How To Overcome Fear

Inevitably, when we go out to design our lives, we encounter this thing called fear. Right? And what is fear? How does it prevent us from moving forward? I get this question all the time as a coach, and really it's just a poorly managed set of habits and a poorly understood concept of what's really going on in the brain. Right? So what do I mean by that? Well, especially habits. I know most people think that, you know, fear is something that has to be overcome, and we have some very real physical fear of animals attacking us or walking down a dark alley at night sometimes. But in reality, it's not that active walking down that alley or seeing that large lion out there in the field. It's projecting what's going to happen. Right? And sometimes that's really helpful, and sometimes that prevents us from getting into dangerous situations, and we should listen to that. And other times we are just kind of catastrophizing, right? We're thinking like, oh, if, you know, Jim at the office, you know, made a joke at my expense in front of all my co workers, and now they don't respect me anymore. And that's an ego thing that's going on. And it's an idea of ourself that we're afraid is going to get injured or it's, you know, saying, I don't want to go and train for that marathon because it's going to hurt and I'm going to injure myself and then I won't be able to walk around when I'm older. And so this idea of how we want to move around in the future again, a future projection that gets us all riled up and convinces us to stop, right? And, you know, I think as we're talking about having this discussion of how do we build a life that we've designed for ourselves, which in itself can be really scary because that means there's no path in the woods that we followed before. And so how do we figure that out, right? You know, if you're coding, you can't go to coding. What is it? Stack, overflow and find the quick answer there. You have to create yourself, right? You have to take everything that you know, all the resources that you have, all the connections that you have, and form something new. And that is completely scary because what if you fail again? That's the ego saying, what if I'm not successful here? Or you go, okay, like, what if I succeed and then I don't know what to do next? You know, the dog that catches the car, as they say, you know, like, that Sense of identity, of chasing after this thing is more important than actually achieving it sometimes. And that can really, really mess with people. And so we have to understand really what is fear and what is it trying to tell us, right? And that's the key distinction of people that get stuck and that can never move forward because they're afraid of, you know, failure, they're afraid of going broke, they're afraid of looking silly, they're afraid that people won't love them, they're afraid that they're not up to the task or competent enough. And it's a very human experience, right? And we just need to manage that with some better habits, right? And so when those things come up, it's am I in immediate physical danger? Number one. And if the answer is yes, you handle that 100%. If you're like, am I immediate physical danger right now? No. Now the habits can come in. Now we can start to use our brain to try to manage this idea of this future that we're afraid of, that we don't want to have happen. We can do things with our psychology to help guide us forward. So as a certified high performance coach, something that I always talk about are the three different fears that we all experience. And the first type of fear is lost fear. And what is that? That means by doing a big life move, switching towns, switching careers, starting a family, asking that person out at the coffee shop that looks cute on a date. If we enact change in our life, we're going to give something up, right? It's FOMO and a very personal degree of I like eating pizza. If I start training for a marathon, I can no longer eat pizza because I need to take care of what I eat a bit better. And, and so why do the hard physical health thing that will be healthy for me in the long run? Because I'm afraid of losing something else that I really like. Right? So that's really clear. And you know, when we think about how do you overcome loss, fear, it's again, it's focusing on what do you gain? Like, if I started training for a marathon, I might get into the best health of my life. I might have a new sense of who I am, the difficult things that I can do, and surprise myself with how far I can push my body, right? And I'm sharing this because I'm speaking through experience. I've trained for marathons before. I went from not being able to run 15 minutes in a row to running 26.2 miles in nine months. And what, when I think about that time, you know, first I think, why? Why would anyone sign up for a marathon? Because those things hurt. You know, it is painful physically. But at the time, I had moved to a new state and I didn't really know anyone, and I had a lot of stress. I wasn't sleeping right. I put on a couple pounds because I was just out of grad school. And I realized that something needed to change. I needed to find a way to manage my stress, to kind of wear out some of the emotional energy of student loans and trying to figure out what bills to pay and just learning how to be a basic adult, you know, taking care of everything myself, which wasn't a huge jump from what college was, but it's just a different environment. And when