Ep #153: How to Release Fear and Doubt

This is the Get a Six-Figure Job You Love and Thrive Podcast. This is episode 153, How to Release Fear and Doubt. Welcome to the Get a Six-Figure Job You Love and Thrive Podcast, where I, Natalie Fisher, am teaching you weekly how to land your premium role that you love and thrive in it. Let's go. Hello and welcome to the podcast. Today. So this is something that I feel like I've gotten really, really good at, especially in the past months, understanding why we think fear and doubt and worry and all that is necessary, why so many of us spend so much time focusing on a lot of fear and doubt and catastrophizing. This is something I coach on regularly inside my group program, so I know it's very prominent for people. Yeah. And it's because There's a few reasons. First one, our brain thinks that it's going to help us, right? It thinks it's— if it thinks it's being efficient, it thinks it's preparing us. Some people will come back and argue that it's risk management, like, yes, but if I know that, like, if I'm prepared for all these bad things to happen, then somehow I'm going to be able to set myself up for preparing for when these bad things happen. And maybe there's a small part of that that makes sense, but the way that we take it It doesn't make us productive at all. So the way that I kind of see it, and especially recent events that have happened to me, which I'll get into, but the way that I kind of see it is it's like you're punching yourself in the face over and over and over to be prepared for getting like a really big punch in the face, right? Nothing could ever really prepare you for that. It will leave you worse off. So, and there's always at any given moment, Thousands, millions of things that we could worry about, that we could be afraid of, that we could be doubtful about, right? There's always that choice, right? And this funny thing that I'm thinking of now is that I broke my ankle, and that was like nothing that was not in my awareness. I wasn't worried about that. I wasn't even thinking that that was a possibility of something that would happen in my life. And that's what happened, right? And so it's like, There was no way I could have worried my way to be better prepared for that. There's no way that that would have done me any good, right? And, and yet that's what happened, right? So it's normally, for me anyway, I'm thinking it's normally the stuff you never even imagined that would happen, right? And if you think back, the stuff you worried about, probably most of it did not pan out, if any of it, probably none of it panned out. And then random things happened that you could have never predicted. You could have never worried your way to a plan about them. Right? So why we do this is because our brain thinks it is protecting us. It thinks it's— this is what we need to stay safe, to be protected. It thinks it's necessary, right? It thinks it's helpful. And in caveman days, potentially, like, if we left the cave, we could get eaten by a tiger or whatever. We needed to be protecting ourselves in that way. Like, we needed that fear. And to this day, that fear and worry is necessary if somebody's chasing us with a knife or if somebody is— attacking us or whatever, that might be useful to have fear, right? But it's not useful to worry about things that haven't happened yet, right? There's literally no upside to worrying about things that have not happened yet. And I've heard it said, which explains it the best to me, it's like worrying is praying for what you don't want, or it's like fantasizing about what you don't want, right? So It exists because it's like a program that's built into our brain to protect us, yet we are using it in a way that is actually very counterproductive to getting the results we want, to heading where we want to go. It's very counterproductive. So how we try to deal with this is we— it's like, okay, I'll explain this to my clients and they'll be like, okay, I know I should not worry, right? Then they start feeling bad for worrying, or they start to shame themselves for worrying, or they're like, oh, I know I shouldn't be worried about this, but— right? And then they— it keeps coming up. Because it's a very hardwired ingrained thing in our, into our human brains. It's like a, it's like a program. It's like, you know, those iPhone apps that are there and you can't take 'em out. They're still there. You can't delete them 'cause they're part of the phone. That's kind of what worry and fear is, and it is still useful in certain situations. So it's good that it's there. We just need to learn to understand it and know when to give attention to it. So if it's like, like I said, someone chasing you with a knife, some, like you're in danger, in real physical danger, then that is a good thing to have and we need it and it's required for us to survive. But the way that most people are using it, so for example, like, oh, what if I never get the job I want? What if I don't have enough money to pay my rent? What if I never get paid what I want to get paid? What