Fear is defined as “an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.
I have spent many days living in ‘fear’ without even realizing it was that nasty emotion fear causing the symptoms of disengagement, decreased productivity, not taking action, and sadness.
Fear of…
…Doing the ‘wrong’ thing.
…Having my work be accepted.
…Being accepted and liked as a person.
…Not being a good friend, daughter, coworker.
…People being ‘mad’ or ‘upset’ with me.
…Never meeting my person.
…Wondering if I’m living in the right place.
…Not having unique gifts to offer the world.
…Failure.
…Not being enough in life, work, love, my body, my face, my mind…
Fear manifests itself in my body in a number of different ways. It hinders my ability to think, love, be productive, and experience life with passion and purpose. Most importantly, it prevents me from being my true self because I’m living in fear of what that person is or isn’t.
When I’m living in this state, it’s almost as if I’m living in a state of paralysis without the ability to propel forward. Now, I don’t want to get this emotion confused with depression because they are different, but these symptoms of fear have a similar outcome. For me, fear has it’s own sneaky little personality. One that creeps inside my head and into my body without me even realizing. It overtakes the control center and starts driving like a little getaway car. It drives carelessly and too fast without any consideration for those around it (ME!) It takes me down winding roads and paths and leads be to believe that I’m simply not enough.
Maybe you’ve had some of these thoughts…
‘I won’t even bother eating well today because I won’t lose wait anyways’
‘I’m not going to write a blog because no one will read it’
‘If I tell people that, they’ll think I’m weird’
‘I’m not going to work out because I’ll never stick with it long term’
‘I’m not going to apply for that job because I won’t get an interview’
‘I can’t take that course, it’s too selfish’
These are what we call limiting beliefs, and the beliefs that we create for ourselves prevent us from living a life filled with vitality, passion, and happiness.
We live in a social world that curates images and stories of success and happiness. Our ideals and values are cultivated based on the pretenses of trendsetters and decision makers – who are those people anyways? While I love social media and the abundance of information available on the internet, we have to be careful not to lose sight of our own truths, our own happiness, and our own definition of success.
I tend to go in and out of moments of satisfaction and fear. A couple of years ago, I got really stuck. I was feeling pretty low, but realized that I was the only one who could really take command of my own control center. I took a step back and tried to get a bird’s eye view of what was going on. I can’t quite remember what triggered this desire to get a new perspective, but I knew I needed change. What I realized was that somewhere along this life journey, I’d developed a lack of confidence, fear, and a bit of anxiety.
I racked my brain to try to understand where it came from. After a lot of reflection and wondering, it finally clicked. Ah ha!
I consider myself somewhat of an empath. I easily feel other people’s feelings and can get very sensitive towards those feelings and take them personally or take them as my own. I’m also fairly perceptive, I listen to what other people say about themselves or others and then apply anything negative to me or hope that it’s not me. You know, you’re having friendly gossip with a friend and they say something that could be perceived as negative and that comment sticks with you and you pray that you don’t do it so you don’t get talked about…exhausting! As you can imagine taking on everyone else’s stories as your own can add up over time and was wreaking havoc on my health.
It might surprise you, but living in fear doesn’t just prevent you from living and abundant bad ass life it’s also really bad for your health and affects things like:
- Mental health
- IBS
- Accelerated aging
- Cognitive function
- Memory
But how do we overcome our fears in the name of our health and happiness?
The other day, I picked up Big Magic by Eliabeth Gilbert and just 50 pages in, it’s changing the way I think about creativity and fear and how I want to live my life.
living a life that is driven out of curiosity rather than fear
It’s a lot easier said than done to just say, ‘Okay, today, I choose to live my most bold life out of curiosity and will not let fear control me.’ Before we get there, we have to eliminate our limiting beliefs, embrace our fear as part of who we are, and accept ourselves for being unique.
Don’t get me wrong, there are still days I live in fear where that little monster tries to take over my control center, but I slowly recognized what is fear and what is reality and developed confidence to push past it and embrace it.
