- Hello and today we are talking about fear, fear
of not being able to do something, fear that leads
to inaction fear that may be stopping you right now,
to go after your dreams, or fear that may be stopping
your clients, to be able to go after their dreams.
So today we're going to discuss this very tricky topic
of fear, how to get past it, what does it really mean
to be in fear, what can it lead to, and what are some
of the things that you can do, think about,
or questions that you can ask
that will help you get past these fears.
What we are going to discuss
will also help you help your clients get past
their own fears.
Now before we get into understanding fear,
let's not be fearful and go ahead and hit
that red subscribe button, so you can get a notification
from me every single week, as I release new videos
around how to be a better coach, and also be able
to build a even more successful coaching business.
Now let's talk about fear.
Fear is basically our response to something
that is uncertain in life, and that feels like that
the uncertainty that is waiting for us on the other end,
is not something that we desire as an outcome.
Fear shows up as a physical or an emotional response,
to something that is unforeseen.
Something that is a made up future, that we are projecting,
based on what is showing up in front of us.
Even physical fear, like a tiger coming in front,
is a physical response that you're having,
because you think that the tiger is going to come eat you.
So you start making up a story of how tiger
is going to come eat you fairly quickly.
And a fear response is generated in your body.
Now not all fear is bad.
Some fear is actually there to protect you.
It's a safety mechanism.
Say for example, that tiger was really there,
well you better be scared because you have to come up
with an exit strategy else you might be eaten.
So not all fear is bad, but a lot of fear
that we currently operate from, that leads to inaction,
is not real fear.
These are fears that we have constructed in our lives,
because of past behaviors, current thinking and thoughts
that we have, or somehow stories that you're telling us also
for potential future, that is not a desired future for us.
So before we get into how fear shows up
in your physical body, and how to turn it around,
and address some of the questions,
that will help you navigate your fear,
let's understand how fear gets generated and created,
when it's not an obvious fear.
Say for example, you're about to go on stage.
You are about to go on stage, and you feel
the fear of public speaking.
You may go something like, oh my God,
I'm about to go onstage, I'm scared.
But if you really think about it, that fear
of public speaking, is not a fear of public speaking,
it's a fear of public response.
You're more concerned and scared of what people would think,
than the actual fact of you going up on stage and speaking.
Which means, while you're feeling the fear
of public speaking, what you're really feeling is the fear
of how people may not respond, how you want them to respond,
when you go up on stage and speak.
And that is most often case when somebody
is finding themselves in the middle of a fear,
that is stopping them to take action,
or they're feeling of visceral fear, which may impact
the action they're about to take.
These are stories that we create, thought that originate
in our mind with no particular feeling, creates the emotion
of fear because we come up with a thinking, a story,
that tells us that we should be scared of that situation.
Recently in my life, I decided to buy a house.
And while I was investing in this property,
I had real fears showing up in my life.
I was thinking about,
am I making the right financial decisions?
Am I making the right cautionary decisions?
Do I have a war chest to savings for my kids and my wife?
Am I being irresponsible when it comes to taking care
of my family, of my parents, and so forth.
While all of these fears were happening in my body,
I could realize that a lot of these things
that I was projecting outside into the future,
were all made up stories.
My fear around buying a house wasn't about the house at all.
It was about my stories of how certain things can go wrong,
once I made that kind of investment.
Fear is very much present in our lives,
and our client's lives.
And there is no way,
that we can absolutely completely take away that emotion.
Like I said, fear sometimes is helpful, fear sometimes
can actually help us be more cautious and aware
of our surroundings, and keep us safe.
So fear itself is not always a bad thing,
but what we want to learn is how do we navigate.
when we are in that fearful state?
How do we navigate this emotion of fear,
and continue to take action,
towards a progressive future for ourselves?
So let's understand a little bit more about
our fear response, and then understand some of the questions
that can help you get past that debilitating fear,
and get into action.
So firstly, what you need to understand,
is fear and excitement shows up the same way in our body.
It only depends on what story we tell ourselves,
as if you recognize it as fear, or as excitement.
So let's take the same example, of going up on stage
and giving a presentation.
The experience, the physical experience that you feel
at that time, can be qualified as fear or excitement.
Science shows that neurologically they show up the same way,
and that's why the sensations in the body
that you experience, is the same.
If you tell yourself the story of how your presentation
is not going to work out, or how it will all go wrong,
or how in the past your presentations haven't worked out,
you will tend to generate a fear response,
and tell yourself a story of fear and failure.
Whereas if you tell yourself the story of how excited
you are, how pumped you are, and how you're going to crush it,
how much preparation has gone into it, and how you're going
to be among the best stocks, that the person had
and have a great impact, in their life you would start
to feel the excitement.
A lot of what happens post the physical responses recognize
and acknowledge to be a particular direction, changes
the way your mind, your thoughts, approach
that particular action.
If you're in fear, you'll most likely be nervous,
when you're on stage, you might pace a little,
or pace not at all.
