Be Your True Self and Design the Life You Love

Mark Twain said, "Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear."  

This quote is a good reminder that everyone has fears.  It's natural and can even be a good thing.  Tuning in to your fears, understanding them, and breaking them apart can help tackle them so you can have more energy to move toward with what you want in life. Below is some additional background information on fear to help better understand it and then some approaches on how to overcome it.

Background Information

Science shows our brains are like "Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones" says author and Ph.D. Rick Hanson.  In order to survive, humans learned to scan for danger (especially in early times when we were being chased by predators).  These days, we're not in the same precarious situations, but our brain still operates similarly.  It often scans for danger (although it might now come in the form of a contentious conversation with your boss or having to give a speech on stage in front of co-workers).  We might associate a particular interpretation of the situation which includes the fear of failure or judgment.  So fear is a natural part of our lives.  What we need to remember is that our lives aren't in real danger and that these fears are just thoughts wandering through our minds - - they are not truths.

And fear can be a good indication that you're alive and have something interesting and exciting going on in your life.  In fact, psychologist Fritz Perls (founder of Gestalt therapy) explained "fear is excitement without the breath".  When we look at fear more closely, we see that it is just thoughts of negative expectations while excitement includes thoughts of positive expectations.  So we have the power to choose the expectations for a certain situation in our lives and therefore can shift the feeling of fear to excitement.  

Of course, this takes some training and effort.  See below for some approaches on how to accept your fears and learn how to transform them in to energy that can create the life you want.

Approaches 

Below are some guiding principles for dealing with fear.  You might not always want to take steps in the exact order below, but these principles can be used in almost any situation you notice fear arise.  

• Take a Deep Breathe
• Your body doesn't lie.  So if you notice shallow breathing, you're probably feeling fear of some sort.  Being aware of how your body feels can help you mitigate the fear.  And it's easier/faster to change how your body is reacting (to a situation) than to change your thoughts.  So take a deep breathe (or three) until your breathing becomes more regular.  Then you'll be in a better position to take the next step.
• Identify the Truth 
• You most likely have beliefs (established over time) that drive your fears. These beliefs aren't necessarily truths but they reinforce a fear of potential failure in some area of your life.  For example, you could have a belief that only people with MBAs can start and run a business.  So anytime you pursue your entrepreneurial desires, your fear sets in and you sabotage your efforts.  If you take some time to look at your beliefs around an area of life where you seem to be stuck or a goal you can't seem to achieve, you can identify a truth within that belief but also see a big lie there too.  Yes, it can be helpful to have an MBA to start your own business, but the truth is that your education and experience can also be enough to allow you to follow your dream of being an entrepreneur.  This analysis is how you can begin to shift from a negative expectation to a neutral or even positive expectation of an experience you want to have.
• Lean in to Trust
• Your ability to analyze and improve yourself might take over as you evaluate your actions to determine how to make positive changes in your life.  At some point, you need to believe you have everything you need to succeed and trust yourself to do so.  You probably have had moments such as these where you have trusted yourself to do something, whether it was to give a speech, deliver a sales pitch, or even get through a tough new exercise in your workout class?  You didn't constantly judge yourself asking if you sounded ok while giving the pitch or wonder if your body will be able to accomplish the exercise.  You just trusted your mind and body to make it happen.  With practice and confidence, you can get to this trusting mindset in other areas of your life too where fear might exist.
• Take Action
• Ultimately, the best way to combat fear is to take action.  Any action.  You'll boost your confidence and your belief driving your fear (or negative expectation of an experience) will be immediately eroded.  It might not be completely gone, but you will have taken a step closer to associating a different outcome with your potential experience or moving toward a positive expectation regarding a certain situation in your life. 

For more information on how to work with fear and move towards courage, feel free to get in touch at [email protected].