you don't have that support structure, friends and family in your immediate facility, like, that's rough. And so I got to a place where I'm like, I need to go and move my body, and I don't want to be spending a bunch of money doing that. So running seems like a good thing. I had a friend who had trained for a marathon, so I knew it could be done right. And so I was like, okay, I'll sign up for the Chicago Marathon. It's nine months away. I can't. I hate running at that time, and I. Not great at it, but I'll figure it out, right? And I'm so grateful that I did that really hard thing of, you know, I might lose, you know, time feeling sorry for myself or time inside and, you know, doing video games and stuff, other things that I. Playing music, things that I love because I'll be training. But I knew that I would gain some stress management, and that was something that was important to me. I knew I would gain a sense of self respect. Like, how am I going to really, can I do this, number one, and how is it going to feel when I accomplish this? You know, that sense of, like, I did something really hard that, like, less than 1% of all humans ever have ever done or whatever the math was. I convinced myself at the time that felt good. It felt motivating. And that got me out of the house every day to start running as far as I could in 15 minutes. And then you slowly escalated that and then figure it out. So loss, pain, loss, fear is real. And you have to think, like, what are you going to gain out of it? Right? So that's the first type of fear. The second type of fear we all face is process fear, right? Meaning the act of going through and doing the thing Making the change, you know, switching careers, starting that business is going to be overwhelming and painful, and, you know, you might not succeed, right? And so if you think of this act of doing in the marathon training metaphor that I like to use when I explain this to my clients, it's, you know, the act of training, of running those miles every day for nine months, taking breaks when I needed to, and, you know, just going through that process. You know, you could have a fear that I am going to break my body, you know, and, you know, you might. You know, there's always risks to things out there in the world. But, you know, when you're worried about the pain, you have to also think about where you're going to be, right? This is where you need clarity on why it's super important to your future, to your legacy, to your impact, to your leadership, to, you know, the people around you, right? So you're expanding, like, how is this good for my family, my community, for my job, or all these other people other than myself? When you think the process of doing something is going to be painful? And so how did that manifest in marathon running? Right? Because that's kind of like, how does this help your family or your. Your work or anything. But I believe, and I've also experienced in my career, that when I am able to burn off emotional energy through regularly working out through habits, I am able to then think clear afterwards, right? So really simple connection of running burns off emotional energy so I can sit calmly and think, like, how do I get out of debt? How do I think through this logical, you know, software puzzle? Except the time I was a software engineer. And you go from there. So the benefits to my career, the benefits to how I was relating to my friends and family, who. And the new people I was meeting at that time in my life, you know, that was worth the pain of, you know, toenails falling off and like, nipples chafing and all the terrible things that happened when you trained for a marathon and you're learning that, oh, I have to do this, you know, I have to get. Maybe I need to buy one of those technical shirts so there's a little bit less rubbing, because that's really not a fun thing. And I, I'm not going to go on and on about that, but you get it. So, like, how are the benefits being extended to the people around you is a good way to overcome this process fear. And then the third type of fear that we talk about in high performance coaching that's really important is outcome fear, right? The fact that maybe if I achieve this goal, it's not going to feel as exciting, it's not going to really give me the benefits that I am doing or, you know, this change that I go through is not going to be worth it. So, like the grass is greener on the other side type thing. And so in the marathon training metaphor, again, it's imagining that when you cross that 26.2 mile line right at the finish line, that you're not going to be happy that you did, right? You're like, I did all this work. I sweat, I, you know, it hurt. It was tough and literal sweat and blood and like, okay, whatever, you know. But I'm not gonna feel that sense of pride in doing something hard. I'm not gonna feel that sense of aliveness from setting out a goal and accomplishing it. And you know, in these types of things, it's all comes down to being grateful, right? It's, you know, sometimes, you know, a lot you can focus on did you finish the race or did you not? And then that could be, you know, you could base your whole happiness on it. And then there's the people that finish and they're still not happy. And it's because you're not appreciating that. Like, you were dedicated, you were focused, you had a plan, you worked it and it worked out. Right? And that in itself could be a miracle. That in itself can feel very, you can feel really