Picture it for a minute, the life you have always wanted. What are you doing, wearing, how do you spend your time? Now what fears come up? 

Fear can be an extremely powerful emotion. It keeps us from taking action. It helps us self sabotage, and procrastinate. It can even do all of this without us being aware of it. When it comes to living our best life, we often do not account for fear, but here is a secret fear has been with me every step of the way. 

When you want to accomplish something new, fear can show up in many ways. You could be afraid of embarrassment, or judgement. You could fear disappointing people, or doing something wrong. But when we let fear dictate our actions our life becomes very limited. So here are some ways I work with my fears so I can still take action. 

Acknowledge Your Fears

Fear is an uncomfortable feeling. So when fear comes up it is natural for us to want to stop what we are doing so we can relieve the feeling of fear. The first thing I do when I can tell fear is keeping me from taking action is to acknowledge it. Fear isn’t as scary if you learn how to partner with it to accomplish your goals. Acknowledging your fear can be as easy as saying “oh I am operating from fear right now.” I love that what I teach is a lifelong practice. I just started procrastinating while writing this and had to acknowledge my fears! 

Label Your Fears

The next step is to label your fears. This is important because it helps you build awareness for when your fears pop up again in the future. The fears that came up for me when writing this were “no one will read this” “this isn’t helping anyone” “don’t bother writing this.” Now if I would believe these fears, I would never have the career I have. I would never have the life I have always wanted. That is why it is important to label your fears. You will start to learn from your fears, and you will soon be able to call out your fears as lies. 

What Is One Action I Can Take Anyways

I then move into action. I ask myself what is one small step I can make that isn’t as scary. This is the process of breaking your goals down into small steps. For example, while writing this, once I was able to label my fears I decided to set a timer for 5 minutes. I told myself how about I write for 5 minutes and then when the timer goes off I can have a minute break if I need it. Obviously once I got started I was in a flow and didn’t need to stop when the timer went off. 

If you are like me fear typically shows up in the beginning of a new activity. Once I get started on a task fear tends to diminish. What type of thoughts, or tools can you use to help yourself get started? Sometimes for me it is a timer. Other times it is telling myself this small step will help me reach my dreams. Sometimes I have to ask a friend for an inspirational text.  

Over the weekend I was painting my apartment with my boyfriend and he pointed out that whenever I got tired I would give myself a pep talk out loud to keep myself going. (Funny when someone recognizes when you are using your tools!) There are so many different tools you can use. Pay attention to the ones that resonate with you the most. Then start implementing them into your life. 

If you are still struggling with taking action, challenge yourself to break the task down even further. Small consistent steps equal amazing results! 

XO,

Ellie Curry