In last week’s newsletter I opened the door on fear, and this week I want to offer some ways to close it!
There I wrote about how fear holds us all back, and those people who get themselves to take action in the face of their fear.
While we all recognize the power in this, the real question is, how do we get ourselves and others beyond our fear?
The Simple Answer
We all already know how to get beyond our fears…
Simple. Do the thing that we feared, and we no longer fear it.
Once we climb those stairs and jump from the proverbial diving board, we’ll no longer be afraid to jump.
Most fears we diminish or extinguish this simple way.
Think about the timid salesperson from last week. By asking for the order over and over again, they get beyond the fear of asking for the order.
We all know this, which is why the simple answer mostly fails.
Our Fears Keep Us Stuck
Because we know that we can easily squash most fears just by taking action…
Rather than just doing it, we tend to avoid those things that we fear 🙂
Think of it this way.
We typically “try” to get ourselves and others beyond fear by saying stuff like You’ve just gotta do it.
If we can just lead with more conviction. Ask for that date. Or start to build momentum on that project, we know that we’ll move beyond our fear…
Yet, we already knew that!
And unless we’re suddenly more capable in taking that action, we’re more likely to avoid that thing we fear. (e.g. pretending we don’t really want it)
Just Get Motivated!
When the fear is high and we find ourselves or others stuck in taking action, we often reach for more motivation.
That’s like massaging a broken leg hoping to heal it. It doesn’t matter how strong your motivation is when fear is walking the talk.
Perhaps the best example is a fear that, despite our strongest biological motivations, has held every single one of us back.
Like a dog humping a leg we hardly need much motivation to pursue love and sex, yet who amongst us hasn’t been held back by fear?
Fear of rejection. Fear of looking silly. Fear of what if… Whatever the story, us humans are full of them, which is why motivation is often trumped by fear.
So, if you can’t just do it, and you can’t just fist pump people beyond their fear, what do you do?
Here’s Two Solutions
In my book on the mind I’m writing a chapter on fear and have been assembling different tools and strategies I’ve R&D’d over the years.
You can play around with mental movies. Change your emotional states. Mentally rehearse being on the other side of that fear having achieved your goal… So on.
They can be extremely powerful tools, yet for myself and my clients there are two solutions that I come back to over and over again for getting beyond fear.
1. Structure It
Given a lifetime of this work I’m pretty good at mental tools and discipline…
Yet I’m pathetically bad at this.
If I were to wait for my brain to get beyond my fear before I took action I’d still be waiting to do stuff I did a decade ago.
So instead of relying on my ability to get myself to do those things that scare me, I give myself procedures to follow.
For instance, when I’m working on hard things that my brain may try to avoid (i.e. most days), I don’t give it the chance. I schedule what I’m doing, and I take action on it.
You take the fear off the table, and never give your brain a chance to have that back and forth about what may scare you.
It’s harder to weasel out of your first parachute jump when you have a burly fellow on your back and a dozen other scared people behind you, and it’s harder for fear to hold you back when you’ve structured getting beyond it.
The timid salesperson I wrote about last week knows they can squash that fear of asking for the order by doing it over and over again, and the best way to do it is by structuring it into their day.
Perhaps first thing in the morning they’ll eat that frog and make X number of calls. Maybe they’ll set a quota for the number of calls to make or meetings to have. Commit themselves to a call list.
Whatever it is, by structuring your actions into your day, you never give your brain a chance to keep you stuck in those old fears.
2. Get Better
A CEO threatens to fire a salesperson because they’re not hitting their quota.
She fails to see that fear had been holding them back from asking for the order, and now, with the added fear of being fired, they have even less confidence making the sale.
That person doesn’t need more fear. Or more motivation…
They need to get better at selling!
Competence builds confidence.
You don’t fear those things that you crush, only those things that you fear might crush you.
Scared of public speaking?
Should you just get up there and do it over and over again, sucking less each time?
Some people seem to think so. But if you simply train yourself to be good at it, you’ll wonder what you ever feared!
The same is true with all fear. Get better, squash fear.
The Trick
From years of experience at this, I’ve learned to come at in different ways.
While there are many great tools of the mind to help you get beyond fear, in my experience it’s hard to outthink a fear-filled mind, and instead you want to find ways to outmaneuver it.
Whatever solution is right for you or others you lead, the trick is consistency. You can’t do this once. Or for one day.
I can tell you that with some of my hardest fears even 1,000 days isn’t enough.
The trick is that you commit to do what you can for as long as it takes to leave those fears behind you.
P.S. You can read here more mindset articles.
P.P.S. And you can read here more specific articles on destroying fear.