What stops us moving forward?

There’s an ancient dark force that is blocking us from achieving what we want, stopping us from reaching our true potential and filling us with unwanted pain and anguish. It’s been around for a very long time, and although different things trigger it for each of us, it’s within us all. If we can tame it and put it in its place we can do great things. Left unchecked though and it will stop you ever realising your true potential, your true best version of yourself. So what is this mysterious dark power? It’s called: FEAR

This invisible force is the thing that stops you from moving forward and making that important decision or makes you go around and around questioning yourself. It makes the smallest challenge seem impassable or turns the tiniest bumps in the road into mountains. It breaks down relationships and can make you suspicious or wary of others, and when all that is said and done it also protects you and keeps you safe!

Fear comes in different disguises, fear of rejection, fear of other people’s opinions, fear of missing out, fear of failure, fear of success (how can I maintain this level), fear of being hurt, fear of love (or losing it), fear of being alone, fear of the unknown (uncertainty). Fear is part of the human experience, and we will never get rid of it, but we can learn to live with it.

“The secret is learning how to use fear instead of it using you”

- Tony Robbins -

Take a moment to think about the following question,

What stops you moving forward or getting where you want to be?

Generally, when we ask this question, despite all the different variations mentioned above, our fears fall into a few overarching categories, Tony Robbins - one of the world's top business strategists, puts it down to two primary fears we all share:

1. We’re not enough (good enough, have enough, are enough etc)

2. We won’t be loved

Add to this our ultimate fear which the Buddhist nun Pema Chodron puts down as our fear of death, then it’s amazing that we actually get out of bed in the morning.

Fear-ful

Fear has been an essential part of our survival, it triggers our stress response, fight, freeze, or flight, and prepares us to get out of danger. The problem with this is that when faced with danger our ability to create, think, and resolve problems is pretty much switched off. How difficult is it to think of a solution when a deadline is looming? Then you get in the shower the next day and as you relax, all of a sudden you are bursting with ideas! Fear takes us out of a resourceful state.

“What makes us fearful very rarely turns out to be true”

Unfortunately what was once a real danger to our survival is no longer the case in the modern world. If we deliver a piece of work that doesn't meet someone else's expectation it is unlikely to have the same life-threatening result as being confronted by a wild animal (although I suppose that depends on the manager). Our mind plays a trick on us, what makes us fearful very rarely turns out to be true. We just make it as scary as possible and talk ourselves out of it, to make sure we don’t harm ourselves.

Our primary fears may well be similar when it comes to getting where we want to be in life, but the specific incidents that trigger them are entirely unique to each of us. Why is that one person can climb up a 3000ft mountain without ropes, as Alex Honnold did in “Free Solo” which most of us find it hard to watch in the comfort of our own home. Why is it that some people can happily present in front of our peers or leaders yet others would be kept up all night at the thought?

Our own unique fears get even bigger when faced with a crisis or time of uncertainty as well. Take COVID, what scared you about COVID is more than likely what you were scared of prior to the virus, it’s just that it was magnified times 100!

“The fear you have about the virus is the fear you took into the virus”

- Lyanla Vasant -

Part of the cause lies in what we have been exposed to in life and how we have interpreted and filed away the experience. As a toddler my daughter didn’t mind being confronted with spiders or snakes, yet when she went to school things changed, she now runs a mile in the other direction, yet her younger sister isn’t phased, yet!

As small children most of us receive unconditional love and attention, then one day it doesn't come so freely, you may get ignored, or told off, so we start trying different things to receive that love again. We almost teach ourselves what to be fearful of in life and then find examples to back it up.

Take the person who doesn’t feel good enough, or doesn't feel valued enough. All of a sudden at the age of 30 they are looking back and thinking, “why aren’t I where I want to be in life?”. “Why don’t I put my hand up or make that decision that is going to push me forward?”. Then they start looking into where this fear comes from and find that up until this point they’ve been stacking examples to back this fear up. My dad didn’t turn up to my school play when I was 10 - I’m not good enough. At 15, I didn’t do well on that exam - I’m not good enough. At 16, that girl doesn’t want to go out with me - I’m not good enough for her. At 18 - My friends didn’t invite me to go traveling - I’m not good enough! At 20, I didn’t get the job I interviewed for - I’m not good enough. And on and on and on. We stack these examples and start to avoid the situations that trigger this feeling, we play it safe to avoid any pain. We know exactly how to act, what to say when we feel this way. We become experts at playing the role of “fearful” without even realising it.

Fear-less!

Fear is hard-wired into us, it’s a natural response to help us adapt and react to danger. It’s there to protect us. It’s helped us thrive and survive. The challenge is it’s often misplaced. We’ve taught ourselves what to be fearful of, so if we want to fear-less we need to start stacking the other way. we need to prove to ourselves that …

We are enough (good enough, have enough)

We are loved

Remember every time we avoid something because of our fear we strengthen the beliefs behind our fear. To conquer it we must face it!

Action

Finally, reading is very useful, but change requires action. So how do we overcome our fears? Here are 5 things you can start doing today!

1. Identify what you are fearful of and why. Listen to what you say to yourself, notice what you picture in your head, observe where you feel fear. Create a daily log of when your fear shows up, and write down what you are saying to yourself, what reasons are you giving yourself, i.e. they won’t like me, I will get sacked, I will be lonely, they will laugh at me etc. You need to own the problem to own the solution.

2. Practice self-care and mindfulness. Mindfulness has been proven to reduce anxiety and stress. It helps us to lean in and let go - not bury, ignore, or hold onto unwanted feelings or internal chatter. Mindfulness and breath awareness helps us to return to a kind of pure state where we are not getting caught up in our own internal dialogue and belief system. Also look at some of your eating, drinking, exercise, and sleeping habits. Are you getting enough of the good stuff and less of the bad stuff!

3. Pain is a great teacher. Instead of running from our pain, ignoring it, or even bathing in it, stop! Lean into it, tell yourself, “oh this is fear talking”, then explore where it is located in the body. Don’t get stuck in your head with fear by ruminating over it again and again. Once it shows up ask yourself, “what is my pain trying to teach me here”, then just wait for the answer, and take action on it. If we get through the other side of our fear with action, there are great things waiting for us.

4. Use fear on itself. If fear is stopping you doing something you want, ask yourself what is the price I’ll pay if I don’t do this? Turn fear in on itself. Make the longer-term impact more fearful than the short term pain. You can always take the rocking chair test, imagine you are 80 years old sitting on a rocking chair looking back on your life, look back as if you had not achieved that goal, taken that action or made that decision, how would you feel about it?

5. Build the muscle. Get out of your comfort zone by doing things that scare you. This will help build confidence, and start stacking against the fear. Start small but take daily actions which push you out of your comfort zone i.e. do that presentation, put your hand up to do that report, send that difficult email, ask that difficult question, tell your partner how much you love them or even take a cold shower in the morning, anything to get you out of your comfort zone to help you say, with convocation, “I can do difficult things!”

Most importantly fear is in us all, it’s inevitable, as is failure. It’s part of achieving greatness, we all experience these but we don’t have to let it stop us!

Until next time ...

Dream big! Act now!

Tim