had taken a turn that landed them in this facility, where they were being made to sit through my presentation – then I could surly face any audience I would meet at the Humorous Speech Contest.

Well to make a long story short – I was actually well received by both audiences. The teens actually appreciated that someone took the time to speak to them and had many questions to ask during and after my presentation. And while I did not win the humorous speech contest, I did learn that if you ever had to face something that you fear then you can always ‘stage’ a bigger battle then the one you have to face. If you have something hard to do and you are reluctant or hesitant to do it, pick out something even harder and do that first.

Apply this sweat now or bleed later lesson and watch what it does to your motivation when you finally reach that ‘real’ challenge!

Think Successfully & Take Action
Tracy Brinkmann
One of today’s TOP Motivated Coaches & Author of Success Atlas Programs.