Bottom Line up Front (BLUF)
Good day h4ppyLife people! Yeah, ponder the post title for a while, The Fear you Face is the Win you Race … hahaha, made you think – doesn’t it feel good! Honestly, I just wanted to rhyme. 🙂 This post is about the benefits of facing fear and some tools to help us do it.
Background
As I’m sure many of you face each day, I’ve got a morning commute to work– ~40 minutes each way for me…and that’s without any traffic, except for the occasional deer or cow. I’m not kidding about the cow either!
Some would say…Yuck! NO WAY! Waste of fuel! That’s not living the H4PPYLIFE.
True, but you’ll also come to find out that I choose to look at this situation with a silver lining. Being captive in the vehicle is the perfect time to be productive and learn something new! One of my favorite ways to fill the void is listening to Podcasts.
Today’s post is about conquering fear and is inspired by Tony Robbins’ Podcast episode “Fear will destroy you or drive you.” When you get a chance, listen to it below. There’s a wealth of information, so you may want to download it and listen several times. I’ll give you the highlights.
Fear can hinder or motivate…this completely depends on your perception. We’ve all experienced fear of some sort.
Fear of failure…
Fear of success…
Fear of the UN-known…
Fear of the known… …like snakes!!
Amm-I-Right! …nah, that one’s harmless. 🙂
In order to keep from being paralyzed though, we have to overcome our fear! Tony’s Podcast really resonated with me today, which is why I wanted to create this post. As I was listening to it on my way home from work…I realized that I have a fear of failure.
I’m essentially a project manager at work (although, that’s not my title). We continuously have projects at various stages of the process cycle–planning, execution, and finalization. Due to limited personnel, I’m involved in all three phases and with nearly every project in one way or another. I’ve had to really step up my game when it comes to keeping track of each project! Many times it’s been uncomfortable and I’ve felt the pressure!
If you’ve ever taken the True Colors personality tests, I scored high in the green and gold categories…for me this means, I prefer to thoroughly plan/research and finish one phase of a project before moving on to the next. I also don’t prefer working on multiple projects in different stages at the same time or “jumping in the water feet first without checking to see if there are rocks!”
But hey… Is What It Is …
I really have to work on taking action so I don’t get bogged down in…
~~Analysis Paralysis ~~
…oooh, sounds scaaaaarrrrryyyyyy…
So here we go…
The meat and potatoes!
The main course!
What you’ve all been waiting for….! 🙂
Below I've synthesized Tony's podcast into what I believe were the key takeaways. There was a ton of information in the podcast, so I also left a link to it for easy listening when you're ready.
Tools and Benefits to Facing Your Fear
1. Don’t Negotiate
Don’t negotiate with yourself and stop the habit of being fearful. [6:10] “Train yourself not to negotiate with yourself.” In other words, you have to instill discipline within yourself to overcome your fear. This likely will not come easy and your mind or body will try and tell you to not do something if you’re afraid.
Sometimes you won’t even realize that it’s fear that’s preventing you from taking action because that voice inside your head will disguise itself as something else…like laziness… or not having enough information to act… or a plethora of other excuses.
Using my fear of failure as an example. I have to keep reminding myself to focus and to continue working on this website because I’m passionate about helping people, I love learning about life coaching, and I want to use the previous two comments to make a difference. But that voice in my head keeps popping up and saying…
“No one will want to read this, so why bother!”
… or …
“You haven’t researched enough to write a blog post about this topic, so put it off until you’ve read a 100 books or a 100 hours of Udemy courses!”
That’s the part of me that’s afraid of failure or afraid of putting myself out there that’s talking, not the part of me that’s confident and passionate. So, find your “why” and/or who you want to serve and then, don’t negotiate with yourself!
Because, once you’ve listened to an excuse, often times that same one will resurface. At [07:25] Tony states, “whatever you feed grows…so feed your certainty.” He also often states, “Where focus goes, energy flows.”
If you’re focusing on all the excuses for why you’re not taking action on something, you’ll only create more instances or feelings for that to be true. If you tell yourself you’re not good enough, then you’ll only see those things that confirm your beliefs–that you’re not good enough. However, if you feed your certainty then you will build more confidence in yourself and you’ll easily overcome your fear!
