Moving Past Fear

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Pamela Rudisill CPC, One of Thousands of Relationship Coaches on Noomii.

How do we move past fear? That’s the question several life coaches are attempting to answer today in the first of hopefully many posts in our monthly Life Coach Blog Hop. Each month, we’ll tackle a new subject in the hopes of learning from each other and all of you, as you (hopefully) join your thoughts with ours.

I believe it important to first distinguish the difference between anxiety and fear. Anxiety is an emotional and physical response to an imagined, unknown or possible threat. Fear is an emotional and physical response to a known threat. Today, I will be talking about anxiety, an emotion I’ve come to know quite well.

To better understand anxiety, let’s use an example taken from the life of yours truly: the fear of rejection. To narrow it down, let’s look at my fear of writing, including the writing of blog posts. In cases like this, we often fear most what we most desire. I’ve wanted to be a well-loved and revered writer for most of my life. Who knows, maybe even win the Nobel Peace Prize for literature. Yes, I was going to write the next Great American Novel and my poetry was going to pierce your heart and elevate your spirit. Heck, it could still happen, but how when I must wade through the shark invested waters of fear and doubt before writing a simple blog post? What am I afraid of? Rejection, of course, that you’ll find my voice weak or redundant or (horrors!) boring. But then again, what if you don’t?

What effect does my fear of (or anxiety around) writing for public viewing have on me? It stops me cold and prevents me from taking action. I can’t tell you how many magazine submissions and writing contest entries I never sent, or even started, because of my fear of rejection.

You might be thinking now about your own fears and how they hold you back from living the life of your dreams. How do we get past these fears and take a big leap forward? The following steps can help you in your quest for freedom from fear:

1. First things first. Locate the source of your fear. To do this, ask yourself the following questions:

2. Use your imagination and change your perspective. Again, ask yourself…

3. Think about how you’ve moved past fear in the past. Did you train for and run that marathon that no one, yourself included, thought you would complete? Maybe you finally sang in front of your congregation after a week of nervous stomach aches only to find that your voice was a blessing for many. Make a list of your successes in this regard and review it the next time fear has you in its nasty grip. What a fabulous way to build self-confidence!

4. Next, determine how you’ll achieve your goal of moving past fear. What action will you take and how can you break that down into small, more easily achievable steps? For instance, to help me move past my fear of rejection when sharing my writing, I first shared some of my poems at private writing group sites where comments and critiques were instructed to be positive and productive. No one could view them unless they were a part of the group. Next, I posted them at another writing site where people were allowed to blast you with vitriol should they not care for your work. I received only a few comments like that, and though they stung, they did help me to develop a slightly thicker skin. My next move was to post some flash fiction on a blog completely open to the public. See where I’m going with this?

5. When it’s finally time to look that debilitating fear in the face, do just that. Many of us will either retreat or do some fancy foot work to sidestep our fear. I say, look it square in the eye, acknowledge it, thank it for showing up to protect you from harm and let it know it is no longer needed as you’ve got the situation under control. Once you face it head on, it is less likely to return in a similar situation.

I hope you find these five steps for moving past fear helpful. I also hope you’ll share your own experiences and thoughts around this universal issue in the comment section of this post. We can learn from each other in our quest to move forward!

I would love to support and encourage you in your efforts to move forward in your life! Please connect with me (or one of the participating coaches) if you would like to learn more about coaching.

For more reading on this topic, please visit the other participants in this month’s Life Coach Blog Hop. They are an amazing group of insightful coaches who will greet you with open arms!