Overcoming Fear

Often when embarking on a new venture or trying to do something that historically we haven’t enjoyed doing, we can get so bogged down in what might go wrong that we end up never doing it. 

This negative self chatter is the reason that people stay on jobs they hate, never say what they really think or end up doing things that the feel resentful about. 

So what’s going on? 

Well we all have a little voice in our head that as coaches we call ‘gremlins’ or ‘saboteurs’. They focus on everything that might go wrong and present what might happen as what is likely to happen. This blinds us to all the other possible outcomes and rapidly depletes both motivation and energy levels. 

So how do you stop this pattern of self talk and replace it with a more useful one? To start with just notice that you do it. Bringing yourself to a place of awareness will shift the perspective you have just by bringing it into your consciousness. Allow yourself a moment to listen to the ‘saboteur viewpoint’ and then think – what are 5 other things that might happen also?

Once you’ve done that think about which of the outcome is most likely, least likely etc, and then decide what you actually want to do – rather than what your saboteur thinks you have to do because the risk of not doing it is so great. 

When you examine the risks, they’re almost never as likely to happen as we might think and then ask yourself this – even if it does happen what’s the real risk in it? On most occasions the repercussions will not be anything you can’t handle and just think – it might go well and you’ll get the thing you actually wanted to happen. And as for the risk? Well the risk of doing nothing is that what you want to happen definitely can’t. So go get what you want!