if I can't ever change careers? What, like that kind of worry, that is not useful in the slightest. Okay. You are not in physical danger. You are going to be fine. So that is completely useless worry. Yet it comes from the same place as the fear where we think we might leave the cave and we might get eaten by a tiger, or we might— like, we're in physical danger. It comes from the same place in our brain, yet it is completely useless. So how we usually try to cope with it or deal with it is we try to shove it down and tell ourselves we're wrong for having it, be like, nope, don't be afraid of this. It's fine. And that doesn't work because then we feel bad for doing it, yet it's still a normal part of ourselves, right? So we have to have compassion for when that stuff comes up. But it also doesn't work because we're still feeling the feelings, right? We're still feeling the anxiety. We're still feeling that fear. We're still feeling that worry. And while we are still feeling those feelings, that is the vibration that we're giving out. And that is what keeps us in unsuccessful loops, right? It keeps us in not attracting what we want. It keeps us in getting disappointed over and over. It keeps us in Like attracting more of what we don't want because we are still feeling those feelings. So as long as you are still feeling those feelings of anxiety or fear or worry or doubt on a regular basis, you are very unlikely to attract and keep what you want. And that is what's happening with most people with when they get into unsuccessful patterns, right? And then they— then it's like, it's like when you get into an unsuccessful pattern, you tend to stay there unless you make a shift, right? And that's why you'll see a lot of people who are in unsuccessful patterns, they get kind of deeper and deeper and deeper into those unsuccessful patterns. And then you'll see people that are very successful, they tend to follow that success pattern and they tend to have more success and more success and more success, right? And it's not that they don't have failures along the way, they just don't focus on them. They don't talk about them so much. And if they do talk about them, they're sharing a lesson. They're excited about what they're gonna do next, right? They talk about them in a way that empowers them and fuels them forward instead of a way that makes it so that they feel like they're not gonna achieve, right? So I've seen lots of posts on LinkedIn about that, that people with unsuccessful thought loops have been posting, and it makes perfect sense. It's like they live in worry and fear and doubt every day, and they attract more of that. And then they post about it, and they vocalize it, and they bring more attention to it, and then they attract more of that, right? And they might attract people pitying them, people feeling bad for them, people supporting them. One woman posted, she's like, I've applied for 600 jobs, I've talked to everybody, I've networked, I've hired career career coaches, I've done this, I've talked to recruiters, and nothing has worked. I've tried everything. I shared a post that was shared— her post got a massive amount of reach. It was shared like, I don't know, thousands and thousands of times. And she's like, but none of that resulted in any hiring manager or any person actually hiring me, right? And so that's her focus, right? And so that's just gonna breed more of that, right? Because that's what she's focused on. She's very hell-bent focused on nothing is working, and that's where her focus is. And so that's— she's just going to attract more of that, right? So That is an example of how fear and worry plays out in your life, right? So what we need to do— like, that's what's ultimately created is unsuccessful thought loops or successful thought loops. And you create those by deciding every day what path you take. Do you take fear, worry, and doubt, or do you take excited, expectant, good things are coming, this is working, all the things I am doing have worked, right? Or do you pick the what, what hasn't worked, right? You can choose those 2 roads every single day that you wake up, right? And what you say comes true, right? Like you say that, like her post, it comes true and then it comes true more and it even gets multiplied and shared with more people that see, oh, that, that's happening for her. She's unsuccessful. She's attracting a lot of like attention, but no actual results. Like, She just magnifies that with her focus, right? Versus someone else who's just out there doing the work. Maybe they have a conversation that doesn't work out so well for them and they're like, okay, well, you know, I'm on to the next one. I've already got this other one lined up. I'm doing this. They're in that excited, expectant energy and then they're going to get more ideas, right? They're going to be more receptive and open to like unorthodox ideas or random ideas to reach out to people that they might not have thought of reaching out to or signing up for something that they feel really aligned for or like just keep Keeping