I have a theory that most of the time when we are stuck in a decision of what to do, we actually already know the answer. We just aren’t ready to accept what our answer is yet because fear has taken over.
I can look back at some huge scary choices in my life and I can see that I already knew my answer waaaay before I was comfortable enough with it to actually make the choice. I can also see that a lot of the struggle I had in committing to the choice was my fear battling what I knew I wanted to do.
Fear is a wonderful protector. It keeps us from walking into traffic or into a lions cage. It gives us signals when we are somewhere we probably shouldn’t be or when something just isn’t right. It makes us run or act lightning fast when we need to save ourselves or someone else. It has so many beneficial properties! But it can also stop us from making the right choice if we let it.
See the unknown is scary and fear LOVES certainty! Fear will chose a path with bright light, a personal guide, six maps, and a guarantee that everything will work out perfectly no matter what, every single time. Which is just fear doing it’s job of protecting you from what it perceives as scary and stress inducing. The problem arrises when the right choice for us, is the path that is uncertain and probably has some mist and gnarly trees on it. It looks super scary but deep down you KNOW it’s the right path. So how do you tame your fear and get it to go down that path?
Make friends with your fear!
You can’t just push fear to the wayside or it will come back harder and stronger. You need to make friends with it so you can understand what it is saying. Sometimes it’s just saying “This is crazy!” but sometimes it’s trying to tell you about an underlying belief you didn’t realize you had.
For example, I have some big goals for this year when it comes to my business but recently a lot of fear has been creeping in and overwhelming me. I realized its trying to tell me that I don’t yet believe I can make these goal happen. I don’t believe that I can make enough money doing this work. Hardest of all, I don’t believe I deserve it. (Some deep stuff there, right?)
Thats tough to hear from myself but knowing it let’s me work on changing those beliefs. It let’s me say to fear “I hear you and I appreciate your concerns. Thank you for helping me see these things. Now, I need you to relax. I’ll take it from here.” Elizabeth Gilbert says in Big Magic, Fear doesn’t get to drive this car. That’s exactly what happens when you make friends with fear. You hear it. You see it. You listen to it but it doesn’t get to make the decision. You do. You are the driver. Fear doesn’t even have a license.
So tell fear to relax! You choose your path and if it’s the scary yet super exciting one, it’s probably the right way to go. You never know there could be a castle at the end!