“Whether you think you can, or think you can’t–you’re right.”
-Henry Ford
There's so much great information in this podcast! As I'm writing this post and re-listening to the podcast, I want to unpack every detail--but I'm also trying to keep it short.
Fear is a habit – train yourself to stop the habit of being fearful!
Tony mentions a technique that I’ve recently used in a job interview and it worked wonders to calm my nerves…
you ready…
…it’s transforming the feeling of fear (or anxiety) and turning that feeling into EXCITEMENT.
I wish I had learned this life hack earlier in life! If you’ve never noticed before, anxiety and excitement are very similar feelings with similar physiological responses.
Use this to your advantage! …tell yourself that you are excited, not anxious or fearful, about whatever the situation is and don’t negotiate.
Over time, if you’re able to stop negotiating with yourself, the voice inside your head will weaken because you’ve disciplined yourself enough to completely take charge and seize the day.
Check out Tony’s daily priming exercise…this is an amazing method to help you train away the habit of being fearful and start your day off with certainty!
2. Implement a new mantra
Identify and implement a “new mantra” to believe. Instead of listening to the voice that prevents you from overcoming your fear, come up with a new mantra. This could also be called reframing your mindset. At [32:08] we’re provided an excellent reframe, “What if all the failures in your life were leading you to this moment.” Also, “What if there were no mistakes, only learning opportunities.”
Imagine if you implemented one or both of those mantras… Wouldn’t that feel freeing! When you do this enough times, you train yourself to break the habit of being fearful.
My favorite mantra lately is…it’s about progress, not perfection. This has been very empowering for me and for some reason allows me to get unstuck, stop making excuses, and take action. Which brings us to the third step.
3. Take Massive Action
At [08:42], Tony recommends a powerful tool…he states we need to take MASSIVE ACTION to overcome fear. This is difficult for a green, I don’t like to take action without thinking first…
…but thinking without action can look a lot like procrastination.
While I don’t truly believe I procrastinate (or maybe I’m in denial). I do have to be conscious of the possibility and I have to question rather I can take some kind of action now versus sticking with what’s in my comfort zone.
Implement your new mantra: progress, not perfection… past failures, lead me to this moment… no mistakes, only learning opportunities…
Also, when I’m feeling stuck or unsure of what task to take action on next, I’ve found that checklists work really well–there’s also the concept of Write it Down Make it Happen at work here (highly recommend that book by the way)!
I like to brainstorm about the next steps for a project first and then create a checklist out of those steps. Brainstorming allows me to quickly visualize and prioritize what I should work on now, or what I can put off until later, without the pressure of taking action right away and/or needing to have the perfect solution.
CAUTION: You have to watch out during this stage though, because sometimes the tasks that you want to put off may be the tasks you should perform now.
An example of this may be…getting stuck reviewing email because it’s easier than performing some other task on your list. While checking email may be a task on your list and it may be important, it’s usually best to work on those tasks that will provide the greatest benefit once accomplished.
We could analyze this part of the topic for days, however I recommend reading Getting Things Done by David Allen when you get a chance. He’s got a wealth of ideas and thought processes on productivity. While I haven’t implemented everything in his book verbatim, it at least gave me some ideas to keep in mind and it helped streamline my e-mail process in particular.
4. Reflect
After you’ve taken massive action, don’t forget to reflect!
When you look back on the progress you’ve made, you’ll may find that you are amazed on why you were fearful in the first place. This will help reinforce the positive benefits of overcoming your fears and eventually it will become a habit to not be fearful.
One of my favorite ways to work through each of these steps is with a good yearly planner. There are some excellent options out there these days that go way beyond just a calendar–they’re more like life planners. My favorite so far is the Law of Attraction planner. You can find the Law of Attraction planner and many other top-notch options on Amazon. I’ll do a review in a later post.
Summary
In summary, follow the below four steps to break the habit of being fearful.
- Don’t Negotiate
- Implement A New Mantra
- Take Massive Action
- Reflect
I highly recommend listening to Tony's podcast below, there's a wealth of information that I left out of this post. Also, please leave a comment if there's something I missed that works well for you! Live a h4ppyLife!