As Nike says 'just do it' to defeat fear
I love to write about fear because it can be such a consistent companion in my life without me even realising it’s there.
That’s the way fear works, it can be really subtle, hanging out just below the current of consciousness so that we can’t see, feel or hear it. Instead, we’re just blocked in our life but we don’t why.
Fear takes up sacred space in the garden of our minds, cluttering up our vision, distorting our reality and manipulating our sense of self. This is why I love tending to my fears like weeds in the garden, slowly uprooting them and tossing them away to make space for the new to come in.
When we know what our obvious fears are, it’s easier. We can see them in broad daylight and laugh at them. Mine include the fear of the dentist, the fear of being trapped in a job that I hate and a really irrational fear of horror movies with creepy killers.
Yet, what about the fears that hover just out of sight and mind. Perhaps the fear of losing control, the fear of falling in love or the fear of success.
We aren’t conscious of these so much as the more mundane fears because they’re deeper rooted and often come from childhood, ancestral or past life trauma. These are much more sneaky and tend to not let themselves be shown, so often these are the ones we have to do some serious weeding on.
You don’t have to be perfect to start
Before we look at those bigger fears, let’s first look at the smaller ones that paralyse us in our everyday lives, stopping us from taking positive, inspired action, and instead root us into a place of stagnation and stuckness.
How many of us want to start a new project, build upon an idea, go in a different direction with our lives or create something new but keep putting off doing it?
If we are resisting an action there’s normally a reason for it. It might be resisting exercising because we fear physical pain. It might be resisting doing a task because of the emotions it brings to the surface that we don’t want to deal with.
A good example is that I don’t want to do my accounts. This all stems from disliking and fearing money, something I am working on overcoming, as well as the fear of doing it wrong and realising that I’m no good at business.
The specific task of doing my accounts is so unpleasant to me that I’d rather do anything else. So I put it off.
From my experience, all procrastination is rooted in fear and very often the fear is around not doing it perfectly. Watch out for the part within you that is always seeking perfection and know that it stems from not feeling good enough.
Meet yourself where you’re at. Make sure it’s good but don’t make it perfect. For perfection is impossible and you will burn out trying to meet your self-imposed standards. Instead, address and heal the part of you that doesn’t feel enough.
As Nike says, just do it. Do those things you’re avoiding and wait for how good you feel afterwards.
Fear of failure or fear of success?
Another fear that often blocks us from just getting on and doing it is the fear of failure.
This is a common one, sure, but it’s pretty sneaky still. I brought myself a podcast mike about 3 months ago and kept putting off recording my first episode for fear of getting it wrong, not doing it right and somehow failing at it.
Then, one day, I just did it and it was so easy.
The unpleasant tasks we delay, avoid and distract ourselves from are always, always, always rooted in a fear. All you need to do is identify what that fear is and then, through that knowledge, it often loses its power.
Think of fear like the trolls that turn to stone in the sunlight. Bring the sunlight of your attention, understanding and compassion onto those fears and watch them lose their potency.
We also get stuck starting something new due to the fear of success and the changes that success may bring.
I find it hilarious that we’re all so terrified of change yet change is the only constant in our lives. Change means losing control and letting the new come in and sweep away the old. The problem is, like hobbits, we are creatures of habit and our ego hates to lose control.
Yet change, and losing control, is unavoidable, it is the main thread that runs through the veins of all life.
All fear is based on the unknown. It’s imaginary, made up only in our minds alone. The reason we resist change is because we fear the unknown. Once we accept the constancy of change, knowing that it is just an integral part of being human, it loses its power.
Embrace change and watch fear melt away.
How to ride the storm of change
I recently had a beautiful Kinesiology session that helped me realise that I too was fearful of the changes happening in my life.
This past year has been huge for me. I finally moved into my own flat, having the space I needed to heal, reset and recover from the turbulence of the past few years. I feel I’m only just coming out of survival mode and yet I feel another big shift coming and it’s been paralysing me with fear.
For a long time I’ve been who I am, but I know I’m about to change again and it feels scary, new, unfamiliar and strange. I know it’s coming, I can literally feel it in my bones, as we all can when we know something major is around the corner.
My lungs have been playing up because I’m feeling the grief of letting go of the person I was to embrace the person I am becoming. This is something we don’t give enough attention to. We are all changing all the time without giving ourselves the time and space to grieve our past selves.
Fear of success is much more common that we realise. Of course the fear of failure will always be potent, but, if you’re just coasting through life without much risk or reward, the fear of failure isn’t nearly as terrifying as the fear of success because the change with success is so much greater.
I’ve been coasting at a reasonable pace for a while and suddenly I’m heading to an unknown destination which is going to change my momentum, and the fear I have is all around how I will cope with the change.
We all fear the anticipation of change, especially when it’s linked to something successful, positive or encouraging. The fears are usually around whether we’ll have the energy to shift, whether it will be sustainable, whether we’ll be able to cope at a higher frequency, whether we’ll fit into this new life and of course the fear of losing the thing that we don’t yet have.
We need to ride the storm of change, trusting that we’ll be carried in the currents and knowing that we’ll come out on the other side.
3 powerful ways to release fear
I’ve written about my favourite ways to release fear but I’m going to share them again as I find them so powerful.
If you feel like you have a lot of fear in your life that’s making you anxious then I highly recommend reading this powerhouse of a book Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway which gives you such a unique perception of what fear really is.
It’s quite simply life-changing.
The second way is to speak about fear. Fear grows when we stay silent. I see this time and time again with myself and my clients. So, we need to bring it out into the light; by sharing it with someone we trust, writing about it or voicing it out loud even just to ourselves.
It feels amazing to share a fear, like a burden has been lifted off our shoulders completely. Try it, and I promise you’ll feel so much better.
Lastly, as Nike says, just do it. Fear is so strong that we perceive it to be real. Fear creates real obstacles in our life that can be very hard to overcome but those obstacles are nothing but air in the imagination of our minds. So, sometimes we just need to walk up to that fear and move through it.
And remember, every time you do something that scares you, your self-esteem grows immeasurably. So go do it and make yourself proud.
Want to receive the latest blog posts straight to your inbox? Sign up for my newsletter and you’ll also receive your FREE ‘Discover Your Fear Saboteur’ guide, the ultimate guide to identifying the fear sabotaging your potential!
