Why fear is not a good excuse

“I’m scared.”

“Too much of a risk.”

“I don’t feel comfortable.”

“But if I do that, then this might happen.”

“I can’t. I just can’t.”

We’ve all said or shared these thoughts at one point or another. It’s normal.

Early beginnings

Did you know that as human beings, we are ingrained with an innate feeling and goal that we need to survive. Early times on earth demonstrate so many instances where we found ourselves in challenging (a.k.a. fearful) situations that made us decide: fight or flight. In both scenarios, the objective was, quite simply, to get away from the fear – or, combat it head on.

Great lines to help you combat

To all those lines above that we either say aloud or think in our minds as proper and smart reasons not to proceed with something, take these:

“I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.” – – Mark Twain

How many times have you worried about something that hasn’t happened yet, feeling fearful for a potential outcome? Then the day arrives, or you do the task, and everything you were scared about never even happened. If we can learn to better train the fear emotion, think of all the energy we’ll save!

“Failure at some point in your life is inevitable. Giving up is unforgivable.” – – Joe Biden

One of my clients reminded me of this line spoken by Joe Biden in his inaugural speech. Think about it for a second. One of the top reasons we feel fear is because we are scared to fail. Do you really think life needs to be perfect? Why? Everyone experiences failure – even the most successful people on the planet. In fact, successful people have likely experienced more failure than others. Do you know why? Because they don’t think of it as failure. It’s simply part of the game, part of life, part of their success story.

Redefine failure and you’ll redefine fear.

“Do something that makes you uncomfortable every day.” – – Northern Karate

In the world of Northern Karate, this is something they say. It’s part of their mantra. It’s so easy to live in our own personal comfort bubbles with fuzzy blankets and everything that feels right and good. It’s comfortable because we’ve made it that way. But what about everything that lies outside your own comfort bubble that you’re missing out on? Maybe you’ve forgotten it’s even there, or maybe you’ve become too scared to venture out.

Imagine how empowered and proud of yourself you might feel if you did something that was uncomfortable every day. Nothing big – it could be tiny. After a while, those things don’t become so uncomfortable anymore. Then you do new things. You prove to yourself that you can, and that there is no reason to feel afraid. And then…the world becomes your oyster, my friend.

“You’ll never know unless you just GO FOR IT!” – – ME

We were much better at this when we were little, right? That youthful uninhibitedness is something truly special. As we grow older (and ahem hem, wiser), we come to value our lives more and everything inside of them. This makes us more fearful. Sometimes that leads to overanalyzing, fear-inducing thought processes that are so easy to let take over our minds.

Now, don’t be stupid, but try to get back some of that childhood bravery and spontaneity you used to have. Dig deep. Embrace it. And pull it out of your back pocket when you feel there’s something before you that requires a big, fearless dive.