I am reading Tapping into Ultimate Success, co-authored by Jack Canfield, founder of the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series and Pamela Bruner, Business Coach and Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) expert.  The sub-title is “How to Overcome Any Obstacle & Skyrocket Your Success”.

One of the things I like about the book is that it gives a simple and effective way to uncover hidden barriers that can create resistance to taking steps to achieve an important goal.

Here is the process:

Identify a project or activity that you have a lot of fear of failure around.  Something that is important to you and may have found yourself reluctant to go ahead with.  An example might be that you want to write a book, even a simple e-book but you worry about what will happen when you do.  Other fear-evoking scenarios might be you want to leave your job or situation, start a business or have a difficult conversation with someone.

Here are the questions to ask yourself using the writing a book example.

What do I fear will happen?
I’m afraid that I am not a good writer, people won’t like it or may even criticize it.  Few people will read it and I won’t sell many copies.

What would that mean if that happened?
It would mean that I am a terrible writer with nothing of value to say.  It would mean I am a failure and I can’t make money doing what I love.

How will I feel if that happened?
I’ll feel rejected, hurt and angry that I can’t promote my work, sad that my ideas aren’t valued and frustrated that my knowledge is unrecognized and unappreciated.

Now you can see how your subconscious mind may want to resist you writing that book and potentially having you experience all those unwanted and uncomfortable emotions.

The good thing is that all those hidden negative feelings are now exposed and you can neutralize them with EFT so that you can clear the way to creating a great book that reflects your knowledge that you feel proud of.

Try this and let me know what you discover.