How to Overcome Your
Biggest Enemy in Life: Fear
Have you ever heard someone say “Me? I’m rubbish at mathematics!” or
“It’s no good asking me I’ve always struggled with grammar”? These are two
perfect examples of the chosen thoughts we allow to hang out in our minds that
dismember our goals and our results.
So many of us enable the wrong thoughts in our minds and our
brain is only too happy to deliver exactly what we ask for. The damage is
caused when we don’t realise we’ve been asking for the wrong things.
You see, our brain is a clever old bunch of cells. It’s highly
likely you’ve heard of the exercise where you are asked to not think of a pink
elephant… and weirdly there in your head is a pink elephant! Or of Pavlov’s
dogs, who could be encouraged to salivate just on hearing a bell ring. Even now
I could say to you “Don’t imagine a lemon being cut in half and the juice being
squeezed down your throat”, and you’d start to realise “Hey I’m producing more
saliva”. How is that possible?
Because our brains WILL deliver what we ask for.
When it comes to performance we have to choose our words
carefully. If you appreciate the above and accept that we are easily
suggestible creatures, then by nature it stands to reason that I can give you
some top tips and tools to help you perform better just based on what
words you are choosing to think.
You see, if words can impact what your body does it can also
impact the results you achieve, and the standard to which you perform at.
How
Fear Screws You Up
How is
it that one person can relish the opportunity to stand on a stage in front of
5000 people, and another would rather have their spleen burst before it was
their turn? (And trust me as someone who used to have a very physical fear of
public speaking and who now adores it and coaches people out of that fear, I
really know what that fear is like.) If we allow such a fear to fester and hang
out in our minds then guess what that can do to your performance?
Let’s stick with the public speaking fear since it is still one
of the top fears in the world. We are still more scared of speaking
than dying. Crazy right?
You are asked to speak to a large audience and the opportunity
has the potential to rocket your career. If you fear public speaking then the
overriding thoughts are around the fear… instead of the ideal results you want
to get.
For instance, instead of thinking:
“This is the opportunity I’ve been waiting for and it’s going to
rocket my success”
You are more likely to be thinking:
“Oh no the biggest opportunity of my life and I’m going to screw
it up.”
Now remember our brain likes to keep us happy. So, if you are
thinking the first positive thought guess what you are likely to get? And what
about the second one?
“That’s all very well and good Mandie but it’s a fear. It’s
real, it’s tangible. It shuts my throat, makes me shake, sweat and I struggle
to remember my name let alone an entire speech!” you say.
And from many years’ experience of helping people overcome those
fears I know that this is exactly what fear relies on. It relies on you
accepting the feelings, and accepting the physicality of it. It relies on you
accepting those negative emotions and really experiencing them on a level that
causes you to never question them. And that is the key.
To increase your performance success, you have to question your
thoughts. Not all fears are obvious. Some can hide out in your subconscious for
years and it’s only when you work on them that you become aware of a fear that
has been impacting on your success.
Everyone
Has Fears, Even Those Who Look So Tough
Don’t
believe me?
Only recently I had someone who I’ve admired for a long time on
an international level say to me that it was not until they read chapter 3 of
my book that they realised something had been impacting their success for
years. That something was the action of picking up the phone. How can picking
up the phone kill your performance?
Let’s break it down by thinking about what happens if you choose
your actions according to your thoughts. So, if you think picking up the phone
is going to interrupt someone’s day, make them less likely to say “Yes” and
want to hear what you have got to say, are you likely to revert to an email?
On the other hand, what if you accept that you are a valuable
person who has every right to speak to someone on the phone because you have something
useful to say that could be very relevant and interesting? What are the chances
you will pick up the phone?
So how do you revert to positive thinking and override the fears
that damage your performance?
