Ignore the Fear and Do it Anyway
Fear is a strange thing. It contradicts itself. On the one hand, it makes no logical sense, and on the other, it’s a perfectly rational evolutionary response.
Biology aside, fear serves one critical purpose. It signifies importance. It tells us what we care about and what we need to face in order to grow as individuals.
We all have fears. I hate public speaking. It’s a fear that I’ve never quite been able to shake for as long as I can remember — but it’s also something I know for a fact is restricting my growth.
Whatever it is you’re afraid of, be it heights, rejection or failure, you might wish to overcome it. Today, I’m going to explain why you can’t.
After decades of working in the public eye, do you know what Henry Fonda did every time he stepped out on stage? Threw up in his dressing room toilet, cleaned his mess and performed for his audience.
Even at seventy-five, that was his routine. Nervousness. Puke. Showtime. That fear remained and his anxieties never subsided until the day he stopped performing. His secret? He knew that fear didn’t matter.
Fonda knew what every great showman knows. Fear doesn’t tell you what you can’t do, it tells you what’s important to you. It tells you that you care.
For many years of my life, I’ve let fear get the better of me. Be it playing drums on stage in my teenage band, speaking in front of audiences or approaching new people to start conversations, all-too-often nervousness has stopped me from doing what I knew I should have done.
Why did I let it stop me? I had a perfectly valid excuse, or so I thought. I’d always reason that the time just wasn’t quite right — that I needed more experience or that I hadn’t researched anxiety enough to face it yet.
After bottling it and letting terror stand in my way, I’d purchase books and watch TED Talks and try to discover some other way of psyching myself up to face up next time.
Alas, I never did. What I didn’t know then but do now is simple. We can never truly overcome fear, we just have to ignore it.
In the words of Steven Pressfield,
That’s not a popular opinion. Everybody else will tell you that you can overcome fear, that it’s a conquerable foe that doesn’t stand a chance in the face of grit and determination.
In reality, that fear will always be there. It never stops lingering, and although it may wane in the face of experience, those shaky knees and butterflies still rise.
We don’t overcome fear. We become accustomed to it. We train the skill of remaining focused and poised even if we are being plagued by anxiety. We learn to throw the fear and do the thing anyway — and that’s how we grow.
I’ve delivered many presentations and public speeches, even though they scare the hell out of me. They never become any less scary, but I still do them. Why? Because they’re important to me and my career.
Executing those speeches, be they stuttered and shaky or bold and composed, is a necessary step I need to take in order to grow.
What are you afraid of? Maybe it’s spiders, in which case, me too. Or maybe it’s something more visceral than that — like fear of social rejection or trusting new people.
Whatever your fear is, there must have been a time in your life during which that fear reared its ugly head and stopped you from doing something you wanted to. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be aware of its existence.
If we carry on living like that, passing up on opportunities that scare us, we’ll never become the person we wish to someday become. We’ll always stay the same, and in doing so, we’ll never truly be happy.
I’m presenting at an event for my business this Thursday. I know that I’m going to be terrified before I go onto the stage to deliver the speech I’ve prepared — but am I going to let that stop me?
I could, and I nearly did. I nearly bailed last week, but I remembered that life doesn’t hand us an infinite amount of opportunities to us. Luck is a rarity, and if we allow fear to prevent us from snatching up the chances we’re given, we’ll never forgive ourselves.
Deep down, despite all the anxiety attached to the decision I’m making, I know that I’d be a fool to cancel the event opportunity that Lush has offered us — so I’m doing it anyway.
For so many years I thought I could overcome fear, but now I realize that I probably can’t shake this one. Instead of trying to beat it, I’m acting in spite of it. I could let it govern my life and screw things up for me forever, or I could ignore it and go ahead. Guess which path I’m choosing?
Many of us confuse our thoughts with facts and obligations. A thought pops up that tells us something is true or that we should take a particular course of action and we usually accept those truths and act without question.
In the same way, our mind convinces us that we should just accept the demands of fear. We conjure up seemingly rational excuses for our anxiety-avoiding tendencies so that we don’t feel bad about our actions.
Instead, we have to learn to pay less attention to the thoughts that pop up in our head. Whatever they say, whatever they claim, they’re rarely true. Often, we’re better off ignoring them.
Of course, thinking can help us sometimes. It allows us to make decisions and solve problems, but when those very thoughts start restricting our growth and making us doubt ourselves, they can become pretty problematic.
When we act in the presence of fear, what we’re really doing is ignoring our thoughts. Our minds tell us no, but we respond with a triumphant ‘Yes!’
The mind may indeed bark back in disbelief at our actions, but that doesn’t matter. After a few minutes of ignoring our thoughts, they quieten. Our fear starts to fade and we regain the ability to go about our business as usual.
As soon as fear rears its head, don’t try and fight it. Don’t panic. Just take one long, deep breath, remind yourself that this moment is pivotal to your growth as a person and continue with whatever it is you were about to do.
I’m Adrian. If you’d like, I can send free daily tips about succeeding as a creative (and staying sane along the way) right to your inbox in bitesize chunks.
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Ignore the Fear and Do it Anyway
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