Feel The Fear & Do It Anyway

I’ve been thinking a lot about fear recently, mainly because I’ve been doing quite a few fairly scary things over the last few weeks!

Specifically, I’ve been thinking about feeling the fear and doing it anyway, and how not being able to do that, holds a lot of people back from success.  But before we talk about that, let’s look at what fear actually is.

From the website “How Stuff Works”

“Fear is a chain reaction in the brain that starts with a stressful stimulus and ends with the release of chemicals that cause a racing heart, fast breathing and energized muscles, among other things, also known as the fight-or-flight response. The stimulus could be a spider, a knife at your throat, an auditorium full of people waiting for you to speak or the sudden thud of your front door against the door frame.

The brain is a profoundly complex organ. More than 100 billion nerve cells comprise an intricate network of communications that is the starting point of everything we sense, think and do. Some of these communications lead to conscious thought and action, while others produce autonomic responses. The fear response is almost entirely autonomic: We don’t consciously trigger it or even know what’s going on until it has run its course.

Because cells in the brain are constantly transferring information and triggering responses, there are dozens of areas of the brain at least peripherally involved in fear. But research has discovered that certain parts of the brain play central roles in the process…..”

Read more here >>

And Wikipedia has an interesting take on it

“Fear is an emotional response to threats and danger. It is a basic survival mechanism occurring in response to a specific stimulus, such as pain or the threat of pain. Psychologists John B. Watson, Robert Plutchik, and Paul Ekman have suggested that fear is one of a small set of basic or innate emotions. This set also includes such emotions as joy, sadness, and anger. Fear should be distinguished from the related emotional state of anxiety, which typically occurs without any external threat.

Additionally, fear is related to the specific behaviors of escape and avoidance, whereas anxiety is the result of threats which are perceived to be uncontrollable or unavoidable.[1] Worth noting is that fear always relates to future events, such as worsening of a situation, or continuation of a situation that is unacceptable.”

Read more here >>

Notice that Wikipedia says “fear always relates to future events….” and this would seem to be born out by the list of the things people fear most.

What do people fear most?

One survey says that at the top of the list is death, the fear of which is necrophobia. Second, apparently, is the fear of failure, which is called kakorrhaphiophobia. Wikipedia lists “spiders, snakes, heights, water, enclosed spaces, tunnels and bridges, social rejection, failure, and public speaking” as the most common fears.

In an innovative test of what people fear the most, Bill Tancer analyzed the most frequent online search queries that involved the phrase, “fear of…”. This follows the assumption that people tend to seek information on the issues that concern them the most. His top ten list of fears consisted of flying, heights, clowns, intimacy, death, rejection, people, snakes, success, and driving

From my work in The Money Gym, I notice that a lot of our members fear “other people’s opinions” quite a lot.  They don’t want to be perceived to be different, or to be ridiculed or rejected, if they become interested in wealth creation or even if they become wealthy. They are almost shooting themselves in teh foot because they are afraid of success.

On that topic, I was on a “experts panel” once at the World Internet Summit, when  a speaker asked the audience why they might NOT want to become internet millionaires and one brave soul said that she was worried that she might not be able to handle the emails!

Time management expert Mark Forster describes these as anti-goals and that you have to identify your anti-goals, or fears around achieving something, or you will sabotage yourself and won’t succeed.

For example, I have a goal to become an international speaker, but when I identified my anti-goals around that, I was fearful of being on the road all the time, away from my family, staying in grotty hotels, driving constantly and turning up to speak for free to only six people!

Once I had identified those anti-goals, I was able to reframe my goal to say “I am an in-demand international paid speaker, who picks her gigs carefully, only speaking to big crowds, staying in five star hotels and travelling first class”

Being fearful is not the same as worrying….I used to be a terrible worry-wort, particularly about what people would say/think if I asked for what I wanted/needed.  Then Judith pointed out that I was hallucinating, as I had no idea how people would react, and Steve pointed out that I was being narcissistic, as I was always projecting onto others how I would feel in that situation.