on trying until they get to where they're going, right? And they're not even worried about the fact that they're not there yet because they know they're going to get there, right? So there's those 2 choices every single day, and you'll see very clearly with what people say which of those choices they are taking every single day, right? So the alternative solution, it is to train your brain on what I'm saying, right? On the fact that you have to kind of calm yourself down. So when you have that fear and worry and doubt creep in, when you have that anxiety and that those thoughts come in. So the thoughts might be like, well, what if it takes forever? What if it takes like a year? What if it never works out? What if no one wants to hire me? What if the economy is so bad that I can't ever get the job I want? What if I'm gonna have to take like way lower pay? Those thoughts, you need to identify the sentence. You need to identify that you're having those sentences and that's happening. And so that's the first step. And then when you do that, you can say, okay, that is my brain trying to protect me, but it's not necessary. It's not a requirement and there's no upside to it because you can equally choose to take your brain in another direction, right? And so what happens for most people is that those thoughts are so well ingrained, it's like they're— it's like a superhighway to those thoughts, right? So they can— a superhighway is really easy to drive on. You just get in the car, you go. It's super easy to drive on that highway, right? Versus the other direction is not so clearly paved out, right? So you don't wake up every day thinking, oh, I'm excited. I'm expecting for— an offer to come through. I'm going to get a great idea to reach out to someone. I'm so excited. I don't know what's going to happen today, but it's going to be great. You don't have a superhighway to that place of thinking, right? What you have there is maybe a little path that's kind of been started with a machete. Like you're kind of paving a little path through the weeds there, or you've got maybe a little dirt road. Maybe you've been doing it a little more. So you're like, okay, like I can drive on this dirt road, but it's kind of wonky. It's kind of unstable, but I can still— start driving on this dirt road, right? So what most people have is they have a dirt road or started carving out a little path to the excited expectancy, but they have a superhighway to the worry and doubt. And so that is where they keep attracting. That's where they keep most of their life, is the worry and doubt. And so what you need to do, and what you can just as easily do, is create a superhighway to excited expectant energy and create success loops for yourself just as easily. So it's kind of, you have to overcome your own brain because you have to explain to your logical part of your brain that understands, look, I understand you're worried. I understand those catastrophizing thoughts are coming in, but you don't need them. They're not required. They're not necessary. There's no upside to them. They really don't help. Currently in the now, future is a blank slate. So we can go down that superhighway again of the worry, fear, and doubt, or we can build our superhighway to the excited, expectant, this is happening no matter what. I'm decided. My hellbent for glory decision is that I'm creating that superhighway to excited expected energy. And you can choose that every day. And then that is what you will wake up doing automatically. And then you will start attracting things and it can happen insanely quickly and you just need to be in it every day until that's— and the awareness is the biggest thing, right? If you can become aware of those thoughts, if you can see yourself catastrophizing and you can have compassion for yourself and be like, okay, I see those thoughts, I see what you're doing. But remember, Brain trying to protect us. It's cool. We have that part of the brain that's going to do that for a reason. But we also have the higher part of our brain, the prefrontal cortex, that knows better, right? It's the part that wants for you for the future, right? It wants you to build things. It wants you to create. It wants you to evolve, right? That part of your brain is the part of the brain that is capable of building that superhighway and is capable of Overcoming that lower part of your brain that talks about the fear and the worry and the doubt and really wants to stay there, right? So we have this beautiful machine, this beautiful computer between our ears, and we get to use it as such. So that's what I wanted to kind of share. And it's been such a prevalent issue with my students inside my program, and we coach on it a lot. I thought it'd be very helpful to kind of bring it out here and share with you. how you can release it. So why it works better is because you end up attracting different things to you, right? You're open. You're more open when you're in excited and expectant energy. Like, if I'm like, yeah, for sure, your amazing role is coming. You're going to