Conquer Fear
GPTAI Narration
Act while you fear rather than waiting until you are unafraid.
I've discovered that bliss arises is the absence of fear and guilt. It reveals that our default state is joy (and peace). Before words, as a baby, we were in a perpetual state of joy. It hit me on my way back from a 30 mile bike ride. I had just climbed 2,000 feet, and the wind was at my back. In that moment, I was untethered joy.
Some are afraid of failure, others are afraid of success. Regardless of the source of the fear, it immobilizes too many of us from achieving what we want. Redefine fear and you'll accomplish more.
The only way you can fail is to never try.
Fear is a self-limiting function of the mind. It's one of the main ways we hold ourselves back from experiencing a fuller life.
1. Understand fear and embrace it.
Fear exists to keep us safe. It is not inherently bad or good but a tool we can use to make better decisions. Fear isn’t designed to keep us inactive, but to help us act in ways that generate the results we need and want. Embrace fear as instruction and let it inform your actions, but not control them.
2. Say No before you say yes.
Every yes comes at the expense of another yes. You can anything you want, but you can't do everything you want.
We tend to admire people who are quick to action, but being deliberate, creating a plan, and pacing yourself are also actions. Many a successful undertaking has been threatened or ruined by haste alone. When fear strikes consider whether the correct action might be to analyze the options and make a wise, well thought out choice rather than jumping to what seems right in the heat of the moment.
3. Name the fear.
Sometimes merely stating what your fear is gives you the strength to deal with it. Say your fear out loud, write it down, or focus your mind on it. When you try to ignore your fear, it grows. When you face it, it shrinks.
4. Zoom out
Think long term.
If you’re an entrepreneur, you may be afraid you won’t make the next payroll. But what’s your three month outlook, or the outlook for three years from now? Thinking about the long term won’t fix your short term problem, but it can help you think about it more objectively and come up with the right solution.
Consider launching a new product. Let's call it a side gig. You are willing to commit 3 months, averaging 8 hours/week. At the end of 3 months, you would have invested 96 hours into it. Assuming you need to pay yourself $150/hour, the product needs to generate at least $14,400 to justify the time.
How often do you say yes to a request or project without considering the trade off?
Are you making a mountain out of a molehill?
How big of a deal, really, is the thing you’re afraid of? We sometimes get so caught up in the success or failure of a particular quest that we lose sense of where it fits in with everything else we value. Ask yourself what’s the worst that can happen? Sometimes the reality is bad, but often you might find that the fear itself is worse than whatever it is you’re afraid of happening.
5. Educate yourself.
We are afraid of nothing so much as the unknown. If your fear is based on a lack of information, then get the information or knowledge you need to examine the situation based on facts rather than speculation.
6. Prepare, practice, role play.
The long standing top fear in the United States is public speaking. In many surveys, death itself ranks in second place to standing in front of a group and opening your mouth. If your fear is related to your performance in a certain activity then prepare, practice, and role play. Carmine Gallo, author of Talk Like TED, told me about Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor who practiced her popular TED talk (over 18 million views and counting) more than 200 times. If you don’t have that much time, Gallo says “I find that practicing a presentation a minimum of 10 times is ideal.”
7. Utilize peer pressure.
Have you ever done something scary, like jumping off a high bridge into a river below, only because you were with friends who were egging you on? Peer pressure, like fear itself, can be positive or negative depending on how it’s wielded. Surround yourself with people who will push you to overcome the fears that are holding you back from what you want.
8. Visualize success.
Athletes may imagine the successful completion of a physical task thousands of times before achieving it. This mental mapping ensures that when the body moves, it’s more likely to follow its pre-ordained path. The same practice will prepare you to succeed at whatever you’re trying to achieve.
9. Don't go it alone.
Ask for help.
Whatever you’re afraid of, is it something you have to do alone? Can you find a mentor or support group to help you through it? Athletes have coaches. Students have teachers. Sometimes friends, even if they have no expertise in the area you’re struggling with, can provide the needed support to face your fear.
One of my pinnacle accomplishments in life was completing an Ironman in my 30's. It would not have been possible without my training partners who I met through the Northern Colorado Triathlon Club. Once Ironman announced a race that was close enough for us to easily drive to (in Utah), several of us jumped on the opportunity. But it was only because I was training with others who had completed Ironman distances previously that I gain the confidence to do it.
Focus on others as your motivation.
There are things we would never do for ourselves that we would quickly and fearlessly do for others.
Hyrum Smith, the co-founder of FranklinCovey, once asked a mother in his audience during a presentation if she would be willing to cross a standard metal “I beam” placed from the roof of one skyscraper to another. She said no, she wouldn’t. He asked her if she would do it for a million dollars, and added that now there was a bit of wind and some raindrops falling. She still wouldn’t. Then he told her to imagine he was holding her child over the edge of the opposite building, and if she wasn’t there in 10 seconds he would drop the child. What do you think her answer was under those circumstances?
10. Stop overthinking it.
Follow others, find a recipe.
Are you doing something that has never been done, or can you follow the footsteps of someone else who has accomplished it before? Is there a formula for success? Has someone written a book on the topic, or can you tweak a formula from another field to meet your needs?
Many people know what to do, but fear holds them back. In my experience, knowing too much can hold you back... knowing too much can paralyze you. The term 'paralysis by analysis'
Analysis paralysis is the inability to make a decision due to overthinking or an abundance of choice. If you’re suffering from indecision, here are a few tips on how you can combat analysis paralysis when it happens.
