Fear Flipping: Use your fears in your advantage
What are your fears you’d love to overcome?
Public speaking?
Making sales calls?
Starting your own business?
Fear is the most powerful drive for our actions, but also inactions. Fear can be a great force for us to achieve extraordinary things if we know how to use it, but it can also paralyse us if we let it control us.
Fear is usually the number one reason why people are stuck, why they don’t go after what they want in their personal and professional life.
In this article, I’ll share with you a technique I call fear flipping that will help you flip your fear from paralyzing you to motivating you.
Fear is a natural reaction to a threat.
Its function is to keep us safe and away from any kind of danger.
It has worked really well for us throughout our evolution, and thanks to fear we’re still here.
But fear can be a handbrake on our growth and success.
It can be a barrier hard to overcome.
Interestingly, we don’t always experience our fears as being terrified to death. But rather a mild discomfort or as “I’d rather not” unease about doing something.
Our mind can be super creative when it comes to disguising our fears. They often come up covered by layers of excuses, justifications, and reasons why doing something is not a great idea or why it can at least wait.
Then we procrastinate, look for a shortcut and easy ways out.
The real fear
First of all, let’s get clear on what you’re really afraid of.
You’re not afraid of public speaking, starting a business, or whatever your thing is.
You’re afraid of what could happen if you did it.
Ask yourself these questions to find out what you’re really afraid of:
What am I afraid that would happen if I did (the thing you’re avoiding)?
What am I afraid I would feel if I did (the thing you’re avoiding)?
What am I afraid I’d find out if I did (the thing you’re avoiding)?
What am I afraid people may say if I did (the thing you’re avoiding)?
This should give you a clearer idea of what it is you’re afraid of.
Looking your true fear straight in the face can be quite scary so be prepared for your brain not to be totally cooperative when it comes to giving it away.
When you get to the bottom of it, you probably find something like this.
I’m avoiding public speaking because I’m afraid that I’d be standing in front of people with my mind going blank, everyone would be laughing, and I’d be eternally humiliated.
I’m procrastinating with starting my business because I’m afraid that I’ll try and it will be an absolute disaster. I’ll look like a loser in front of all my friends. My parents will be saying “I told you so” for the rest of my life, and more importantly, it will burst the dream bubble of me having a successful business, and then what?
I can see how these things can be scary enough to put you off trying.
I’m not going to go into how likely all these horror stories are to come true. Usually, our imaginary fears (because that’s what they are) are grotesquely exaggerated.
And maybe there is some validity to your fear.
FEAR FLIPPING
But let me ask you this.
Are you afraid of the right thing?
Are you thinking: What?
Let me repeat that.
Are you afraid of the right thing?
Rather than being afraid of possibly being laughed at when speaking in public (which will never happen), shouldn’t you be afraid of:
- Forever being scared of something that people do every day, and you can totally master?
- Of seeing yourself as a loser who is too scared of speaking in front of other human beings?
- Missing out on all the opportunities public speaking would provide for your career?
- Missing out on the feeling of conquering this fear once and for all when deep inside, you know you can?
- Knowing for the rest of your life that you chickened out of this?
Rather than being afraid of failing in your business, shouldn’t you be afraid of:
- Forever working for someone and being limited in how much money you can make?
- Never following your dream and doing what you love for a living?
- Living with the regret of never giving it a shot?
- Spending decades more in a job that is draining the life out of you?
- Never being able to stand proudly and say “At least I gave it a shot.”
- Feeling frustrated when hearing or reading about how other people just took the leap and it worked out for them?
Isn’t this what you should really be afraid of?
Fear can be a great helper, but it’s always a very bad master.
Most people are afraid of what would happen if they do the scary thing.
But what will happen if you don’t?
What happens if you never try?
What will you miss out on and never experience?
How will you feel about yourself every time you think about it?
Think of the regret you’ll have one day when you realise you missed your opportunity.
Isn’t that what you should be afraid of?
The failure fades away after time, regret never does.
So take a moment and start flipping your fears.
If you’d like to work with me and work on overcoming your fears, contact me and let’s schedule the initial discovery session and find out if we’d be the right match.
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I remember you used this method on my coaching lesson with you. I told you I wanted to busk on the streets of London, but was too scared and embarrassed to do it (I’m a professional singer, ironically). I finally went through with it, and busked almost every single day that week after I tried it! Thank you for all your inspiring posts and coaching.
Hi Karianne, I remember very well!
Things are scary, but usually, there are fears and consequences even greater that we don’t realize.
Look at all the awesome things you’ve accomplished now.
Super inspiring.