Episode Details

TV and Film Class

Private Coaching

Fear and Bravery

One way to look at fear is that it is just a fact of life.

And I remember when I had so much anxiety as a child. And I used to think to myself, I'd be like, "If could just get rid of this. I just wish somebody could remove anxiety from me."

But remember that anxiety and fear were given to us for a specific reason: the sabertoothed tiger.

Because a long time ago, we needed to rely on our fear instincts.

I want to have some element of that ability to feel fear because, to be quite honest, I live near a mountain and these animals are around, and I need to be cautious; I need to turn on the lights, I need to make noise, I need not to be thinking about something else when I go outside at night and to be quite honest during the day as well. But really, at night, when I can't see anything.

So, I think again to understand that fear is something that was given to us to protect us and for us to know that we don't want to get rid of it entirely, but we also don't want it to rule our lives.

So Susan Jeffers, who wrote the fabulous book, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, says, "the fear will never go away as long as I continue to grow."

Again, I talk a lot about comfort zones and that a comfort zone isn't something that is bad. It's just trying to keep us "safe."

And when I use the word safe, I'm putting it in quotation marks. I'm putting it in quotation marks because the fact of the matter is that life begins at the end of our comfort zone, but here's the biggie: so does success.

And in time management, and all my coaching, my private coaching, my group coaching, I talk a lot about doing that one to three things every day that makes you want to vomit in your mouth just a little bit.

Makes you just a little bit uncomfortable, just a little bit. Why?

Because then you expand your comfort zone and you build the thing that will help you with fear more than anything else: self-esteem.

One of the things that I also believe is that you can use fear to succeed.

Now, this might be impossible; hear me out.

If you start to look at or reframe the idea that fear is a bridge to success. It becomes easy to succeed. Just do everything you are afraid of, and then you will succeed.

And the reason why I think that we know what our next step is, we just don't want to do it. We just don't want to do it.

But the question I always pose to my clients is the following: how bad do you want it?

How bad do you want it? Do you want to give in to fear, or do you want to go after your dream? Do you want to give in to that fear in that moment?

Or do you want to choose the thing that will get you to the next level, which will get you to the success that you want?

And to do those things you are afraid of, and I call it rule number one and rule number two. Rule number one is to do everything you are afraid of.

Rule number two is when in doubt; go back to rule number one.

In other words, you can't get out of it if you want to grow or succeed.

So remember, the fear will never go away as long as I continue to grow. The only way to get rid of fear is to go out and do it, i.e., rule number one: do everything you are afraid of.

Rul