Fear appears in our life in many different ways. It can drive us to feel as though we're not enough, that we'll never be enough or have enough. It can hold us back, make us feel lonely, inadequate, jealous, ashamed and dissatisfied. Fear can also be the source of tremendous self-realisation, self-actualisation and ultimately self-growth, it can be a great tool for intense focus and achieving powerful performance outcomes
Most of the time you can't control your fears. Whether it's 'in-the-moment' fear, like getting ready for a competition or to make a public speech or 'not-good-enough fear', like being controlled by your inner critic or your fear of being rejected or vulnerable. No amount of hoping will change it.
Changing The Fear Response
Instead we must try to deliberately change our response to these kind of fears. We can do this by shifting our behaviour, our physical focus, mental attention and importantly our own perception of these fears.
In her book Fear Less: How to Win at Life Without Losing Yourself, Dr Pippa Grange, a sport psychologist and culture coach, brings forth a strategy of seeing, facing and replacing our fears. It's a fantastic read and can be life-changing if you apply the methods and strategies she suggests. She discusses how fear can go a lot deeper and can lead to chronic stress and anxiety.
I've personally had a lot of success with overcoming my own fears using some of these strategies, I will outline some of them below but if you want to dive deeper I highly recommend reading and most importantly applying what you read into your life.
Questions To Recognize Fear
Below you'll find a few of the many possible questions you can ask yourself to begin to uncover how not-good-enough fears affect you day to day.
Seeing it: Identify it, feel it, experience it and acknowledge it.
What does fear look like to you?
How does it feel?
Facing your fears: Going deeper
Who do I become when I'm captured by fear?
What does my fear cost me?
What excuses does my fear make for me?
Replacing your fear: Reinterpreting and reimagining
There are many ways that Dr Pippa Grange references in how to overcome our not-good-enough fears. Ranging from telling ourselves a different story, to finding a strong purpose, to laughter. I won't go into too much detail as you can always find a lot more information in the book itself.
However what I will say is that fear is an essential part of human nature and is impossible to change. What we can do is either block it or challenge it.
We can't wipe the slate clean of our mistakes or blunders but we can channel these into passions and resources to take us beyond our fears.
Connection Overcomes Fear
We can connect with others and work on being more vulnerable, open, honest with ourselves and our loved ones. Great communication, trust and empathy can help us overcome our fears.
Lastly we can work on being present, it's not pleasant to feel trapped in your own thoughts, over-thinking, catastrophizing and worrying. Simply start by noticing your breath, tasting what you eat, feeling sensations in your body, then begin to notice how you feel as a progression and begin to uncover where those emotions, thoughts and ultimately fears may originate and why.
Finding a way to regularly be present is extremely grounding and calming and an excellent way to tackle your fears and live for each and every moment as they come.
If you're struggling through tackling some of your own fears as they relate to your overall health and wellbeing and want to improve in these areas please fill out our quick survey or book in a call to help gain more clarity.