You might say things, but not really be confident about it,
and blabber a lot more than actually make the presentation,
if you were in a fearful state.
But if you take that physical sensation, and turn it
into excitement, if you tell yourself I'm excited
about this presentation, I'm going to rock
this presentation, people are going to love it,
they're going to have a transformative experience,
you're sending a signal to your body, that the experience
that is having, is of excitement, that it's ready,
it's ready to get on stage, and ready to make an impact,
and that will put you into a state of excitement,
which of course will translate into a powerful presentation.
So firstly, let's understand that the body sensation
that you feel, when it is fear or excitement,
is the same, which means often you are miscategorizing,
what you're actually feeling.
And you can translate your fear into excitement,
or if your stories around fear, you can turn that story
into excitement, and hence have an excited response instead
of a fearful response.
Now sometimes, you will have a real fear,
a fear that is actually present,
a fear that really need to be addressed,
because it's not something that is a physical sensation,
it's actually a thought.
It is generated at the thought level,
on their thinking level, and hence it's creating
a physical response.
To address such kind of fear, questions can
be really, really powerful.
So let's discuss some of the questions,
that will help you translate your fear, your thinking,
into action into excitement.
The first question that will help
you get past any irrational, or rational fear
that is in your mind, that you've created
through your thinking, is to ask yourself that question,
what are you really afraid of?
Most of the time when we say, oh I'm scared,
or I'm concerned, a lot of times we would give
a very superficial answer.
Say for example, I am really scared to put out my message
on any social media channel.
I'm scared to post about my messages out to the world.
I'm scared to get on a sales conversation,
or a discovery call with a potential client, ask yourself
are you really scared of the act?
Or are you scared of the outcome?
What are you really scared of?
What is it that you're really fearing in that situation?
Most of them times you would see that,
we give a selfish response, like I'm scared to post
on social media.
But what do you really scared of very often,
is what happens once you do post on social media.
Now this awareness of what you're really scared of,
can change the way you approach that particular fear,
and that particular challenge.
Once, you know it's not posting on social media
that is getting you scared, but it is the response
that people will have, is getting you scared
or is making you fearful of the act of doing,
you can now dissociate the act of doing,
to the outcomes of doing.
And once you dissociate the act and the outcomes,
the act becomes slightly simpler, it becomes less scary,
which is why I encourage you to look at, if you're scared
of something, you're fearful of something, or your client
is fearful of something, to really rationalize
that fear, ask yourself the question,
what are you really scared of?
What are you so concerned about?
What are you fearful of?
The second question that brings more realness
to your current fear, is asking yourself what I'm scared of,
is that a real thing?
Or is it something that have made up stories around?
You see a lot of our past programming influences
our current actions, things that have happened in our past,
people we have met in the past, stories that have been told
to us in the past, create our current reality,
and very often, if you ask yourself the question
about being honest, and being truthful about,
is this fear real?
You'll find that a lot of those fears are actually
just programming of the past, things that happen
at some point, somebody didn't do something,
you didn't get the response that you wanted or expected.
And hence you created a story around
that political belief about you.
This is you being fearful on autopilot.
This is where you haven't had a chance, you haven't given
your conscious mind a chance to take action
towards that fear, and not let your past hold you back.
What happened in the past, is past what happens
in the future, is defined by what we do today.
If we get ourselves into a state of action,
if we get ourselves into this state of excitement,
we will conquer our fears
and get better outcomes than yesterday.
A few years ago, I was very scared to do this, turn on
the camera and make a presentation, make a video
that can help other people, I was really, really scared
of it, because the first time I ever turned on the camera,
and recorded something, I found myself mumbling,
or not being able to put my thoughts together,
not being able to create
a really powerful conversation straight off the bat.
And that trained me to believe, that I would never be good
on camera, that I can not do this thing of creating videos,
that I have to be someone who is behind the camera,
and never in front of the camera.
Well thankfully, I was able to address that fear,
by asking myself, what was I really afraid of?
And I was afraid of rejection.
I was afraid of people would watch it,
and that I would be not brilliant at it,
and that I will never get good at it.
In time, I realized that, that fear was originating
from my past experiences.
And once I let that go, once I rationalize that my past
is going in my present, and that is no way
to build my future, I was able to step back,
and ask myself a better question, of asking
what am I excited for?
Can I be excited for the process of creating,
then the outcome of what people may think about this?
Can I be more excited about the process of impacting
just one life, just you who's watching this video right now.
And if my answer was yes, I should go ahead,
and not let my past control my present,
and definitely not control my future.
My past created this version of me, and I'm grateful for it.
But at the same point in time,
it also gave me certain beliefs, and that I have to suspend,
for me to be able to get past my concerns, my life,
and create a new life for myself.
This is what I invite you to do as well.
Write down, is your fear real?
Is there any truth to it?
Or is it just past programming?
Is it just the stories of your past about something
that may have happened?
Or are you being currently limited in your potential,
and pure potentiality because you're letting
your past run your present?
The third question is, what would accepting this fear,
and not getting an action cost me?
