Most days in my life fear wins. It’s time for that to change so let’s spend a few minutes understanding fear and how it works.
Fear whispers because yelling is too obvious.
- “It’ll never work.”
- “You’re not the right messenger.”
- “They’ll find out you’re a fake.”
- “They won’t buy it, literally or figuratively.”
Fear is its most common weapon
Steven Pressfield wrote the biography of fear in his essential book The War of Art. He called it the Resistance. Some days I think it’s the devil, the real one, not a character in my head. Whatever it’s called it shows up most often through instilling fear.
Fear loves intention and hates action
Intention has no power when it’s not combined with action. It will never work unless you do the work. Intention without action leads to more fear. Your lack of finishing, of “shipping”, validates fear’s whispers.
Intentions without action are the bricks we lay to pave our personal path to disappointment and regret.
Most days fear wins because most of us are watching. You’re reading a blog instead of writing one. If I wrote one blog post for every 50 that I read I’d produce ten times the content I do now.
- You’re worried about someone else’s marriage instead of your own.
- You’re lusting over someone else’s success instead of putting energy into your own.
- You’re looking for shortcuts and hacks instead of putting in the hours of practice and risk taking.
Fear tells you that someone else can do it better so you should just let them do it. If everyone believes that lie then no one creates. Well played fear, well played.
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Fear’s mantra: Doing nothing is always the answer
Fear lies like commercials but instead of convincing you life is better if you do take action (buy something) fear convinces you life is better if you don’t take action.
- Fear wins when you stop.
- Fear wins when you flinch.
- Fear wins when you’ve crossed 100 starting lines but never seen a checkered flag.
- Fear wins because you’re afraid you won’t come in first.
- Fear wins because you believe him when he says you’ll come in last.
He’s right that you might come in last but even if you do you’ll have finished the race.
Pride fuels fear
To defeat fear you must be willing to fail. You have to be willing to come in last place. If you can’t handle failure that’s your issue. Own it and then kill it. When you wuss out your ego is in tact. Your body of work is also a shadow instead of a foundation for change in your life and others.
You must remember that finishing in last place is still finishing.
Start beating fear today
Start something and finish it. Start it today and finish it today.
Your blog posts take you three days to finish? Suck it up and finish it all in an hour. Start and finish. Hit “publish” and then tell me you don’t feel better. You can’t help but feel better. You’ve defeated fear.
When you know you can defeat fear it loses some of its power. It keeps showing up because that’s its job but you now know how to defeat it.
Learn that you can defeat fear.
Fear does not control your destiny
Whether you finish is never up to fear. It’s always up to you.
Where fear wants you to go
These places are not evil or dangerous. They are simply distractions that rarely result in anything meaningful. Spend your time there and fear wins.
- Your email inbox
- Any social media channel
- Reading bite sized ideas (blog posts, articles, updates)
- Texting
- Watching television, HULU, YouTube etc.
- Any meeting over 30 minutes long
- Anything involving weather updates
Where fear does not want you to go
- A blank page
- A deadline
- In public / on stage / live
- Side by side people who take action
- People more successful than you
- Healthy community
- The “publish” button
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