connect with the right person. The interview is going to be great. You're going to have the most wonderful experience getting there, and then in the role is going to be even better. If I told you that's absolutely for sure happening, How would you wake up every day? How would you behave? What would you be thinking? What would you do? How would you spend your time, right? Knowing that you gotta take some action towards it, but knowing that you will be guided there, knowing that you will do it, right? Knowing that there's lots of ways you can get there and that you just have to see those opportunities. You have to start seeing the opportunities, and they come in different ways. They come via ideas that come into your brain. So incoming thoughts, they, they will be supported by your outgoing thoughts. So an incoming thought is like an idea to say, oh, I haven't talked to Janice in a long time, and I used to work with her, and I wonder what she's doing now. Oh, I should give her a call, right? That's an incoming thought, an idea, and that can change the course of your whole career if you act on that. And then like an outgoing thought could be exactly like what I just said, which was like, I'm so excited to start my new role. I can't wait for this. I'm so glad this happened. Like, I'm so glad I'm here in this place where I have this exciting new thing that's coming, and I get to start this new beginning. Yeah. beginning, and I get to evolve, and I get to have these new experiences. That outgoing thought matched with a feeling will attract like a magnet what you want, right? It will attract the opportunities, the people, and it'll do it through vibration. So the necessary skills for this are awareness. Awareness is the top one, right? Absolutely top one. You need to be aware that you are catastrophizing. You need to be aware that you are In worry, doubt, and fear. You need to be aware that you're doing that, and you need to be aware of the sentences that are creating that for you. And they're most likely anticipating the worst, anticipating something bad, thinking that, you know, some outside circumstance is gonna get in the way of what you want, right? Or it's attaching something that's bad to your now. But really, in the now, you are fine. You don't have anything to worry about. You are totally safe. And the future is up to you to create. So you need the skill of awareness. That is the number one skill. That is what I keep bringing people back to in my program. In my program, we do a lot of awareness work. That's what a coach does. A good coach will point out to you what's going on in your brain, what you are doing that is preventing you from getting your results. Okay? That's what I'm expert in. That's what I do. So when we point that out and you see those sentences very clearly, and sometimes they're very, very sneaky. Sometimes you're like, oh, I didn't even realize that sentence was blocking me. I didn't realize what— how that sentence was playing out in my life, right? Very sneaky. Sometimes you can't see them. Once you are aware of that, then you can actually start to build your superhighway to the place you want to go. And then you will start to see those results change, which is why the results in my program are so huge, because we do that all the time. That's what we're working on, right? And it's very difficult to do it by yourself because You can't see your own stuff, right? It's like, you know how when you see somebody else having a problem, sometimes it's so easy for you to see why they're having that problem or what's going on with them. But for yourself, you're like, I don't know why I can't figure this out for myself, right? So it's nothing wrong with you. It's just we sometimes need a mirror to help us see that for ourselves. So awareness is the first, and then being coachable, like being open to getting feedback that is not Like, do this differently. Like, it's not just action-based feedback at all. Sometimes it can be action-based feedback, but mostly it's going to be mindset. Mostly it's going to be identifying those thoughts that are blocking you and then redirecting them, changing them. And you'll instantly feel a shift in how you feel when you do that. So you'll know, right? And then the results that are created are you will— if you're someone who says they're impatient and you get on that superhighway to a successful thought loop and you end up Doing the successful thought loop with that superhighway to success, you won't be impatient anymore because you will have that belief. You will be so sure of what's happening. You will be so in control. You will feel the feelings. You will know you're doing enough, and you will be going there, and you will just be enjoying the ride, right? You won't be so— it's like sometimes when we're riding in a car on a road trip or whatever, and you're excited to get like Las Vegas. I love Las Vegas. So if I'm driving to Las Vegas, You can really enjoy the road trip to Las Vegas and be excited about arriving there, right? Like, I love the scenery, I love the trees, I love