El Arte De Negociar

A Guide to Beating the Fears That Are Holding You Back
“Every time we choose safety, we reinforce fear.” - Cheri Huber


Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

Fear of something bad happening in the future is one of the things that make us human.

Animals might fear an immediate danger, that is happening right now, but only we fear something that might happen, that isn’thappening now, that isn’t even showing its ugly face at the moment.

This fear, some might say, is necessary … it stops us from doing something stupid. But I’ve found most of these fears to be unnecessary, to be baseless, to be holding us back from achieving something.

I recently asked my Twitter friends: “What fear is holding you back?” Their responses included:

• failure
•abandonment/rejection
• intimacy
• success
• being broke
• not being good enough
I think the last one — not being good enough — is actually at the root of all the others. We fear we’ll fail because we’re not good enough. We fear we’ll lose our relationships, that we’ll be abandoned, that we’ll be rejected … because we’re not good enough. We fear intimacy for the very same reason — wemight get rejected because we’re not good enough. Even the fear of success is based on the worry that we’re not good enough.

Do you have this fear? That you’re not good enough? I have, for all my life, and I still have it today.

But here’s the thing: having the fear is natural. Letting it stop you from going after your dreams is a tragedy.

I did this, for well over a decade of my adultlife. I let the fear of not being good enough stop me from even trying, from even daring to dream.

It turned out that my fears were baseless. I am good enough. I’m not perfect, but who is?

When I was able to overcome this fear of not being good enough, this fear of failure and rejection, and put myself out there in the world, I succeeded. I found out that I was good enough.

And I still havethis same fear — I still worry that I’m not good enough, that I’ll fail and flop on my face in front of 100,000 people … but I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t. Even the most successful people — Barack Obama, Steve Jobs, Paul McCartney, J.K. Rowling, et al — they have this fear, even if they don’t show it. But they don’t let it hold them back.

How can you do this? Let’s look into it.

“Thegreatest barrier to success is the fear of failure.” - Sven Goran Eriksson

How to Beat Your Fears
There is no step-by-step program to beating your fears, but here’s what I’ve learned, first-hand and from others.

1. First, acknowledge your fear. This is a huge first step. If you do just this today, you’ve done something great. Many of us have these fears, but they are at the back of our mind,unnoticed, unacknowledged, as we try to ignore them and pretend they’re not there. But they are there. And they affect us, every day, all our lives. So acknowledge the fear.
2. Write it down. What’s your fear? Write it on a piece of paper. Writing it down not only acknowledges that you have it — bringing it out into the light — but it externalizes the fear. It takes the fear from the darklurking places in the back of your mind, where it has power over you, out into the light of day, outside of you, where you have power over the fear. Take control over it by writing it down. It is now outside you. You can do something about it. I personally like to crumple it up and stomp on it, but you can do whatever you like. Post it on your fridge as a reminder of your enemy.
3. Feel the fear.You’ve acknowledged it, but you’re still afraid of it. You’re reluctant to even have this fear, perhaps even embarrassed about it. Well, no more. Recognize that you’re not alone, that we ALL have these fears, that we all think we might not be good enough. Yes, even the amazing Barack, the amazing Jessica Alba, the amazing Al Pacino. They have the same fears as you do. I sure do. Repeat after me:...