137: 5 Strategies to Overcome Fear

Welcome to this episode of the Professional Creative Podcast. Today I want to talk about overcoming fear. Fear is something that we all manage in different ways in our day to day lives, especially in our creativity and of course, in our journey to becoming the entrepreneur that we want to become. And so for this episode, I'm going to be discussing five ways that I have overcome fear from the very beginning. Five strategies that when I feel afraid of doing something or a possible outcome of something, I always go back to one of these five strategies.

I'm Bonnie Christine and this is where all things creativity, design, business and marketing unite. I'm a mama living in a tiny town tucked right inside the Smoky Mountains, running a multi seven figure business, doing the most creative and impactful work of my life.

But when I first set out to

become an entrepreneur, I was struggling to make ends meet and wrestling with how to accomplish my biggest dream of becoming a fabric designer. Fast forward to today. I'm not only licensing my artwork all over the world, but also teaching others how to design their creative life and experience the same success. I'm here to help you spend your life doing something that lights you up. I'll help you build a creative business that also creates an impact, changes people's lives, gives you all of the freedom you want, and is wildly profitable. Welcome to the Professional Creative Podcast.

So I'm not sure where fear is popping up for you. Maybe it's something really big like starting a new career or paying off debt or writing that book or starting a business. Or maybe it's something small like just showing up on social media or being willing to share something vulnerable or putting your artwork out into the world or going to meet that person at the store down the street that might carry your products. Right? There's fear on so many different levels that we have to manage. But in order to really reach the goals that you have, you have to start overcoming every fear, getting rid of every doubt and quieting every voice in your head that's telling you that you can't do it because you absolutely can do it. Something that I think is really important to understand is that no one is exempt from this. Meaning every person in your life that you think has made it, they're successful, right? They're doing the thing that you long to do. Let me tell you, they did it while managing fear. They didn't do it because they weren't afraid. They did it despite being afraid. And that is a really incredible thing. So I'm speaking from experience. Every fear that I've just mentioned, I have Experienced and managed firsthand, I'm no stranger to it. I had to overcome fear every step of my journey. From zero to becoming a professional designer to now running a multi seven figure company as an entrepreneur. There are still fears that pop up for me every single day that I work towards overcoming. You know, with all the hurdles that come along the way, I can just say that with confidence. My own fears were the greatest challenges that I had to overcome. And I'm guessing that that's true for you as well. So I want to stand as an example to you that it can be done despite those fears. So let's spend some time going over these five different strategies to overcoming fear. You may have heard me talk about them in other times, but not quite in this particular way with this filter or perspective. The first one is this concept of 10 seconds of courage. Now, courage means the ability to do something that, that frightens someone. The first time I heard this was from Craig Groeschel. He was my pastor or is my pastor. And I heard it many years ago, like probably 12 years ago now. And the concept is, right, that so many things that we want to do in life are standing on, you know, standing on the other side of just having 10 seconds of courage. So one of the ways that I've used this, I've used it thousands of times, was getting the courage to pick up the phone and call someone, introduce myself to someone, take a chance on myself. Because really, at the end of 10 seconds, you'll either have your answer or things will have begun, right? The conversation will have started, you'll be having momentum and it will just be done already. I believe it just takes serious courage to follow your creative dreams. It did for me and it does for everyone that I know. I mean, bounding into the unknown with confidence is hard and it is for so many creative entrepreneurs. You know, I have had so many unanswered questions like what if I'm not successful? Or what if I am successful, right? How much money will I make? Will I make any at all? Is this a good idea? Is it a bad idea? How do I even get started? So I realized that I just needed a little bit of courage. For so many things in life. You just need to calm your nerves and move forward, move through the nerves instead of stand on the edge of them. Because the truth is, really becoming successful means putting yourself out there and doing some pretty scary things time and time again. But what I want to share with you is the things that I used to find scary are not scary to me anymore. That's how you grow your comfort zone. It's by having the courage to step just outside of it. And then it grows and grows and grows. The fears that I have today are completely different than the fears that I had a year ago, five years ago, 10 years ago. So a great example of this is public speaking. I don't like public speaking. I used to be absolutely terrified of it. I don't like talking to people I don't know or I don't excel at it, I don't mind it, but I, I don't find it that it comes really naturally. And maybe introducing myself to someone who's never, never met me before, I mean, I've told you, I don't even like calling in takeout, okay, Just, I always have David do it for me. But all of these things have been essential to making my business thrive. Showing up afraid. Anyways, I've had to show my work to important people. So scary. I've had to give presentations. Scary. I've had to speak in front of large crowds. Terrifying. I've had to make cold calls and introduce myself to strangers more times than I can count. And the thing that got me through it every time was remembering that it's only 10 seconds of courage. Then I'll have started what I need to say, started what I've needed to do and, and my nerves, my nerves will have quieted down. So I feel so passionate about this topic because I've used it so many times. I mean, I recently just finished making a new portfolio. I have a list of dream clients that I want to send it to. And I picked up the phone and began dialing my number one choice. Of course this is so scary. My heart's beating outside of my chest. I was so nervous. But I went back to all I need is 10 seconds of courage. So what about you? What do you need right now that requires 10 seconds of courage? That practice of just moving again through the nerves is all that it takes. Now the next strategy is something I'm also a huge believer in. It's an abundance based mindset. Really. Every single one of us experience moments of doubt and fear. But the important thing is that we don't move from that place. We don't think, believe and make decisions from that place of fear. For creatives, these doubts really manifest in so many different ways. Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of not being good enough, fear of not making enough money, fear of putting ourselves out there. So of course, imposter syndrome can often lurk in the shadows because of all of this. And that makes us question the authenticity of our work. Especially when we look around and feel like there's so many other people doing similar things or things that are better than us. But this is a fear based mindset and what it does is stifle our creativity. It limits our willingness to experiment and it stops our growth in our tracks. It places limits on our imagination and it makes us hesitate before we make decisions. Now, when you think about your fear based decisions, then oftentimes if you can just catch them, you can take a moment and flip the script and talk about what would this look like if I made this decision from a place of abundance instead? Because my friends, if you're going to worst case scenario, you have to promise me you'll also best case scenario. So a couple of steps to work through. If you're finding that you often are moving and making decisions from this place of fear is number one. Just name them, identify your fears, recognize that they're fear based mindsets and they're holding you back. This could be fear of age or fear of technology, or fear of, you know, all of those things we've talked about and then reframe that perspective. Flip the script, shift your viewpoint and instead of fearing failure, set your eyes on the opportunity. Then believe in yourself. You have a unique voice and there's a place for you, exactly how you are, exactly where you are in the world and then stay open and just kind of trust the process. Embrace those new opportunities and trust in the capabilities that you have. One of my friends, Brooke Castillo, who's a life coach, she says that you can try on new mindsets as if they were a new pair of clothes. Try them on and see how they feel and if they don't serve you well, you can take them right back off. Sometimes I feel like trying a new mindset. We're afraid of that in and of itself. We have fear around. Well, you know, if I try an abundance based mindset, I'm not going to be ready for the worst case scenario or I'm not going to see what is possibly going to happen. Right? I'll be under prepared. So just try it on as if it's a pair of clothes. Take it off if it doesn't serve you well.

