What do You Fear?
October 17, 2021
“Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.” Babe Ruth
What do you fear? Spiders🕷? Heights? Scary movies? That hair on your chin that no one tells you about? 😂.
Everyone fears something - some of those fears are rational and some are not.
About a week ago, I was plugging along with the sequel to Chasing the Darkness, when I ran headfirst into a wall of resistance. Some authors call this writer’s block.
Have you heard of writer’s block? According to Merriam Webster, it’s “a psychological inhibition preventing a writer from proceeding with a piece.”
There’s some debate between authors concerning if writer’s block exists or not. But I did find an article that states there are three common causes:
- Fear
- Timing
- Perfectionism
Since it’s October, and the ghouls and ghosts will visit soon (along with loads of candy), I thought the timing was perfect to talk about fear. (Did you see what I did there?)
I recently discovered that the reason I was struggling with book 2, and why I took a header into the wall of insecurity, was due to fear.
Fear is not inherently good or bad. It’s there to keep us safe. The key is not letting fear control us, but to conquer it. Tony Robbins, an entrepreneur and NY Times best selling author has a blog with ten ways to overcome fear. I’ve tweaked five of them for our purposes.
5 Ways to Conquer Fear:
- Bring it to the light: In other words, name it. Just like solving a problem, we need to first identify what that problem is. Same with fear. Sometimes it helps to think on it, let it stew. For instance, I wrote in my journal that I feared my reader’s expectations on the sequel to CTD. What if it wasn’t good enough or that I’m a one-hit wonder? Jotting them down helped bring them to the light so they weren’t so scary.
- Own the excuses: Fear can make you put things off. For example, “I have other stuff to do,” or “I’ll get to it later.” When I’d rather clean a bathroom than write, I know something’s wrong.
- Just keep swimming: Sometimes fear keeps us frozen and we need to "let it go." Okay, I couldn’t help myself with the Disney references. But in all seriousness, as Robbins says, we need a growth mindset. “No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow your progress, you’re still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying… the path to success includes growth and change.”
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Learn from pain: Many lessons in life are, unfortunately, learned through pain. We just don’t get it otherwise. Instead of letting pain and fear control you, use them as teachers directing your path. (This is a quote from my book) 😉 👉🏼
- Failure teaches too: According to Robbins, the number one fear people have when it comes to accomplishing their goals is they’ll fail. To successfully overcome fear, we need to look at failure as part of the process to success. We all make mistakes and just like point 4, we can learn from them as well.
I hope this helps you overcome fear in whatever you’re dealing with. For me, I took a break and then got back to work, focusing on what I could control, instead of what I couldn’t.
What do you fear? I’d love to hear from you, so drop me an email.
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