What would it help me with, if I got past the fear,
and what are the potential outcomes I can get,
if I could choose courage in move forward with excitement.
in this direction and not let fear control it.
This question will help you diagnose the pros and cons,
of being in fear.
It will help you identify what you have to lose,
if you stay in fear, and what you have to gain,
if you chose excitement and courage.
Once you've identified those pros and cons,
you will be able to identify several reasons,
for you to stay in action, to get into excitement,
instead of letting fear control your life.
Sometimes it is important for us to be able to see
the benefit of the future, to let go
of the challenges of the past.
The fourth question that I have for you, is to identify
what is it that triggered fear in you?
The reason for this question is, once you know
your pros and cons, once you know that this may be just
a figment of your imagination, once you know
that there may be a better way to experience this fear,
and turn it into excitement, and you're still not able
to get into action, it may be because there is something,
that triggers fear in you.
Say for example, when I wanted to get on video,
when create presentations for the world,
sometimes I would find my fear of not feeling good enough
to be on video, was triggered because I looked
at other people, who were doing this work for decades,
and they were so good on camera.
I was like, there's no way I can be this good,
there's no way I have something new to add,
there's no way I can make a better presentation,
than what already is present on the inter webs
for everybody anyways to watch,
who am I to create this?
I doubted myself and limited myself,
because I was comparing myself.
There was a specific event when I watched somebody
who was a very successful coach, somebody who had
been doing camera and video work for a really long time.
And I would compare myself and limit my own self.
And it would create that fear in me,
of not feeling good enough, fear of saying that
I won't be able to create that impact,
that that person did on video, and that fed my fear.
And that continued to feed my fear for a very long time,
until I recognized that that's the event that is causing it.
And because that was the event, what I started doing,
was to ignore the other trainers for a minute,
to work on my methodology, to clarify methodology,
what is it that I do?
How is it that I'm able to create an impact
in my client's life?
And that eventually gave me the confidence,
and allowed me to not feel the trigger of the event even if
I saw somebody that was fabulous.
So ask yourself this question, and your clients
this question of, what is it that may be happening
in life, that is triggering fear in you?
And how can you isolate those events,
so you can ignore them, limit them,
or completely eliminate them.
So you can act a lot more
from a place of excitement, action and courage.
The next question I have for you is,
what are the small steps that you can do today,
that will help you get past your fear?
Very often we think a big massive action,
would help us get past anything that may happen in life.
While that sounds like a really cool idea,
it doesn't actually work.
What really works is you being able
to take small tiny actions every single day,
so you can build a new muscle,
to be able to get past that fear,
so you can build new courage, to be able to get past
that fear, to be able to be in action, so you can counter
that fear with actual results.
And once you start taking those tiny actions, start to see
your confidence rise, and your your abilities rise,
your habits rise to the occasion, you see slowly but surely
the fear goes away.
So I invite you to think about one of the tiny steps
that you can take, the tiny habits that you can bring in
into your life, that will help you get past any fear,
that you may be experiencing right now in your life.
Lastly, I'm going to give you a technique.
This technique is not my technique, is technique
by our fantastic trainer called Mel Robbins.
She wrote a whole book about it called the five-second rule.
I'll let Mel explain a little bit further.
- Here's how you're going to use the rule.
The moment, the moment that you feel your thoughts drifting,
and have you ever noticed how worrying and self doubt,
they have a way of literally like, taking you away
from a situation, you can feel your mind go
from the present moment, to drifting to something negative.
Maybe you're sitting at a meeting at work,
and suddenly you start talking down at yourself,
and doubting yourself, it happens like that.
But the moment that you catch yourself do it.
That's a moment of tremendous power.
You have a decision to make.
You can either sit there and listen to the worry,
and listen to the self doubt and let it hijack you,
or you can make a decision to assert control.
That's when you use the rule, you're going to use
the countdown trick five, four, three, two, one.
It's essential, counting backwards interrupts
the negative thought pattern.
It's also going to awaken your prefrontal cortex,
which is the part of the brain that you need,
to override a bad habit and replace your bad habit,
with a positive new one.
So every time you feel your thoughts drift
to something negative, or you find yourself worrying
about things you can't control, five, four, three, two, one.
It'll switch the gears in your brain,
it'll interrupt the negative thought pattern,
it'll activate your prefrontal cortex.
And you've just created a starting ritual,
that will prime your mind to accept a more positive thought.
That is how you use the rule to change.
- So this is how you get past your fears.
You can help your clients with these questions,
you can help yourself with these questions,
Let me know what you think about fear.
Has it stopped you before in life?
And what did you do to get past it?
Post it on the comments section below.
I love reading your comments, I love interacting
with you in your comments.
Go ahead and hit that like button.
If you're going to use one of these questions,
to get past your fear,
if you have a better understanding of fear,
because I love and appreciate when you hit that like button.
And if by any chance you still haven't hit
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Thank you so much for watching, this is Ajit Nawalkha,
and you're watching this on Evercoach.