Okay, picture this. Have you ever spent hours scouring through your video or maybe your podcast content trying to find that one place that you said that one thing? Or if you've forgotten or never found it and you had to rerecord everything. I've been there and it's so frustrating and honestly a huge waste of time. But it hasn't happened to me ever since I started using Searchie. Searchie is the software that I use for all of my videos and all of my podcast content, because it not only transcribes it, but it makes it searchable by key word. And so for you to see this in action, I have an example set up for you over on BonnieChristine.com resources. Again, that's BonnieChristine.com resources and you can actually play with Searchie and see how it looks on one of our videos, because once you understand what it does, it's a game changer. I also host all of my workshop and my class, my membership and course material through Searchie as well. So students can search for any question that they have to the exact time and place where I talked about that one thing. And just imagine this. If I ever do a Q and A and they want to know if I answered their question, all they have to do is search for their name and see if I did or not. It's literally like having your very own personal search engine for your content. So no more wasting time scrubbing through your video or audio to find that one golden nugget. With Searchie, you can easily find what you're looking for in seconds. Just type in a keyword or phrase and Searchie will pull up all the relevant content. It's a game changer for anyone who creates audio or video content. But honestly, that's not all. Searchie's new AI powered transcription and captioning tool makes it easy to create accessible content that everyone can get access to. And with their customizable player, you can embed your videos and your podcasts on your website or social media channels in a way that looks and feels so professional. So if you are ready to take your video or your podcast content to the next level, head on over to BonnieCristine.com resources and just give Searchie a try. It's incredible. I think you're going to love it and I can't wait to see how it revolutionizes the way you create content.

