Fear is your friend and why you don’t need to push through it.

“Feel the fear and do it anyway!” – Random Guru.

It’s garbage advice…but only because it’s incomplete.

Fear is what keeps you from making stupid decisions. It creates loads of loser gamblers and a few winners. Self improvement coaches are seeking testimonials though, and this advice creates great testimonials since with higher risk usually comes higher reward.

If I wanted to give workshops on beating the lotto, I would tell people to “feel the fear of losing their life savings and do it anyway!” Some of my students would win, they’d say they followed my advice to the letter, and look…they’re all millionaires!

I’m such an amazing (typical) guru!

The correct advice is:

Assess the risk carefully, make sure you’re not afraid of something that isn’t a big deal, and THEN do it. – Truth Cake

Consider someone afraid of starting a college degree in robotics when they’re a successful 40 year dentist. They may have invalid fears like “what would people think of me? what if I couldn’t get a job quite as high paying?” These are typical fears we all have, and you have to move through that nonsense.

But many times, the fears are valid, “What if I put my live savings on Tesla? If it doubles, I could finally live the life I want for my family! I’ll just feel the fear and do it anyway!” Now you’re just an idiot (and likely to be broke soon).

Fear keeps you from making stupid reckless decisions.

Also, instead of ignoring the feel and plowing through like gurus want, you need to assess why you have that fear.

If you’re trying to find motivation for something and can’t find the motivation to do it, it may be because you’re afraid of something. Fear of unknown is just another way of saying fear of failure, which is just fear of dying (I’ll go broke, starve, and die) or fear of being alone (I’ll lose my spouse and my friend will think I’m an idiot). See what the real fear is precisely, see if it’s valid or not, and see if you can mitigate the risks and/or move forward, or avoid it.

Which things do you fear doing and what exactly are those fears and why do you have them?