How I Face My Fears and Figure Out What's Next
Fears are one of those things that we ALL have. No one is free from them. The reality though is that too many of us let fears hold us back and keep us from pursuing our God-given destiny. Whether it’s fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of loneliness, fear of success, fear of saying no, etc. We ALL have them. It seems no one is immune.
When I was growing up, our house was burgled in the middle of the day when no one was home (yes, robbed sounds better grammatically, but burgled is the technical term). I was 6 or 7 when it happened and it was a defining event in my life for years. I was scared to be home alone, which was a debilitating fear as an only child. If you came over to visit, I'd instantly lock the door behind you. I honestly didn't feel safe at home alone until I was in high school and finally ready to face my fear and quit letting it control me and my life.
Here's the thing about fears, while they can be debilitating if we let them be, they don’t have to! Our dreams and destiny are on the other side of our fears. All of our dreams involve doing something for the first time and how many know that when we do things for the first time, we’re usually terrified?! Does that mean we let our dreams sit on a shelf until we’re not afraid anymore? If we take that route, we’ll never see our dreams come to life. So there has to be a way through our fears. Here are three that I’ve found to be incredibly helpful.
I love what Marie Forleo says in her #1 NY Times Bestseller Everything is Figureoutable, “Fear is not the worst enemy. Waiting to stop feeling afraid is.”
Fear is God-given
Fear isGod-given, it keeps us alive! When we’re standing in the middle of the streetand we see a car heading our way, fear gets our butt in motion and gets us safelyto the sidewalk. Fear is the instinct within us to start running when we see abear turn around and see us.
What’s so interesting about fear is that fear and excitement share similar physical symptoms: racing heart, sweaty palms, a pit in your stomach, shortness of breath, maybe even the need to vomit. These are all the things my now husband felt right before he purposed to me (maybe not vomiting). He actually broke out in hives the week before he proposed! I could literally feel his heart practically pounding out of his chest just minutes before he proposed. We’re beyond thankful he didn’t mistake those physical
Fear or Excitement?
So, how do we know the difference between fear and excitement? Especially since whenever we do something for the first time (or even for the 40th time), it can often feel like the same thing.
There are a few quick things you can do when you’re unsure whether it’s fear or excitement because you’ve never done it before or it’s your gut instinct telling you this is actually a bad idea. #1. Physically stop and take a deep breath. #2. Make a decision to go forward with the thing causing you all the physical symptoms of fear and immediately see how it makes you feel. If you can tell you’re actually excited (albeit nervous) and you know you really want to do it, then go for it. But if deciding to go for it fills you with dread or unease or leaves you with a pit in your stomach and it feels like the worst idea ever (even if logically it seems like a good idea), don’t do it.
Navigating the Decision Point
One piece of advice that my dad would give me whenever I was thinking about doing something new was to ask the question “Is this the decision point?” More often than not, it honestly wasn’t. Knowing that, I could move forward as if I was going to pursue this new thing and gather information that would help me make a decision when I needed to. The closer I got to the actual decision-making point I usually knew deep down inside whether I should move forward with it or not. Either because I was super excited (and scared to death) but knew I needed to do it despite my fear, or because there was something inside of me telling me this wasn’t the path I should walk down, which for me usually manifests in genuinely not having internal peace about something.
Taking action towards something, not simply thinking about it, will give you the clarity you need. I can’t tell you how many times in my life I have been super excited about something (like so excited I was 100% sure that’s what I should do) and as I moved forward with the idea it became more and more clear that it wasn’t the direction I should head after all. Even though on paper it made total sense. But the more steps I took towards it the more dread and unease I felt, so I eventually knew I shouldn’t keep heading that direction.
The Way Through Fear
The reality is, when we’re doing something new or trying something again after it has failed before, fear will rise up within us. So, the question becomes, will we face our fears and do it afraid or let our fear paralyze us to inaction? The successful people you see around you aren’t without fear. They’ve just decided that they’re willing to do things afraid.
I was with my friend Joshua at the Liseberg amusement park in the center of
I looked at him stunned and was like “why are we in this line then?!” It literally took 5 minutes to walk through a maze to get into the line and now we were sandwiched between so many people that there was no going back. I love what he said to me next, “I want to get over my fear of heights.”
So, we went on that ride and then on an insanely high Ferris wheel from which you could see across Gothenburg as far as the eye could see. He was clearly afraid during the rides but was so ready to get over his fear that it didn’t matter. A couple of weeks later he told me that ever since going on those rides and facing his fear head-on he wasn’t afraid of heights anymore!
Whatever your dreams are, you will have to face your fear(s) to get through to the other side. But they don't have to hold you back! So the next time you feel short of breath, have sweaty palms, feel your heart racing, and sense that pit deep down in your stomach you know what to do!
What’s the biggest insight you’re taking away and MOST IMPORTANTLY, how can you turn that insight into action starting right now? Comment below and let me know!