Speaking personally, I’m not afraid of rejection, or other people’s opinions (unless it’s the people I love), I love public speaking – one of my sisters is an Opera Singer and we don’t think we have a “stagefright” gene in the Cairncross gene pool – and I’ve failed so many times I’ve seriously got over that one, because I have always known, deep down, that one day I will succeed.

So what am I afraid of and why are my fears coming up so much while I’m on holiday?  I’m almost afraid to tell you (write them down) in case I manifest them!!

Fears that have surfaced for me in the last few weeks, while travelling, are….

Fear of driving on the right hand side, particularly on windy greek and spanish country roads.  Actually it’s more specific than that – it’s of the brakes failiing with a carful of kids.  And I hate the thought of the car not “catching” when going up a steep slope in first gear…and there are a lot of those in both Greece and Spain.  Just getting from the main road in Casares to the municipal carpark involves hairpin bends and steep slopes!

Fear of flying – particularly the landings.  I have to meditate quite hard to get over that one.  Dawn French summed it up when she said that she can’t go on holiday for only a week, it has to be at least two to make up for the stress of flying as she feels that it’s only her will power alone that keeps the plane in the air, and if she relaxes for a second, the plane will plummet out of the skies.  She wonders how all the other planes manage, when she’s at home, but supposes that every one must have a “Dawn” on board to keep them airborne.

I’m not massively keen on swimming out of my depth, and there is NO WAY I can swim over rocks or seaweed.  That’s why I love Kologria Beach in Stoupa so much, clear golden sand, goes out for miles, and while there are tiny transparent fish there, they are miles away from your feet.  I discovered yesterday at Estapona Beach, that I have a fear of sharks and if the water is cold enough, I start thinking of the possibility of being eaten while swimming so I can’t swim out deeper than anyone else on the beach.

I have a huge fear of insects, particularly spiders and daddy-long-legs (like particulary daft flying spiders) but anything with legs and wings will do.  Euuuuughhhh.  Hate mossies too, and if I hear one in a room, there is NO WAY I can sleep.  Mossie nets and plugin chemicals get me over that one.  At home, I have a long-handled spider catcher which has set me free to a large degree (really need to find a manufacturer for that one – it’s a sure fire commercial success!  Mine was made by a little man in his shed, bought on Ebay)

So how do I get over all these fears, which even when I write them down, look a bit daft by some peoples standards?

Well, I just have to.  I want the kids to have this experience and I don’t want them to grow up a scaredy-cat like I was as a child.  Also, Sarah is here, and I want her to experience things to…so actually I’m forcing myself to get over fears for others, when perhaps I wouldn’t do stuff like this if I was on my own.

So how do I do it?  I just tell myself or even shout out loud sometimes…. “feel the fear and do it anyway!!” and then get on and do it.

With most of the above, apart from the insect thing, it works and we are having loads of fun, which helps a lot, along with the sense of achievement you get after overcoming a fear or two.

In conclusion, I would say that knowing yourself well, working with your silly old fears, but overcoming some by sheer force of will, remembering that not everyone reacts/feels like you, will help you on your road to success.

So what are you afraid of?

It helps to visualise the outcome  or payoff – by hiring two cars in Spain, we saved a small fortune on taxis and we are completely mobile, no mean feat for two grownups and six children of varying ages, in another country.  The other benefit is that Sarah has got over the hump of driving on the right for the first time, and I’m more confident with it, because I had to look brave for her.

How can you find a practical solution (like a long handled spider catcher for example) or how could you ease yourself in gradually (like swimming out of your depth in a crystal clear blue sea).

Perhaps you could find someone who regularly does – confidently – what you want to do, and talk to them about how they felt the first few times.

You might be amazed to find that they were scared witless too, and that they just felt the fear and did it anyway!

So they succeeded in their goals and ambitions.

Just like you can too.

Effective Goal Setting – Or Setting Yourself Up For Disappointment?

Nicola says:  When I was just getting started in personal development and wealth creation, I diligently worked through every exercise in books like Colin Turner’s “Swimming With Pirahna’s Makes You Hungry” and Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits Of Highly Effective People” and I ended up setting goals for myself.

I had never set goals before in my life….. oh, sure! I had some vague “wants” but I’d never set goals and when I think about it, there were two main reasons why.