I can tell you everything, but unless you take action, all that knowledge is useless.
11. Have a positive attitude.
In Brian Tracy’s book The Power of Self-Confidence: Become Unstoppable, Irresistible, and Unafraid in Every Area of Your Life he asks “What would you do differently if you were absolutely guaranteed of success in any undertaking?” Would you try more things? Would you keep working long after others would have given up? People who have positive attitudes are successful because they keep trying after others give up.
Tracy emphasizes that fear is often based on irrational beliefs and negative self-talk. He suggests that to overcome fear, one should confront it directly, identify its root causes, and challenge limiting beliefs. He advocates for taking calculated risks, embracing discomfort, and adopting a growth mindset. According to Tracy, facing fears head-on and taking action are key steps in building self-confidence and achieving goals.
12. Be willing to pivot.
As the adage goes, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” But there’s also the saying “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” If you’re afraid to do something again because it didn’t work out the last time, figure out why it didn’t work, and try something different before you give up trying altogether.
What do you fear?
You can't think your way past fear, it requires action.
The payoff of living your life fearlessly is freedom. Fear hold us back. Fear, like worry, is wasted energy.
Becoming Fearless
Being fearless is achieved by disassociating with the outcome. It's going beyond winning or losing. You don't set conditions that define a result, because fear exists in the result (good or bad).
Fear of success and fear of failure are two sides of the same coin. Being fearless is not associating with either side. It's about becoming the coin itself. Heads or tails - you win either way.
It's being ok with the outcome no matter what the outcome is.
It requires that you let go of the opinion of others. The reminder is: "You need not concern yourself with the opinions of others."
Living Fearlessly
Overcoming the primary source of fear - Fear of the unknown
We learn by doing - whether it be ourselves or through others.
Getting to the root of the fear. What do you fear?
Fear of giving up freedom
Fear of being excluded or abandoned
Fear of being unloved
Fear of physical harm
Fear or death
Fear of ridicule
Fear of embarrassment
Fear of revealing who we truly are
Fear or showing weakness
Fear of being inadequate
Fear of making a mistake
Fear or financial loss
Fear of losing loved ones
Fear of being unemployed
Fear of debt
Fear of losing our home
Fear of losing peace
Fear of forgetting
Fear of not knowing
Fear of loss … loss of what?
99% of our fear stems from our ego. Lose the ego and you become fearless
Dropping the ego requires that we disassociate with the idea of who we are.
Most of Life is beyond your control. Just ask Will Smith. Years of careful planning can be undone in a split second.
Don’t wait for it. Pursue your dreams now. The only guarantee is that life is short and you will die before you know it. There is no better time than now.
Be still. For me, stillness brings peace back to my perception. I know peace is always there, but we forget and get caught up in the turmoil of daily life.
Be confident in your abilities
Remember that Freedom is Fearless. Steph and I shared that after many years of successful running our own businesses, we don't need to fear going out of business. We've proven an ability to overcome adversity and know that are capable to do what it takes to survive.
It's freeing to drop away the fear that at one time was omnipresent at the start. What remains is freedom.
Confidence comes from taking action and learning from experience. It comes from throwing your hat over the fence and going to get it.
Saying No to things we don't to do takes confidence.
Confidence is ok with letting people down because it knows that it's for the greater good of all mankind.
Never let 'No' keep you from realizing what you believe is possible. Nobody else besides yourself know what you are capable of. While it may be impossible in their world, it's possible in yours... and that's all you need to know.
Your greatest challenges are also your greatest growth opportunities. We all experience trauma and setbacks in Life. Know that post traumatic growth is real. Turn negatives into positives whenever possible.
Always be grateful. It's a much better choice than being bitter, sad, or any of the other negative emotions you can choose.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” ~ Viktor Frankl
Choose resilience. Choose gratitude. Choose yourself.
Fear of the unknown
The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. ~ H. P. Lovecraft
Q. What do you fear and why?
A. My single biggest fear used to be poverty. The idea running out of money before I die and not earning enough during my income generating years. As if those years somehow stop?
Fast forward to 2022. My business is thriving. Even without a single partner like Amazon referring business to me, I have more opportunities than I can pursue.
My biggest problem is bandwidth. I am in the process of working to expand my business with my first full-time hire.
My fear is rooted in a misstep I took early in my business 10 years ago. I hired an assistant who gradually increased her fees. All the profit of my business was going to her!
Before you hire, you have to be generating enough income through your business consistently to cover your salary and hers. In the past, the problem for me has always been the uncertainty that comes with project based work.
I've discovered however that I can really live on very little if I had to. I've had enough for years, and the fear of poverty is not real (because I've had nearly 50 years of living that proves otherwise). I do have respect for those who have lived in poverty. They've survived and it's no longer a fear that holds them back.
My actual single biggest fear is not being significant.
What really stings is when someone I felt considered me significant no longer does. Maybe they never did.
So how will I overcome this? By sharing my work and connecting with people who care. My mission is to positively impact the lives of a million people in a significant way.
Tim Ferriss’ Fear-Setting Exercise
Fear can be a form of cognitive bias.
Fear-Setting has three pages, each with a different purpose:
Put your fears under a microscope
Consider the potential benefits of taking action
Consider the consequences of inaction
Ted Talks on Fear
I think this first one is really about the Enneagram!