DEFINE YOUR FEARS
We, too often, battle with nasty self-talk. We focus on our fears and doubts. Nearly all of us are guilty of exhibiting self-destructive behaviors. It’s easy to sabotage yourself when you’re trying to develop a new habit, losing weight, or building healthy relationships.
Most self-sabotage is the result of fear.
It can be the fear of failing, of succeeding, or of having to perform tasks that make us uncomfortable. We often self-sabotage because we feel intimidated by a big goal, a public recognition, or a sudden success.
Do you have a tendency to sabotage? What kind of fears do you have?
–> Fear is very harmful to our success.
First, we should understand, what fear is. Fear is a kind of self-paralysis. We put on ourselves a kind of pressure, that prevents us from succeeding. We are anxious and afraid of acting. Fear is a kind of chain reaction in the brain. It begins with a stressful stimulus and ends with the release of chemicals, that can cause a racing heartbeat, sweaty palms, and much more.
There are many kinds of fear.
The fear of …
- … inadequacy
- … failure
- … rejection
- … missing out
- … change
- … not being good enough
- … losing control
- … being judged
- … something bad happening
- … getting hurt
- … the unknown
- … taking risks
- … we might not deliver or live up to expectations
- … letting people down
- … trusting someone / intimacy
- … that it is or never will be enough
- … success
- … the consequences
- … a decision
and
- … death
etc.
How can we overcome such fear?
We should look at our fears from another angle. Instead of seeing fear as something, that stops us from doing the things to move forward and achieving our goals, we should harness it as a fuel to excel.
–> Try to understand your fears!
–> Learn to tackle your fears!
–> Go after them!
–> Harness them!
–> Learn to overcome them!
Visualize worst-case scenarios, in detail, that you fear, preventing you from taking action so that you can take action to overcome that paralysis. Create a piece of paper, where you write down sentences beginning with
“What if …?”.
For example:
“What if I would meet a stranger, that attacks me personally?” Develop some scenarios to get a good feeling for what blocks your success. Exploring possible outcomes is a useful mental exercise. Write down all the bad things, you can imagine happening to you. What could your worst failure look like? Imagine the scenario in your head and take note of your feelings. Then create a piece of paper, where you write down sentences, how you could prevent these scenarios.
For example:
“What could I do, when a stranger attacks me personally?” The key is getting an awareness of what scares us. Our biggest challenges and problems we face will never be solved by suppressing our fears.
–> Defining our fears is often more important than defining our goals.
If you want to conquer fear, don’t sit at home and think about it. Go out and get busy.
—Dale Carnegie
In Buddhist teaching, they tell us “invite your fear to tea”.
SUMMARY
We often sabotage our success with our fears. Self-sabotage will always be there. It is a natural mechanism of the brain that aims for protection.
What we can do is identify and work past these behaviors in order to reach our full potential.
We should learn to tackle and define our fears.
Defining our fears is often more important than defining our goals.
This is so helpful to me at this time in my life. I finished a book a year ago but I’m so afraid to publish it because of my fears. I’m going to write down each one and how to overcome them. Thank you for such though provoking material.
Val
Hello Val,
Take yourself a heart and publish your book.
Don’t hesitate!
Wish you good luck 👍
Karin
Fear is actually a choice. Without realizing it, we accept fear as if it were a normal aspect of life. I do not mean that fear is not part of the normal actions (and reactions) of the human being, but we cannot become prisoners of it.
Grazie Aldo! We should never let us be defined by our fears.