1. I had no idea HOW I was going to achieve those goals – for heaven’s sake, I didn’t even know what the word strategy meant!
2. I was scared to write down a goal, fully expecting to NOT achieve it and then be disappointed with myself when I found the piece of paper later, in a drawer somewhere.

Essentially, I had no idea that you can set a goal, then make a plan to make it happen.  How funny that seems now….although I am now a great believer in setting goals with no idea of how to make them happen at first!

Judith thinks I’m a bit barking when I talk like this, because she’s set goals and achieved them, barring a few unforeseen exocets, all her life.

So all this said, when we launched our Money Gym Silver Elite programme this week as a pilot for the main launch in September, one of our main aims was to encourage the Silver Elite participants to create some goals for themselves, for the programme, and to encourage them to create a strategy (plan) for how they were going to achieve them – specifically how they were going to achieve them within the 90 days of the programme.

We hosted the first webinar and discussed the subject thoroughly (albeit with a frustrated Judith listening in, unable to contribute as much as she would have liked, due to techie issues) and we came up with the following goal setting process which I wanted to share with you.

Marian’s (Shorter Version) Goal Setting Format:

• Set your goal(s)
• Work out your compelling ‘why’
• How will you achieve your goal?  (Think, brainstorm, strategise…)
• What are the obstacles, turn ‘em around and make them challenges and blast through them
• What time will you commit to the goal (& is it more time than you spend watching TV or sitting in pub!)

Nicola’s (Longer Version) Goal Setting Format:

1. Think of between one and three goals you would like to achieve in 90 days
2. Run them through the SMART process – Judith, could you elaborate on that one?
3. Tell us WHY you want to achieve them – what difference will it make in your life?
4. Work out where you will need to be with each of them, to be a third of the way there in 30 days, two thirds of the way there in 60 days.
5. How much time per week do you have to work on your 90 day goals
6. When are you going to work on them?  Saturdays? Sunday mornings?  Tuesday evenings?
7. What steps do you think you need to take to move into action?
8. What is going to stop you?  What are your perceived obstacles?
9. What would be the outcome, if you turned those obstacles around into outcomes?
10. What are you going to do first?  This week? Before the next call (commitment in public via the Google Group to at least one action step please)

Judith’s (SMART) Goal Setting Process

A SMART goal, for what it’s worth, and it won’t suit all, is

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Timed/timelined

Thus a goal like S posted yesterday “To attract 1000 Twitter followers within 30 days” is all of the above – if she has a plan to achieve it.

The point about this SMART process is… you know whether you’ve done it or not.

So tell me via the comments box here, do YOU set goals?  How do you do it?  What are your challenges around goal setting?

Love to hear what you think!

Misconceptions: Is Disappointment Holding You Back?

Forgive me if this article is a bit “me,me,me”. It grew out of my Note From Nicola” and actually outgrew it, so bear with me and see if it sparks anything off in your thoughts. If so, I would love you to make a comment below there…tell me your story.

A bit of background….there is a right old furore going on in the coaching world at the moment with an internet based reality tv show happening, called “Britian’s Next Top Coach”.

It’s turning the coaching world upside down with two main camps developing, for and against.

Those who are “against” are largely anti-competition and anti-marketing, and those who are “for”, are thinking that this is going to raise the benefits of coaching and personal development – something Joe Public is woefully ignorant of – and this can only be “a good thing”.

The “for” camp are also eyeing the winners packages, which include a lot of very nice prizes including a promotion and management deal, a potential book deal with a mainstream publisher, and much much more.

I’ve largely ignored it all until Judith emailed me a link saying that I should go for it. In her words “you’ve got the balls” and it would be great for the Money Gym.

Not to mention my Star/Creator profile. I am drawn to telly and while this is internet video, it’s nearly the same thing and may lead to telly.

But I found myself finding lots of different reasons – misconceptions – not to enter, from “oh, they will insist on us giving up the ebook rights and that will kill our marketing” to “oh, the whole coaching world will despise me for the self-promoting limelight seeker I am” and loads of other rubbish gubbins as well.

Then it struck me, I didn’t want to enter because I didn’t want to compete with other coaches, and especially not so publically!

Read more..