Let’s talk a little about fear.
Have you ever found yourself caught in a mental tug-of-war between a strong desire to do something and a sort of psychological paralysis that renders you physically unable to do the thing?
Maybe it was applying for a new job or asking for a raise.
Or perhaps it was planning your first international trip outside of your home country.
It could have been that you’ve always wanted to write a book, or start a website, maybe even a YouTube channel.
Deep down you know you want to take the leap and do the thing, but something inside you is preventing you from starting it. Something is telling you, “but if you throw your hat over that fence, then you’ll have to climb over and get it.”
“Climbing over the fence could be difficult. It could be scary. The other side of the fence might seem better, but it could actually be way worse. It could not be worth it at all. I’m not the type of person who climbs fences anyway. I’m not wearing the right kind of clothes for that. I don’t have the right gear to make that climb. I don’t know what I’ll need once I’m on the other side. I have everything I need right here. I’m okay right here. I’m familiar with this side of the fence. I’ll just stay on this side of the fence for now. Maybe someday I’ll see what’s on the other side of that fence.”
You may have heard of the idiom, “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.” The problem with idioms is that, despite their being widely-known and touted as “wisdom,” many of them are subjectively bad advice. Just because something has been said forever doesn’t mean it’s correct. Similarly, if it’s something that everyone says, and everyone is not out there living their best life, do you really want to be following the advice that everyone else is following?
As humans, our brains are wired for survival. Specifically responsible for keeping us from peril is the amygdala, a tiny almond-shaped segment of our brain close to the brainstem. The amygdala is associated with fear, emotions, and motivation. It does its job partly by flooding our brains with adrenaline and cortisol when it senses danger. See that tiger? Better run.
These days we see fewer tigers, and yet we are still susceptible to a great deal of fear. Generally speaking, our lives are not constantly threatened in the same way they would have been hundreds or thousands of years ago. So what’s going on here? Why are we so scared? And what are we scared of exactly?
We may be experiencing what is now known as the “amygdala hijack.”
I just learned about the amydala hijack while listening to the audiobook of Feel Good Productivity by Ali Abdaal (an excellent read so far). As I understand it, this is when the amygdala is triggered by a non-survival-related fear. Fight-or-flight is initiated, causing us to have an intense emotional reaction that may be out of proportion to the situation. The frontal lobes shut down, and we can no longer think clearly.
So what causes all this debilitating nonsense to occur inside our heads? According to Ali, it’s usually one of two culprits:
- Social anxiety – fears about how our actions might impact us socially
- Self-perception – fears about our limitations and weaknesses
And both of those largely boil down to a fear of failure. We never really want to fail, and we will do all kinds of mental gymnastics to avoid failure.
But what if we could do some different mental gymnastics to break through our fears? What if, with the right mental framing, we could just get started doing the thing we want to do?
Ali offers up many useful insights in his book, one of my favorites is the 10/10/10 rule. Ask yourself, if I do this and fail, will it matter in 10 minutes? Will it matter in 10 weeks? What about in 10 years?
Walking yourself through that framework and actually answering the questions can have a profound impact on your perception of the actual “risk” at stake.
If you know who Tim Ferris is, or have read The 4-Hour Workweek, you may have heard of an exercise called “Fear-setting.” Almost the opposite of goal-setting, fear-setting is a framework to help us conquer our fears and make better decisions. It goes something like this:
- Brainstorm your fears. Jot them all down on paper or in a document. Don’t hold back; try to write down every worst-case scenario or “what-if” that could happen if your fears became reality.
- Consider the consequences of not doing the thing you fear doing. What would life be like if you take the path of inaction?
- Revisit your worst-case scenarios from step 1 and develop a plan. If they were to happen, how would you respond? How would you fix things? How could you prevent these worst-case scenarios in the first place?
If we take the time to go through the fear-setting framework, we may find ourselves much more calm at the prospect of trying something new. What really is the worst that could happen? And if the worst actually does happen, is it really the end of the world? Is the fear of what might happen actually worse than the reality of never trying?
If you finished reading this, my hope is that you are now armed with a few more tools for dealing with modern day fear. Whatever it may be, whether applying for the new job or asking for the raise; whether planning the overseas trip or asking out the girl; whether writing the book or starting the business; if you have been staring at that fence for a while, wondering what’s on the other side, now is the time to find out.
Throw your hat over the fence, and then go get it.
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