Confronting Your Fears

Confronting Your Fears

Standing up in front of an audience is the top fear for many people; it stands ahead of pain and death as something to be avoided at all costs. I felt this way too, until early in my career I was pushed, kicking and screaming, onto podium after podium to present some work I’d done for my company. With the help of some mentors, I confronted my fear of public speaking and became a world-class speaker and facilitator, seeking every opportunity I could find to do ‘stand up’ work. My new skill proved invaluable in my later success, not to mention what it did for my self-esteem, confidence, and personal well-being.

Later in my career, I discovered I hated ‘cold call’ selling. I didn’t like the ‘rejection’ that often came with trying to turn a slim lead into a prospect and then into a sale of our consulting work. I got creative at avoiding sales situations; I looked with envy at my colleagues who could wade into those waters and emerge with a new client. A sales course and some coaching by a colleague helped me think about prospecting in a new way, and eventually I too became good at converting leads to sales. Yet, I often think of what my life would have been like if I hadn’t of confronted my fear of rejection.

Think of how different your life would be today if you’d confronted the fear or fears that stand between you and some brave new world. To mention a few, you might have asked that special girl or guy out on that date; you might have made that suggestion at work; or you might have taken that leap and changed jobs. The list is endless, and a great source of our ‘shoulda, woulda, coulda’ statements that we whisper to ourselves in the dark. As one friend put it when looking at a successful cohort, “There, but for me, go I.”

While the benefit of backing away from your fears or anxieties is that you ‘escape’ the situation, you also pay a price: lowered self-esteem, frustration, sabotage to your own success, reduced abilities, powerlessness, longer-term anxiety, and needing to settle for a less than ideal life. Do you not follow your bliss? Have you settled for something less than what you could be or want to be to avoid some situation or risk or unpleasant emotion?

So, how do you confront your fears?

Here are a few questions and steps to take to help you move through that uncomfortable zone of confrontation.

1. Stop making excuses. Write down the excuses you use to avoid one of your taboo areas. Be aware when you invoke them. Often, we use the same excuse for many different situations, for instance, ‘I didn’t go to the right school,’ ‘S/he really wouldn’t like me,’ or ‘I’m to old (or not old enough).’ I worked for the government for ten years, and, for many of them, bought into the ‘excuse’ that leaving that job would be tantamount to self-destruction because of the loss in security. When I confronted that fear and eventually made the rare move to leave Federal service, I found a new career that was more exciting and made me happier than I ever dreamed. I just had to stop making excuses for staying somewhere I really didn’t like. There’s a great list of excuses at this web site: take a look and see whether you use any of them. If you do, it’s time to move on.

2. Examine the emotions your fears provoke. What base emotions are you avoiding: rejection, loss of love, disempowerment, phobias, or negativism? Often, when we look at the linkage between what our fears and the emotions they provoke, we find weak linkage or none at all. My fear of public speaking was there to avoid embarrassment, yet with a modicum of practice I discovered my fear was baseless. We all make up stories we believe to protect ourselves in some way; make sure your story is true. See my earlier essay on Memes for some other examples of ‘stories’ society gives us that keep us locked within some artificial boundary.

3. Understand the benefits and dis-benefits surrounding your fears. Some people call this the ‘wedge and magnet' approach to dealing with changing yourself. The ‘wedge’ comprises the negatives of continuing things as they are; all the reasons keeping your fear alive and active will hurt you. The ‘magnet’ describes why you want to move in the direction of its pull – in other words, how wonderful your life will be once you shed your fear (confront it), and move to some new level of thinking. In my case, I knew people that could deal with sales situations made more money and got exactly the kind of work they wanted to do; I knew I would be happier if I could move past my discomfort with sales situations.

4. Develop some new ‘self talk’ about your fear. Self-talk is what your mind says to you that you pay attention to. It might be statements like: you can’t sell, you’re not worthy of a good relationship, or if you take some action you’ll just die of embarrassment. For a several years after I got good at speaking, I would psych myself up in the hallway before I went ‘on.’ I’d be out there telling myself what a great job I’d do, and how much the audience would enjoy my talk. I didn’t leave any room for doubt, concern, or self-destructive comments. That kind of self-talk and positive affirmations were just what I needed.

5. Charge forward – Take action. Confronting and overcoming your fears requires action. Sitting back and waiting won’t make it happen. Seek help. Find a mentor. Read a book. Take a course. Practice. All these activities will help you confront and overcome; they’ll expand your comfort zone to include something you used to be afraid of … and then you can move on and tackle the next fear on your list. If you are ever in doubt, go by a pair of Nike shoes or a Nike hat, and remember their motto: ‘Just do it!’

There is often some irrational fear standing between our bliss and us. Don’t let it block you from doing what you came into this realm to accomplish.

Namasté

This website is to stimulate your spiritual thinking in the hope that it will contribute to your spiritual growth. The author invites your comments and critiques by reply e-mail to bob@futuremoons.com.