Fear Is Keeping You Stuck. Here’s How To Destroy It.
The most cited academic paper in all of academics is the discovery of “prospect theory.”
Prospect theory, pioneered by famed economist and psychologist Daniel Kahneman is the discovery that that as humans we fear loss far more than we appreciate gains.
We’re so afraid of losing what we have that we don’t chase bigger and better things.
We’re like kids in a scavenger hunt who sit on their treasure in fear of it getting stolen.
Fear is what keeps us stuck.
If you:
- Want to give a public speech
- Want to start a new business
- Want to ask that girl on a date
This article is for you.
Adverse Anticipation
Psychologically, the anticipation of an event is always more powerful than the event itself.
Dan Sullivan calls this “dread time.”
This is why we spend time dreading events even though they’re not nearly as bad as we make them out to be.
This is why we create worst-case scenarios in our heads.
This is why we delay things that we REALLY want to do, for weeks at a time.
We’re always creating mental anticipation.
The same also works in reverse. Anticipation of a positive event is always more positive than the event in and of itself.
After the event (good or bad) happens, we adapt much quicker than we think we will.
You may have wanted that car or that job or that house or a relationship with that person for years.
What do you do once you finally get it? You adapt.
You may have gotten cut off in traffic or you were passed over for a promotion or received terrible news about the health of someone you know.
What do you do? You adapt.
Psychologists call this hedonic adaptation. Hedonic adaptation points to a “baseline” happiness we all have that we don’t deviate from for very long because we want to be comfortable.
Psychologists have validated this theory on extreme cases of positive and negative life events ranging from winning the lottery to losing a limb. (see more here and here).
Regardless of severity, we adapt to either positive or negative events in our lives a lot faster than we think we will.
Banish Fear With Consistent Wins
“Expect everything and attach to nothing.”
— Carrie Campbell, mindset coach
Here is one simple tool you can you to banish-fear immediately:
Get consistent at doing something over and over again.
Fear won’t leave completely, but you’ll realize you used to be inflating the potential risks way too much.
There are almost always no downsides in the long run to trying big things. There are no downsides to accomplishing small things.
When I first started blogging, I was terrified of throwing out blog posts. I was afraid of what people would think of me.
I started with 1 post.
As you do something small, you raise your courage and get a small win.
Courage is the willingness to try something that might not work.
Courage is the willingness to fail.
Courage is the willingness to face uncertainty.
When you make small wins and courageous decisions, you’ll realize it wasn’t actually that bad.
You get used to what reality feels like.
Ask your boss for that raise.
Whether he says yes or not, you’ll find out that it really wasn’t that bad.
Make Wins Early
The longer you extend anticipation, the more you dread it.
Procrastination is the creation of a false reality while denying the real one.
Shorten your anticipation cycle.
Wake up early.
Get out of bed.
Make your bed.
Crush your Monday and your Tuesday.
What could you really do before 10am every day if you applied yourself?
Make Wins Daily
“Your ability to discipline yourself to set clear goals and then work toward them every day will do more to guarantee your success than any other single factor.”
— Brian Tracy
As you act, you adapt. You don’t start adapting until you act.
Get used to creating small wins on a daily basis, so that it feels normal and natural.
Make the right, few, actions, every morning.
Brian Tracy calls this “eating the frog.” Basically, it’s the idea that you do the worst first.
You just get used to doing that first thing that you used to procrastinate, because you realize that anticipated downside isn’t serving you.
Make wins DAILY, aside from compounding into something beautiful, opens you up to incredible amounts of feedback.
The faster you can get feedback, the faster you can move forward with more knowledge. Additional knowledge banishes fear. Fear stems from the unknown.
More wins means more adaptation.
More adaptation means more feedback.
More feedback means more knowledge.
More knowledge means more confidence and no fear.
Stop Hiding Your Goals
“You are as sick as your secrets.”
— Alcoholics Anonymous
In the Bible, a master gives 3 of his servants 5, 2, and 1, talents, respectively. A “talent” was an enormously large sum of money equal to 9 years wages at the time.
The 1st servant invested his funds for a 100% return. The 2nd servant did likewise.
The 3rd servant was afraid, and buried his money in the earth.
When the master comes back, he is clearly upset.
“Thou wicked and slothful servant…For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.” (Matthew 25:26, 30)
You do nobody any good by living beneath your potential.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.”
If you hide your goals, you’re sick and unhealthy. You’re suppressing what you really want.
Psychologically, we all think other people think less of us than they do. The truth is, other people think much higher of you than you do yourself in almost all cases.
Get comfortable learning to ask for help.
Get comfortable receiving with humility.
Get comfortable getting support.
Get comfortable getting aid.
Get comfortable asking for feedback, and getting it.
When you share your work and start getting feedback, you’ll realize your work is much worse in your head than what other people actually think of it.
Feedback creates better perspectives.
If you can only see 2 steps ahead, you can see 4 steps total after taking those 2 steps.
Take those two steps by getting immediate feedback.
As you get feedback, you become more familiar with the situation. You become no longer afraid.
Do you want to write a book?
Write one page. Share that page with someone. Ask for their feedback.
Move To An Infinite Game
In one of the longest science experiments ever conducted, Harvard found through their 75-year study that social support is the #1 indicator and predictor of happiness. You need it to be successful.
The faster you can create a group of supporters around you, the faster everything else takes off.
You won’t be competing against anyone else. You’ll stop comparing yourself to others or to an impossible ideal, because you’re not competing against them.
You’re competing against yourself.
You measure your current self against where you were before. That’s the only logical thing you can measure yourself against.
You’ll be moving forward faster and faster.
You’ll know that it’s not a big deal.
You’ll know that you’re inflating the downsides in your head.
You’ll know that as soon as you take action, you’ll know something you didn’t know before.
You’ll replace fear with knowledge and confidence.
You’ll get small wins and build insane momentum.
You’ll ultimately be in your own life and in your own world.
You’ll take more action and stop dwelling in anticipation and procrastination.
You’ll get into flow and won’t be concerned with what other people think.
You’ll compare only yourself to yourself.
You’ll reach this paradox: a combination of having both the right social support around you, while at the same time not being overly worried about what they think.
Your coaches, mentors, friends, and family, all provide accountability, but these are ultimately the people who are cheering you on anyways.
And anyone outside of that core group, you really just don’t care what they think. You’re certainly not worried about the people out there positioned as trolls to try and take you down.
You can reframe fear as excitement. You know you’re feeling that when you want to go fast regardless of the pain, like an endurance athlete.
When most people feel pain, they stop.
As soon as endurance athletes start feeling pain, they dig deeper into it.
Conclusion: Resistance Is A Signal
“The more important a call or action to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.”
As soon as you feel resistance, treat it as a signal. It means you’re going in the right direction.
Lean into it.
Resistance comes because starting is hard.
James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, said he could have written a book on deliberate practice, but ultimately he chose the word habits because it is a much more marketable topic.
Atomic Habits has nothing to do with habits.
It’s about getting into the deep work, and starting it. Just start.
The problem of starting the deep work required to practice deliberately is so hard that James blessed us with an entire book about how to start.
Use it.
Start every day.
Measure yourself against the only thing that’s logical to measure yourself with: yourself.
Run your own race.
At the end of the day, what people think of you is none of your business.
You think they’re thinking about you far more than they actually are.
Recognize the gains and growth you’ve had.
Share this article with a creator in your life.
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(These tools are based on my book Be Your Future Self now, which was recently the #1 bestselling book in all of Korea.)
