Table of Contents
Can admitting a negative thing as fear get you closer to a great life? The answer is that when you can understand your fears of risk, you are free to reject them. And this freedom leads to another: the freedom to take new steps to new paths of success. When you don’t know your fears, you can’t deal with them. They remain in charge of your life, and you are powerless.
Helpful and Useless Fear
Just as there are smart and dumb risks, there are also helpful and useless fears. Like any emotion, fear serves as a signal to us. It alerts us to a potentially dangerous situation and prepares us to take protective action. That is why there is a physiological component to fear: increased heart rate, adrenal surges, and muscle tension. These responses prepare us for flight from harm. So fear is helpful when there is a truly dangerous situation ahead of us, and when we need to take action swiftly. If your company is going bankrupt, your fear of financial problems may be helping you to get your resume out and get moving on to the next job. That helpful fear is grounded in reality.
At the same time, some fears are useless to us and keep us from the risks we need to take. These useless fears are not about reality, but more about misperceptions and distortions we have in our heads. We need to learn to pay attention to the one and get rid of the other.
List of Fears
Fears, like bad dreams, are best disposed of in the light of day. Expose your fears to yourself and others you trust. Identify them and where they came from. They are much less powerful when you can look at them in the light. Say to yourself, I have not taken a risk in an important area of my life because I am afraid that:
- I will lose a relationship. Are you sure? Or will that person just get mad and withdraw for a while?
- Someone will get mad at me. The anger of others is unpleasant, but you must be able to tolerate people being mad at you to be successful.
- I might hurt somebody’s feelings. Certainly, you could. But hurt and harm are two different things. You don’t want to harm, but discomfort can be a help to someone.
- I might lose my job. Check out the reality of that fear with someone who is balanced. Is the situation truly that fragile?
- I might fail. You might. You might not. And failure is often a blessing.
- I might be disappointed. That is possible. And when you are, call a friend, get a pep talk, and get back up again.
- I will be out of control. If you have strong feelings that emerge, deal with them with someone who can help you express and understand them.
I hope you don’t think I am underestimating your fears; I am not. Fears are real, and they are quite painful. But always submit your fears to reality. See if it’s your past talking, or a critical person you’ve given too much power to, or if things truly are as bad as you fear. It is a helpful exercise.
Address and Reject Fear
Working through the list above won’t abolish all fear for all time. Life is not like that. Even though you can become a person who faces change and takes risks, you will always be faced with anxiety, concern, and scared feelings when an unknown danger appears. But you can reject fear when you understand it, and when you understand where it gets its power to paralyze you.
As any psychologist will tell you, fear is stronger when we fear becoming afraid. This is called the fear of fear. Suppose you need to confront the boss about his attitude, but you are afraid that he might retaliate. So you stay happy and positive on the outside but remain dissatisfied on the inside.
The longer you ignore the fear, the more you will activate it. And since fear is associated with an uncomfortable outcome, having it in your mind naturally gives you an uncomfortable feeling. Eventually, you learn to avoid thinking about the fearful situation so you won’t have to keep feeling the fear. And the more you avoid feeling that fear, the more afraid of it you become. It is a vicious cycle, and it doesn’t help you reach your dreams.
If you are experiencing this downward spiral, begin allowing yourself to tolerate fear. Let yourself feel the anxiety and scared feelings you have about your boss’s anger. The more you do this, the more you will realize that things might get unpleasant, but you can make it through his anger. Now you can allow the fear to enter your mind, acknowledge it for what it is, and let it go. Facing fear helps you to no longer fear your fear. The power is greatly reduced.
Self-Control and Power
Another aspect of fear is that the less control and power you feel, the greater the fear. Fear is a danger signal. It says, “Protect yourself! Run!” And if you don’t feel any sense of control or power over your life and choices, you experience yourself as powerless, unsafe, and vulnerable. You are at the mercy of the danger, and you can’t protect yourself. It is a horrible feeling, and it gives fear a strength it shouldn’t have.
The antidote is to see the reality that you are not helpless. You have choices, all the choices that a mature adult has. You’re not your boss’s slave, victim, or little child. You can relate to him, talk to him as an adult, and if you have to, protect yourself from any toxicity he might throw at you. Remind yourself that you have choices. This will give you access to all the control and power you need.
It always helps to have a few friends you can confess your fears to. Tell them what you’re afraid of and say, “I need a reality check here. Am I listening to a fear that is real or just in my head?” They can help provide insight, perspective, and encouragement for you to push through the fear.
Think, Then Do
Those people who are adept at stretching and risking have the skill of thinking and doing. This may sound overly simple, but many people don’t have this skill. As a result, they often end up not living the lives they would love to live. Let me explain. Any goal that requires risk, whether it’s investing your effort, having an important conversation, or trying to break into a new industry, will also require a process to best engage in that risk. Basically, this means that smart risk takers think through the matter thoroughly, then, if it seems worth the risk, they do it. They take the plunge and jump into the water. They have learned when it’s time to think and analyze, and when it’s time to stop and get on with it. That’s the process—thinking and doing. In successful scenarios, the one goes before the other.
Finally, when you risk, do it all the way. If you can’t take the risk wholeheartedly, it might be better to pass on it rather than be halfway about it. If you can’t truly plunge into the risk and follow through with it, then you will experience the pain of the risk but never its benefits. Taking risks halfway trains you to believe that this process doesn’t work. Better far to make the leap knowing that you’ll either get what you want or that you did your best and can learn from your failure.
God is With You
When you are ready to stop thinking and start taking the risk, there can be no going back. You can’t reverse your direction in midair. And the good news is that midair is one of those places where God loves to meet us. He knows how scary risk is. And he knows that what we need most in those times when we are suspended above the ground is the knowledge of his presence, his support, and his grace:
Do not fear, for I am with you;
Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.
(Isaiah 41:10 NASB)
Blessed are you when you stretch and risk to find your dreams. He is on your side. (Excerpt is from “It’s Not My Fault” by Henry Cloud).
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