Here are my top tips for overcoming fear and claiming confidence:
Recognize Strengths and Weaknesses
We are better at some things than other things, and guess what…that’s just the way it is. You’re not good at everything, and if I’m the first one to tell you that, you’re welcome.
In work, I’m pretty creative, good at coming up with ideas, and enjoy collaborating with others. But when it comes to ‘running the numbers’ and digging through a lot of stats, it’s not really for me, nor do I really enjoy it that much.
Personally, I’m pretty energetic and positive, but on the other hand I can be kind of moody and a bit defensive.
Guess what, this is all OK! I have things that I’m working on improving but by accepting the good, the bad, and the ugly, I can use my strengths to my benefit and really capitalize on them.
Express Gratitude
Regardless of how others’ lives may appear, no ones life is perfect. No one. Not that blogger or Instagram star; not the celebrity; not your friend with the seemingly perfect relationship. No one. Life would be super boring if it was perfect. Embracing the imperfections and recognizing the greatness of it all leads to an overarching sense of happiness.
While not perfect, we all have things in our lives that we can recognize and feel grateful for. It could be as simple as enjoying a great breakfast, having a home, a comfy bed to sleep in, or bigger things like an amazing trip or a gift you received.
Expressing gratitude removes toxic emotions from our lives and allows us to embrace an attitude of positivity.
Identify How I Want to Feel
I feel X right now, but I really want to feel Y. It’s as simple as that. Identifying the way we want to feel is the first step to feeling it – we can’t get there if we don’t know what it is, right?
Understand My Passions
The things you’re passionate about are the things that light you up. The things you could talk about for hours on end, sit in solidarity researching, or those things you do and time passes in a flash.
For me, the biggest thing that stands out is health, wellness, and food. While I have many more, these are the areas where I spend most of my free time by turning my passions into hobbies.
Take a Leap of Faith
In 2012 I started a blog. It was called On the Side of Nine to Five. I wanted to talk about Health and Wellness and how you could have an awesome fulfilled life outside of your busy 9-5. Sound familiar? It’s funny how ideas come full circle but present themselves in new ways.
Anyhow, I was really nervous to start this blog. There weren’t as many blogs out there and it felt a little self-indulgent.
“Who wants to read what I think?”
“People are going to think it’s dumb”
GO AWAY LIMITING BELIEF & FEAR!
But something inside me really wanted to do this and share a message, so I just did it. I learned how to build a website, started creating content, and loved every second of it.
Did some of my fears come true? Yep. There were a few people who were really hard on me about it and honestly made me feel really bad and embarrassed.
But here’s the thing, if other people are making you feel that way, it’s about them NOT YOU.
If you want something and it’s not harming anyone else, you can afford it, and you have the time…GO FOR IT. Just go for it.
Accept ‘Failure’
Not everything works out. Wouldn’t life be boring if it did?
We can accept failure in a few ways. We can call them failures and walk away. Or we can adjust our expectations and learn from unexpected outcomes.
As far as I’m concerned, anything you try is a success. Sure, it might not be exactly what you imagined, but you gave it your best shot!
Embrace & Recognize Fear
The other day, I had to do a project for a client and I was procrastinating like I’ve never procrastinated before. I made granola, I went grocery shopping, I started this blog post, and then I asked myself, ‘ok, Hailey, what is going on here?’ and I realized I was fearful. I was nervous the work wouldn’t be good enough; that they wouldn’t like it; or that it wouldn’t provide the results they were looking for. Well here’s the thing, it’s not going to get any results if it doesn’t get done, so I sat my butt down and got to work. As I started working I remembered why I loved doing what I do and how excited I was to work on this project.
Fear came along for the ride and pushed me to do good work but never took control.
I know first hand that integrating confidence, self-love, and acceptance into your life is a lot easier said than done, but understanding these practices has helped me cultivate more confidence so I can embrace my fears to do what I love.
I know you have ideas, thoughts, and feelings living inside you. Let them out! Share with me below…what holds you back and how are you going to overcome it starting today!?
If you want to talk more about how to increase your confidence to practice your passions, hobbies, and feel great. Send me a note and we can chat!
xx
Hailey
Recent Comments