Okay, strategy number three is to get into the right room. I'm such a fan of being really careful and intentional about the rooms that you allow yourself to spend the most time in. Now, we all have rooms that may not check all the boxes, right? And they are maybe situations or friends or family or people who we really have to be in the room with, if you will. Maybe they don't really push your mindset or know how to support you and encourage you, and that's okay. But you need to have at least one room that you're spending some time in that really knows how to support you, how to encourage you, how to show you what's possible, how to stretch your thinking, stretch your mindset, and who you can really be yourself, who you can share your big scary dreams with and not get laughed at. Right. I hear from so many of my students that they find their room in the communities that we have for them. So oftentimes something like surface pattern design can be isolating because all of the sudden you're talking about vectors and licensing contracts and, you know, working in Pantone colors and all of these, I don't know, things like language of the industry, that someone in your real day to day life may not have a clue of what you're talking about. So it's so important when we find ourselves being isolated that we find a room that really speaks our language. So this concept is about not necessarily just a physical space, but it's an intellectual, emotional, a motivational space that you can immerse yourself in. So you can think about communities in person or virtual, you can think about retreats in person or virtual. You can think about things like masterminds or study groups. But when you're in a room full of people who are encouraging you and spurring you on towards your dreams, fear has a way of just falling at your feet. This is so important. You don't want to miss this. If you don't have this type of room in your life right now. I want your goal to be to find it, find it as quickly as you can. Surround yourself with people who speak your language, who get it and who know how to move you forward. There's this concept, right, that you are an average of your five closest friends or the five people that you spend the most time with. And that's really psychological human behavior. We want to fit in. And so the five people that you spend the most time with, you'll typically find yourself an average of them. And so if you're hanging out with people who have a poor mindset, who are unhealthy, who don't steward their money well, who don't steward their ideas well, well, it's going to be really hard for you to do all of those things as opposed to if your five closest friends are big thinkers and glass half full kind of people who are researchers and know how to get things done, they are, you know, faithful and they put their health first and they have great marriages and great friendships, and they don't gossip and they don't speak badly about their husbands or spouses or whoever it is, then you can feel the difference, right? You will be inspired to do the same. So be careful who you spend the most time with. Strategy number four is to do one thing a day. Now, I talk about this a lot. Let me break it down for you. Fear often arrives in a version of overwhelm. So when you look at your goals and dreams and how far away they are, how much you have to do in order to get them to come true, well, that often settles as overwhelm. And then it becomes fear. Fear of getting started, fear of failure, fear of overwhelm. So instead of focusing on that really big picture, I kind of like to get it on paper. I know where I'm headed. I know the big rocks along the way. But then I take my gaze right in front of me. So I'm not going to think about that long term anymore. I want to think about what I can do today in order to just incrementally inch myself forward. But I don't ever want to miss a day. And if I do miss a day, I definitely don't want to miss two days. So I want to do one, at least one thing every single day that inches me forward. Now, this is how every big accomplishment I've ever made in my whole life has come true. So I'm sharing that with you because it's been such an impact on me and my life. It was doing one thing every single day that helped me move towards becoming a fabric designer and then starting to become an educator and then starting to build a team and then starting to really impact the people in my life and my community and the industry like I want to. So for a while, though, it was just tiny little things like researching. I needed to ask questions, I needed to read books. I needed to take some online classes. I needed to just do some little things. So for me, 15 minutes is what counts. So as long as you spend 15 minutes a day doing something, anything at all, towards accomplishing that big dream, you'll get there. You'll get there. Now, strategy number five is to learn from failure. So I know that no one wants to fail. I know that failure is part of our biggest fear in the first place. But the truth is that we learn more from our failures than we do from our successes. You know, Bill Gates once said, success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking that they can't lose, which means that failure is the best teacher, right? It means that you can, you, you can really, really learn from your mistakes. And I mean even tiny mistakes. So I often talk about this to my Surface Design immersion students. When they're learning Illustrator, I want them to kind of learn by trial and error because if they get everything right the whole time and copy my steps exactly, they're never going to find the autonomy that they need to really learn and use the program Adobe Illustrator. And so really, failure is the best teacher. You'll end up with a illustration that you didn't do, right. You'll figure it out, you'll do it the correct way, and you'll never do it the wrong way again, right? So even from a tiny place, all the way up to really big failures that we learn from. So don't be afraid to fail. Instead, determine to learn and grow from your failures and see them as learning experiences and teachers in your life. And then use it to really catapult yourself to the next level. This is your time to overcome fear. It will never, always go away. But remember, the successful people in your life, they they there not because they didn't have fear, but despite the fear. My friends, put your fear to rest. Create the beauty that you want to see. Come alive in the world.

And remember, there is room for you.

I'll see you next time.

Bye for now.