stopping and getting food at different places. Like, I just love the whole experience, right? And that's what I want the job search to be for people, is like, enjoy the ride, but then be so excited about the destination and know that you're getting there because there would be no other place for you to go because you've programmed in the GPS, you've got your car set up, you know, like we can plan for, you know, if you run outta gas, we can plan for that. We can plan for getting yourself set up with all the supplies you need for the trip. We can make sure you have enough money to get there. We can do all that stuff, right? But we can have a really amazing time on the way there. And one little secret that I'll share with you is how you feel on your way there is how you'll feel when you get there. If you feel crappy, if you're complaining the whole way and you're like, this sucks, I don't want to be in the car, I don't like this, this is uncomfortable, blah, how long is it going to take? When are we going to get there? When are we going to get there? And you're kind of throwing a tantrum. When you get there, you're going to be miserable about other things too. Like, you might be happy for a minute, but then you're gonna be like, oh, well, why isn't this like this? Why isn't it like— because you've just trained your brain to be in that mode, right? So how you feel on your way there is how you'll feel when you get there. So you might as well feel great on your way. And When you are feeling great on the way, you are at a higher vibration, at a higher frequency, you're attracting better situations to you, and likelihood is you will get there faster because you will be having more fun and it just works better. So results created are when you're able to release the worry and fear and the doubt, you're able to create excited, expectant energy on a daily basis, just like you were creating fear and doubt before. You can create either one of those on any day that you want, and you get to create your future from that place. And it's a choice every morning. And some mornings, like I said, it's like a dirt road. You're kind of just like paving your way with a machete through the weeds. You will get better at it every single day, I promise. Until one day you will just wake up and you will be like, yep, that's what I do. That's what's happening. I'm already there. And you just start taking action from that place. And even in your new job or even in the destination where you get to, there will still be days where you don't feel amazing, right? But imagine yourself with a great new job still not feeling amazing one day. Maybe you're feeling a little demotivated. Maybe you're a little bit low energy. Maybe you're just like, blah, I just need a break today. But maybe you choose to go in anyway. Like, that stuff is still going to happen, right? You're still going to have those same emotions. In the new job. So, and it's like on the way there, you might still have some emotions, right? But you get to choose how you handle them. You get to choose how long they last. You get to choose how long you live in them for, right? So none of this is perfect. The process does not have to be perfect for it to work, right? You don't have to stay high vibe. You don't have to stay happy and excited all the time, right? Like you can process some feelings, but because it's— you're human and you're supposed to process feelings. You're not supposed to be happy all the time. Don't beat yourself up when you're not feeling amazing, but just— Stay in that excited, expected energy. Because I tell myself all the time, I'm like, yeah, when I get to my next goal, I'm still going to have days where I don't feel amazing, right? So this is kind of the same thing. I'm not feeling amazing today. I'm not quite at my goal yet, but it doesn't matter because it's going to be the same when I get there. So that will get rid of the impatience. It will stop you from feeling like you are under super amounts of pressure to get there fast, because pressure never helps. Yeah, that's what I got for you today. I hope that was helpful and I will talk to you next week. Hey there, thanks for listening. If you're new here, I'm Natalie Fisher. And if you wanna take this work even deeper than the podcast where I help you apply it and I help you dig into your own personal situation, you have 2 ways to do that. The first is in my signature program, The Six Figure Curriculum. Where we go through everything you need, and I personally help you weekly to land that 6-figure premium role. And the second way, once you land that 6-figure premium role, is the Time to Thrive Mastermind. So if you're already in an amazing premium role that you love and you want to advance, you want to develop your mindset, you want to thrive in that role, then I support you in my Time to Thrive Mastermind. So that's the 2 ways that you can work with me. Work with me if you want to take the work on the podcast deeper. The links for those are in the show notes below. To go right away, you can go to www.nataliefisher.ca/start.