proud about that. And that's what you need to like, what can I be grateful for on this journey that's going to make it really matter in the end, Right? Because that's really what that fear is. It's like, if I do this, it's not going to matter in the end. And it does matter. I mean, designing your life, going back to what I do a lot with my clients is thinking about how do I want my lifestyle to be, how do I want to live, how do I want to connect with people, how do I want to show up and leave a legacy of matters? And if you, and it's only up to you to believe that, right? If you don't believe that this big change is going to matter, of course you're not going to follow through. Of course you're going to be afraid that it's not going to be worth it. And of course it isn't going to matter. You're going to self fulfill that prophecy and we don't want you to do that. Right? I don't think, I think most people don't want that. For themselves. And if most people were honest on why they don't do things, they don't focus on why things matter. They don't focus on the intention of what does this help them accomplish in their lives and how does this then again going back and reach the people around them. Because we can have so much more impact when we have that intention and we need to incorporate that. We need to be grateful for the hard work that we're doing and noticing the ripples that it has to people around us. So that's why you need to understand these three fears. And so again, it's loss fear or fear that you're gonna have to give something up. It's going to be process fear, the act of doing is going to, you know, be painful or outcome fear, that when we finish, it's not going to matter at all. And once you understand, most all fear comes down to those three things. When outside of physical, you know, injury or threats, it becomes a lot easier to act. It becomes a lot easier to say, oh, I'm afraid this is going to suck while I do it. Let me really like take a beat, close my eyes and say, how is this going to matter to the people around me, you know, or what am I going to gain through this process instead of focusing on what I'm giving up? What's going to be the new capability? What's going to be the new sense of self respect? You know, if you can keep these things internal, it's really going to help you keep motivated. Because then anytime you're not measuring up, it's because of you. You're like, oh, I'm doing this so that my parents will respect me is not going to be, it's going to be a little bit more tenuous. If that's a really tough thing for you, and I hope it's not. But you know, pick and choose the people around you that might judge you because there will always be judgment. And judgment is one of the big fears most people have. And if you flip that and say like, how am I judging myself? If I am putting in my all, if I'm giving my best, then those people don't matter, right? And I'm doing it for myself. And I can gain that self respect by going after this, you know, and then outcome pain, you know, it's you matter. You have to have the belief that you matter, your actions matter, that you can shape your environment, your social circles, the community and organizations and the world around you through your actions. Because without that belief, it all falls flat, right? So that's. Those are the three fears, guys. I hope the next time this comes up for you that you are able to recognize it. Right? So simple questions you can ask yourself. Is what I'm feeling resistance here? Is there a fear anxiety number one? If yes, what type is it? Is it loss, is it process, is it outcome? And then three, like, what do I have to do to feel to figure out what I gain from this, from who benefits other than me if I go through this? And why does this matter to myself, my community, my impact in the world? And if you can do that every time you're meeting resistance, I know having worked with people, the whole world unlocks for you. The whole world becomes your oyster. Things change for you, you start getting even more success. And that's what it's all about. You start living more into a world that you have thought about for yourself and you stop living in a world that was designed for you by others. And that is the ultimate excitement, the ultimate way to feel alive. So that's what we're going for. So next time do those three, you know, analyze any time you meet that resistance with those three fears, walk through that little diagnostic we just did, I know it will serve you. It serves so many hundreds of thousands of people in the certified high performance coaching world. So. And if you are struggling and need some one on one time, I want to let you know that below where you're watching this video, I am offering a 30 minute coaching session. We can go through your fears. I post that on YouTube just to kind of highlight in this new series that I'm going to do. Highlight the coaching process and how it helps people overcome their fears, helps them design the lives that they really want. I'm just really excited for that. So if again you're struggling with that, that's a free 30 minute session. You can click on the link below. Skill schedule some time, you go through some questions and then you get a free 30 minute coaching session with me. It's super, super powerful. All right guys, that said, we'll see you guys next week in the next video. All right, if you love this video, you'll love this video right over here. So continue watching. We'll see you guys there. Sam.