not only do they fail to pay the rent, but they also ruin your house. The next step is to think about how you could solve this problem if it were to happen. Using the above example, your plan might be to make sure you’ve got enough money in the bank to cover the rent if they fail to pay, apply for the necessary insurance that will cover you for damages, and make arrangements to have your home redecorated as quickly as possible so you can get another tenant in. As well as taking the necessary financial precautions, you can also ask family and friends to recommend a tenant, so you feel confident that the person is less likely to wreck your home. This exercise proves that fear can be the spark required to trigger problem-solving and creative thinking. The assumption is that fear means we are moving in the wrong direction—this is not the aim of fear. If you are afraid to make changes in your life, it is a positive sign! Why? Because it means you are stepping out of your comfort zone, which is one of the main requirements for success and progress. Consider the times in your life when you’ve had to push yourself to accomplish a major challenge. You probably felt an overwhelming sense of fear because you were doing something that wasn’t familiar to you. But whatever the challenge was, you got there in the end, right? Never give fear the power to hold you back, and at the same time, don’t go into battle with it. Accept fear as a natural human emotion and then work at moving toward your goal one step at a time. Everyone goes through life experiencing fear, but the difference between those who overcome it and those who don’t is the ability to use your fears to your advantage instead of allowing them to paralyze you. UsING SADNESS AND DESPAIR TO YOUR ADVANTAGE Sadness and despair are much more difficult to use as fuel to power you into the direction of success. However, it isn’t impossible, and by using your imagination, you can use these emotions to your advantage. Let’s say, you have just gone through a messy divorce and your best friend has decided to turn her back on you, which has all transpired within a few months. Unless events of this nature are handled in the right way, they can become a terrible distraction that will completely steal your focus. The first step in coming to terms with such issues is to understand that your situation isn’t going to last forever—the pain you are experiencing right now will subside over time. When we lose people we care about, it often opens the door to a period of deep self-reflection. Although these people are still alive, they played an important role in our lives and now they are gone. You are going