4 Tips
to Override Your Fears
Adjust
Your Assumptions
What assumptions are you making and are they good or bad for
you? For instance, if you assume that mistakes are opportunities to learn, then
you will go for it with all your heart. You will trust that even failure has
its benefits and use them effectively to power up your performance. On the
other hand, if you believe that failure is dangerous and damages your
reputation and success then you are likely to shy away from the opportunities
that can risk failure. With fear, you have to think like the superhero in a
movie. Be prepared to step into situations that you fear with trust that you
can do this. You don’t see superhero’s look at the big evil 20-foot bad guy and
think “Mmm I don’t think I will protect mankind today, he looks a bit scary.”
Remember No One Really Cares
A big reason that fear can impact your performance and thus
success is because we imagine what people are thinking. Ironically, it’s not
usually true. We assume that everyone is thinking about us, and yet they are
much more likely to be thinking about themselves — “what’s for tea”, “what they
are going to get their Mom for her birthday” or “why did I wear these shoes,
they’re far too tight”. However, remember that fear relies on negativity
holding us in place and so if you just learn to accept that everyone is
thinking their own thoughts and are as obsessed with them as you are yours, you
can stop allowing incorrect thoughts into your head. And as one business friend
said to me once “Mandie, you have no right to the thoughts in other people’s
heads.”
Shift Your Focus
Fear loves us to repeat patterns. So, if you have thoughts in
your head that say “this won’t work”, or “I’m scared of the end results” — then
your brain will do all it can to prove you right.
Therefore, if you can have a stronger new direction to focus
your attention on the fear will reduce and eventually dissipate. For instance,
let’s go back to the fear of public speaking (You can replace this fear with
one of your own!) If you fear public speaking and focus on what you fear, that
is what you will get. On the other hand, if you have a clear goal in sight then
that is what you are more likely to get. That means you need to work out what
you want. What do you want? What is the goal? Where do you want this to lead?
By answering these questions with your true passions and desires your brain has
a positive direction to aim for, and not the fear routed patterns of the past.
Don’t Be Afraid of Looking Stupid
Closely connected to the fear of what people think is the fear
that you will make a fool of yourself. Thus, if you fear what people think
and/or making mistakes and getting it wrong then fear again gets to overpower
you. Think about a time you’ve felt stupid for saying or doing something. What
happened next? Then answer, “How did that make you feel?” and then from that
ask yourself “Did that result in a feeling or an action?” and then answer,
“what happened next?” In this way, you can start to build up a picture of the
automatic path way connected to this fear. How you fall into old patterns that
have not served you powerfully, and allowed fear to hold its power of you. (And
yes, this process can be used on any fear, I call this a negative spiral.) Once
you build a picture of what is happening in your old state you can learn to see
what thoughts and feelings create what actions. For instance, if you stood up
for yourself and spoke up and that led to you feeling inferior, did that then
lead to you not taking on the project that was offered to you, because you
feared getting it wrong? Understanding the thoughts that create the actions
means that you then decide to create a new thought, and that will lead to new
actions. But again, this really needs a powerful focus and goal to help you
achieve.
Ultimately fear is allowed to impact our performance because
we’ve learnt to trust fear. Fear is useful in that it keeps us safe, however
there aren’t too many woolly mammoths on the streets anymore. So when fear is
given too much power it damages our success. Learn to challenge and stop assuming.
And most importantly trust that you can do this, you can give yourself all the
proof of your successes to tell you this. And I will leave you with this
thought: Why do we assume what if we are awesome at something then everyone
else can do that too? While if we can’t do something we are idiots because
everyone else can do it?
You see, fear really does wish to damage your success. So, it’s
time to challenge it.
Mandie Holgate
http://www.lifehack.org/621704/how-to-overcome-your-biggest-enemy-in-life-fear?ref=mail&mtype=newsletter_tier_2&mid=20170809&uid=687414&hash=707e797f7e757e6d794c856d747b7b3a6f7b79&utm_source=newsletter_tier_2&utm_medium=email&action=click
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