Overcoming Fear
March 20th, 2005 by Steve Pavlina
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Here’s a nice article on overcoming fear by Brian Tracy (via Curt Rosengren). I especially like the story about halfway through the article where Brian Tracy explains how he dealt with his fear of poverty as well as the “Corridor Principle.”
Life is perverse in the sense that, the more you seek security, the less of it you have. But the more you seek opportunity, the more likely it is that you will achieve the security that you desire.
How very true.
When I stepped up onto the stage last night before giving my speech, I gazed out over the audience and smiled for a few seconds before I started talking — this is something I always do. It’s a reminder to myself that I choose to do this and that I choose to enjoy it. Yet supposedly most people are more terrified of public speaking than they are of death itself. Perhaps it’s because there’s no security once you’re up on stage. You’re totally exposed. But you also have tremendous opportunity — the chance to influence people, to make a difference in their lives, to have an impact. If security is more important than opportunity, you’ll deny yourself some tremendous opportunities, both to help others and to help yourself.
Certain opportunities cannot be grabbed until you let go of your death-grip on the need for security. I think this is what Brian Tracy meant in his article when he discussed the corridor principle. Some opportunities only come online when you’re already in motion, so if you stay put and stick to what keeps you feeling secure, you automatically pass up great opportunities — you won’t even see them. For example, often you must release a dead-end job or a dead-end relationship in order to access something better for you.
It’s hard to summon the courage to value opportunity over security. Very hard. Anyone who says otherwise is probably trying to sell you something. But it’s worth it. So let it be hard, respect it as one of life’s major challenges, and do it anyway.
March 20th, 2005 at 8:22 pm
The simple fact of acting like you are confident and competent diminishes the fear.
When I was starting as an entrepreneur I was very afraid of failing. I found out that in business, doing business is not dangerous. Being incompetent and not being business savvy is dangerous. So I decided to become competent and so I squished my fear.
March 20th, 2005 at 8:57 pm
The fear of public speaking is really about beating up on ourselves if we don’t perform great. Your article “Are You A Failure Germaphobe” is great and should be read by all. Just enjoy yourself no matter what the outcome. On stage nobody is throwing knives at you, you can choose to throw them at yourself if you want.
March 20th, 2005 at 9:29 pm
One of the most important things I have realized recently is that I alone am in complete control of my life. That everything that happens to me — good and bad is ultimately under my control. To quote a phrase Steve used in one of his articles on dexterity.com, this is a “lie of success.” Why? Because it’s not completely true. We don’t actually have complete control over every last thing that happens to us, but if you believe that you do anyway it will empower you to accomplish anything you can dream of. The next thing I realized after I accepted that “lie of success” is that if I alone have full control over what happens to me, then I can’t blame someone or something else if my current state of being is undesirable to me.
In other words if there’s something about my life right now that I’m unhappy with, it’s not going to change unless *I* do something about it. If I’m the only person who has complete control over my life, and if I’m the only one who can change my state of being, then I’m the one who is 100% responsible for what I do and don’t do in my lifetime. This is a very powerful belief to have. If you know that you are 100% responsible for your life, you will be compelled to take action to change it for the better. You won’t hope for some divine miracle to occur; you will actively decide to take action and make things happen.
If you vow to take responsibility for your life, your fear will diminish significantly. The deal with fear is that it’s our brain’s way of avoiding pain. In his “Personal Power” audio program, Tony Robbins says that our brain has two primary driving forces: pain and pleasure. This is what humans do — as much as we can we try to avoid pain and gain pleasure. No matter what we do, it boils down to doing one of those two things. The problem with our brain is that it will favor the avoidance of pain over getting pleasure. In other words the brain will always prefer to avoid pain than gain pleasure if it has to choose between the two. However, if it has to choose between two painful experiences, it will choose the less painful one.
This is where fear can be attacked in the most effective way. Here’s an example. Let’s say you want to start your own business, but fear quitting your job because of the risk of the business failing. Your brain has to choose between two things — the pleasure of quitting your job, becoming your own boss, running your own business, etc., and the pain of the possibility of the business failing. Guess which your brain will choose if you present it in this way (and most people do)? It’ll obviously choose to avoid the pain of potential failure. Getting around this problem is not difficult in concept. All you have to do is condition yourself to associate more pain with staying at your job than with the potential pain of business failure, and amplify your association of pleasure with starting your own business (this is actually what I did). If this is done thoroughly enough and long enough, your brain will eventually beg you to quit the job.
It’s the same idea with taking responsibility for your life, except on a much greater scale. When you take responsibility for your life, you know that when you choose to not do something because of fear of failure or rejection or humiliation or something silly like that, you have suffered the ultimate failure. Why? Because you KNOW that you can do it, because deep inside you know that the reasons you have made up for yourself to justify not doing it are just poor excuses. The key is to condition yourself to associate this situation with ultimate pain. A pain worse than any you can experience in your lifetime. This will force your brain to always choose the lesser pain of potential rejection, humiliation, and so on.
Whew that was a long post. I hope what I said makes sense, and is helpful. Maybe I should start my own blog.
March 20th, 2005 at 10:19 pm
I wish Toastmasters was available in my country. Unfortunately it is not.
I have defeated my fear of public speaking by joining a MLM company when I was a student. I was shy and introverted, and I discussed this with someone I trusted. She told me that one of the best ways to fix that was to join a specific MLM business.
I joined that MLM business. They taught us how to present their products in front of other people. Each of us got some practice presenting the products in front of the group.
I don’t believe in MLM, as I have seen two of my friends waste years of their life trying to build a “downline”. However, some of the sales training they offer can be valuable. It has certainly helped me.
March 20th, 2005 at 10:20 pm
Great comments, Ilya!
March 20th, 2005 at 10:27 pm
> Let’s say you want to start
> your own business, but fear
> quitting your job because of
> the risk of the business
> failing.
Let’s say you don’t believe in your business at all. Intellectually you know that there may be a 10% chance of success, but emotionally you may be running scared, and think that there is a 100% chance of succeeding.
So if we calculate an average between the emotional (chance of succeeding = 0%) and the intellectual (chance of succeeding = 10%) then you believe that your chance of succeeding is 5%.
Then you force yourself to start the business.
This simple fact is like a message to your brain which tells it that you believe that the business will succeed. Just working every day on your business may bring the confidence factor from 5% to 20-30%, even if there is no success in sight.
So.. if you want to believe in something, take action as often as you can. Take action as if you really believed the thing you want to believe. This sends a powerful message to your mind that you are really believing that idea.