Fear Can Steal Your Dreams (How to Take Action in the Face of Fear)

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HEARTSET

We all have fears, but if we let it control our lives, we will be left with a chest full of unfulfilled dreams and desires.

Bronnie Ware was a palliative care nurse and her patients were those who had gone home to spend their last three to twelve weeks of life. She spent some of the most intimate moments with them and when she asked them what was their biggest regret in life, their answers revolved around some key themes.

At the top of the list:

I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

When people realize that their life is almost over, they lament what they didn’t do than are upset at the failures they’ve had.

This is the most important lesson of all.

When our fears hold us back from pursuing our dreams, it can become a regret when we are on our deathbeds.

(Read the other 4 regrets of the dying HERE)

MINDSET

Fear is a story we are telling ourselves based on a perceived danger, threat or harm.

And if we let our imaginations run wild, our fears can grow to an unimaginable size, making us shrink with anxiety and paralyze us.

So the first thing we need to do is to define it. Label it. Write it down. When you give something form, you can start to tackle it. Think of it as transforming a foggy apparition to a piece of glass. Fog is eludes your grasp, while glass can be shattered.

The second thing? Take action. Do something in the face of fear. That’s how you can get past it and take back control.

Define your fears to diminish them, act on your fears to conquer them.

7 mindset shifts to help you bust through your fears:

1. Your are not your first impression

   The pressure of showing your best self may stop you in your tracks, but know that you can always recover from a bad first impression.

2. Rejection is inevitable, shame is optional

   You will face rejection, but you don’t have to feel shame about it. The people your admire have all faced rejections in their life.

3. Life is a numbers game

   Probabilities and percentages are a normal part of our lives. You win some and you lose some. If you don’t try though, you lose 100% of the time.

4. Think of the reward on the other side

   By going through the fear, there is potential upside. Focus on the reward on the other side of fear and it may help you take a step through it.

5. Rejections make you tougher

   What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Think about the mental toughness you will accumulate after being rejected a hundred times and you keep getting back up?

6. See rejections as a good sign

   What if you shifted your mindset to one where if you were rejected, it just means you avoided trouble down the road? It wasn’t a fit, so you’re lucky to find that out now.

7. Become a person with options

   When you see yourself and build yourself as a person with different options, each individual rejection becomes less important and crucial. So what if one person or company denies me? There are so many others!

SKILLSET

Here are 6 different ways for us to extinguish our fears:

Define your fear

• Be present

  Put away your phone, turn off the television and find a quiet place to be fully present with your feelings. Experience the emotions of fear head on. That’s how you start to define what it is.

• 7 whys

  One of the best exercises to find the root of a problem is by asking yourself ‘why?’ Feeling butterflies in your stomach? A knot in your throat? Why? Keep asking why until you reach the root cause of your fear.

  • I feel anxious. WHY?

  • Because I have a presentation tomorrow. WHY?

  • Because I don’t feel prepared. WHY?

  • Because I don’t really know the audience. WHY?

  • Because it’s a new group of people. WHY?

  • Because I’m trying to expand my audience. WHY?

  • Because it’s a risk I’m willing to take. WHY?

  • Because it’s important to me. (Are there any actions you can take to minimize the anxiety? Does the importance of what you are doing give you courage to face the anxiety?)

• Fear setting

  Tim Ferris’s tool of fear setting is a great tool. It helps to define exactly what your fears are and seek to dispel any unreasonable stories you are telling yourself.

  • First step: there is something you are afraid of doing, so list out all the fears you have about it. The worst case scenarios and nightmares. Score probability (1-10) and impact (1-10)

  • Second step: list out for each fear how you would prevent it

  • Third step: list out for each fear how you would repair it if it happened

  • Fourth step: list out all the costs of inaction (If I didn’t do this, what would it cost me emotionally, physically, financially etc. in 6 months, 1 year, 3 years?)

  By going through this exercise, you will have a very clear idea of your fears! (Tim’s worksheet HERE)

Act on your fear

• Let fear drive you

  Instead of letting fear stop you, let fear drive you. Use fear as an emotion that drives you to:

  • Prepare

    If you are feeling fearful about what’s to come, whether it’s speaking on stage or putting money in an investment property. Can you use this feeling to increase your level of preparation? How can you go above and beyond to prepare for this event?

  • Take a chance

    What if instead of standing still when you feel fear, you took a chance and do something anyway? Every second you stay still, is an opportunity for your inertia to grow, it becomes even harder to take action as time passes. Ignore the jitters, respect your dreams.

  • Find answers

    Anything you’re encountering, chances are someone has already done it. Who are these people and how can they help you? Find answers online, connect with people who has the experience you need. Pay them for advice, there is information out there to curb your fears.

• Fear exposure therapy

  A proven method to overcome phobias and fears is to slowly expose yourself to your fears, starting with something very small and slowly go up the ladder. Take for example you have a fear of public speaking. Can you start with one person? Can you do that standing up? What about to your kids? What about to a couple of very close friends? Slowly increase the stakes and intensity over time (up the ladder) and pretty soon, your fear of public speaking will subside or at least be controllable.

• Failure games

  Noah Kagan, founder of AppSumo believes in periodic exposure to things that are uncomfortable so we are more resilient to fear. He talks about the coffee challenge where you ask for a 10% discount everytime you go buy a coffee. The experience, whether it's rejection or success can give you a sense of the discomfort, but also remind you that while you fear certain things, it’s really just made up in your head most of the time.

Fear is natural. And without it we can never be courageous.

This week, find a fear. Define it and take action against it!

Live your legend 🤘🏽,

Howie Chan

Creator of Legend Letters

​Read my story​

​Follow me on LinkedIn

Sources:

1. Ferris, Tim, Fear Setting: The Most Valuable Exercise I do Every Month, Tim Ferris Blog, May 15, 2017 - LINK

2. Heid, Markham, All About Fear: How it’s Connected to Health and How to Face the Ones You Have, EverydayHealth.com, October 25, 2022 - LINK

3. How to Kill Your Fears in 7 Minutes, YouTube, Charisma On Command - LINK

4. Shontell, Alyson, Why Everyone Should Purposely Sit in the Wrong Airplane Seat at Least Once, Business Insider, August 10, 2014 - LINK

5. Higgins, Matt, Don’t Let Fear Hold You Back, Use it to Push You Forward, Harvard Business Review, June 19, 2023 - LINK

6. Facing Your Fears: How to Do Exposure, Anxiety Canada (PDF) - LINK​

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