Babe Ruth once said: “Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game”.
It’s good advice. How does fear show up for you and keep you from playing the game? Is fear keeping you playing small by causing you to make decisions that limit you?
I’ve noticed this coming up a lot for me lately and I got curious about it. This post will explore some of the fears we have and how they impact our ability to make decisions. I’ll also dive into some ways to allow fear to exist without letting it control you.
First off, what is fear and why do we have it?
In “caveman days”, fear was a pretty essential response to events like fleeing a sabre-toothed tiger or happening upon a giant poisonous snake over the course of your daily travels. Fear is designed to produce action. To keep us out of trouble and…well, alive.
These days, there aren’t too many sabre-tooth tigers, and giant, scary poisonous snakes aren’t slithering around on every street corner. Fear still does serve a purpose, of course, keeping us from doing dangerous things like jumping off bridges and running into traffic. It keeps us on our toes when we’re walking to our car in the dark… alone.
But, there are a lot of instances where fear is a little less helpful. Like when fear tells us that we shouldn’t take a class because we might fail. Or, when fear tells us we shouldn’t go to that party because no one will talk to us. Not so helpful. We’re missing out on some potentially really great experiences if we let fear take over. Fear might be protecting us from embarrassment and things like that, but these are definitely not life-threatening situations, and when fear limits us, it’s certainly not allowing us to grow.
So what are we really afraid of?
Below are some examples of fears that might be limiting you in the decisions you make.
- Fear of Failure
- Fear of the unknown/fear of change
- fear of committment
- fear of judgment
- fear of disappointing someone
- fear of conflict
- fear of success
- fear of rejection
- FOMO (fear of missing out)
- fear of scarcity – not having enough
- fear of being alone/being abandoned
Recognize any?
So how do you get rid of the fear?
You don’t.
I know, I know. There is a lot of talk out there about kicking fear in the ass and being fearless. Honestly, I don’t buy into that. We’re always going to have fear. Instead of aiming for fearlessness, I think we’re better off allowing space for the fear to be there, but to practice courage and let it know that it’s not in charge. Here are some things that I think are helpful in this process:
1. The first step is to NOTICE the fear.
When you find yourself resisting something, pay attention. Is there fear behind it? Fear can show up in a lot of ways, but procrastination, indecision, making decisions that keep you playing small, inaction and making excuses are a few of the big ones. Do you see any of these in your own life? Notice that. Notice how fear feels in your body. Do you get butterflies? Sweaty palms? Does your heart race? Getting a handle on how your body feels when it’s in fear is helpful, and fascinating.
2. ACKNOWLEDGE the fear.
Now that you’ve noticed that you’re in fear, Instead of resisting it, acknowledge it. Sometimes it can be helpful to talk to fear like an old friend.. “Hello, fear… what are you trying to tell me today?”, or “ah, here’s fear coming to visit again… what does it want to tell me”, or, “what does it need from me today?”. Let it be there. Don’t chase it out. Ask it why it’s there, and contemplate it a little bit. Think of it like a toddler having a temper tantrum. Do you scream at the toddler, and tell her to go away? Do you coddle her? Not if you want to be effective. You let the tantrum run its course and try to be as patient as you can. Same with fear. Treat it like a toddler. Maybe even give it some compassion!
3. ACCEPT that you are going to feel fear and MAKE SPACE for that.
Fear isn’t going to go away. You are never going to be “fearless”. You might be very courageous and proceed through your fears even though they are there, but they are still going to creep in. Don’t try to overcome your fear, deny it or think it away. Accept the feeling and try not to judge it. Allow yourself to feel the fear and the feeling will dissipate faster.
4. CHANNEL the energy into something else. Expand your awareness.
Remember… it isn’t fear that stops us. It’s our FEELINGS toward the fear. If you focus on fear itself and you fear the fear, your feelings intensify. If you see fear as a feeling to get RID of before you can take action, you’re not channeling that energy. Think of an athlete. Are they fearless? Not really. But athletes approach fear from a different perspective. They use fear as an energy SOURCE to harness and channel into strength.
5. Recognize that our Stories add to fear.
If you think about the list of fears above, you can probably identify a lot of Stories that you’ve made up. For example, with the fear of the unknown/change you might tell yourself that taking a new job is totally going to ruin your life because you’ll longer be able to go to the gym at your normal time. And you’ll get fat and frumpy and will feel terrible about yourself (I use this example because when I was deciding to take a corporate job after being my own boss for 15 years, this was actually a fear of mine).
That was a Story I made up. I had ZERO EVIDENCE to know it was going to be true. I ended up taking the job and I didn’t not get fat and frumpy and I fell into a new routine that was just fine. That’s the true story.
I invite you to start noticing your stories around fear. What are they? What fears do those Stories elicit? How does the fear impact you?
It is interesting when you start noticing these things because you can start to see how you’ve been limiting yourself. The good news is that fear doesn’t have to keep limiting you. By knowing what your afraid of and why, you sort of take away its power over you.
And then, you can be courageous and do the thing you’re afraid of doing anyway.
My mission in all of my work is to create a community of people who aren’t afraid to show up in the world as the person that they truly are inside – not the person that they’ve created based on what they think they should be. To give permission, through a supportive community, for you to show up in the world as your real self and know that is totally enough. But, that can be scary. Remember though, that we are ALL flawed human beings – no one is immune to that. Once we start seeing the humanity in each of us, and normalize true authenticity, that’s where the world really starts to change.
So, embrace that fear. Don’t be afraid to feel it. Label it. Ask it what it needs. But don’t let it control you. Because you are amazing and you don’t deserve to keep playing small!If you think about the list of fears above, you can probably identify a lot of Stories that you’ve made up. For example, with the fear of the unknown/change you might tell yourself that taking a new job is totally going to ruin your life because you’ll longer be able to go to the gym at your normal time. And you’ll get fat and frumpy and will feel terrible about yourself (I use this example because when I was deciding to take a corporate job after being my own boss for 15 years, this was actually a fear of mine).
That was a Story I made up. I had ZERO EVIDENCE to know it was going to be true. I ended up taking the job and I didn’t not get fat and frumpy and I fell into a new routine that was just fine. That’s the true story.
I invite you to start noticing your stories around fear. What are they? What fears do those Stories elicit? How does the fear impact you?
It is interesting when you start noticing these things because you can start to see how you’ve been limiting yourself. The good news is that fear doesn’t have to keep limiting you. By knowing what your afraid of and why, you sort of take away its power over you.
And then, you can be courageous and do the thing you’re afraid of doing anyway.
My mission in all of my work is to create a community of people who aren’t afraid to show up in the world as the person that they truly are inside – not the person that they’ve created based on what they think they should be. To give permission, through a supportive community, for you to show up in the world as your real self and know that is totally enough. But, that can be scary. Remember though, that we are ALL flawed human beings – no one is immune to that. Once we start seeing the humanity in each of us, and normalize true authenticity, that’s where the world really starts to change.
So, embrace that fear. Don’t be afraid to feel it. Label it. Ask it what it needs. But don’t let it control you. Because you are amazing and you don’t deserve to keep playing small!
Please share in the comments! What fears hold you back the most?
