Imagine you’re falling off a cliff spiraling down at a dizzying rate to a certain death.
Normally we fixate on the bottom coming closer and closer. We lock our thoughts on the inevitability of failure. We are focused and disciplined like a Zen Master. We clear our mind of any alternative to the outcome we most fear. Panic drives us to attempt to blindly flail away from the danger to safety, but perversely our full attention locks onto what scares us like a laser guided missile.
What we need here is a bit of magic. Some slight of hand.
Step 1: Freeze the frame
Freeze frame that scene for a moment like in one of those Roadrunner cartoons. Imagine yourself vividly hanging in the air safe in frozen animation inches from the ground. The danger has stopped, at least for the moment.
At this point you are the narrator of your own story and have time to interject your thoughts about alternative actions and outcomes.
As the narrator you may observe that you’ve been doing some things very well in the above example. You were focused, you cleared your mind of distracting alternatives, your moved your body, you were persistent and single-minded in reaching a goal and you accepted the seemingly inevitable (tragic) outcome.
It was the wrong goal, driven by fear and not by desire, but goals can be good.
Step 2: Choose an alternative action
What if you seized upon a momentary freeze frame to shift your focus from the “inevitable negative end” to something positive, an outcome that you really wish to have? Fear loves fatalism, the unavoidable sense of inevitable doom. You can squash fear by consciously choosing an alternative action. Fear hates choice.
Step 3: Take urgent positive action
The magic step is to take immediate action on any small positive impulse you can find. We’re not talking save the world actions here or any other grand scheme. We only need something small that we can use to turn our focus away from the fear and to achieve a small, immediate victory in our lives. Turn the immense energy of fear into a sense of urgency in achieving a positive initiative.
Any action should be small and only take 5 -15 minutes. You want a quick win. You may get bogged down in longer tasks and your fear may come back to haunt you.
The best actions are small tasks you can quickly and easily complete that directly counteract your fear. If you’re afraid of losing your job, for example, you could polish up and update your resume. Now you’re getting ahead of the game which will build confidence and reduce or eliminate your fear.
Sometimes our fears are so overwhelming we don’t know where they are coming from. In that case we just need any small win to use as a new point of focus.
Examples of small actions could be:
- Physical exercise (if you are healthy enough): Walk up and down some stairs for five minutes, do 10 push ups, walk down to the end of the street or around your building
- Clean a room
- Pay a bill
- Clean up your inbox and answer some emails
Recruit the techniques that worked so well in fear to your good now. Eliminate all alternatives to achieving your now positive goal. Clear your mind of all doubts and distractions. Become single-minded in reaching your new goal. Focus only on the goal and feel the inevitability of reaching your goal in the same way that moments ago you felt the inevitability of your doom. Turn it on its head and feel that unavoidable sense of inevitable success. It’s now like you couldn’t fail if you tried.
If you intensify the sense of urgency to complete something that you choose to do your fear can transform itself into a form of excitement. Break the new freely chosen goal down into its smallest parts and focus on each step to the exclusion of everything else. Like if you were going up a staircase and the only thing you could be aware of was the very next step of the stairs. The walls and the railing — and everything else — are invisible. You only see the next step.
Rinse and repeat the above steps if you’re still in fear’s grip after the first go around. Take stock of your accomplishments after you finish each cycle. You’re goal is to achieve a state of relaxation, not to work yourself to death.
Repeated small wins inspire confidence that you can handle whatever comes. For me the ultimate isn’t knowing that I can achieve anything I set my mind to, but that whatever I do set my mind to I can go after it in a state of utter relaxation and clarity of mind. In other words, I can be at my best in any situation and do the absolute best I can, without being diminished or held back by fear or self-doubt. Conquering your fear doesn’t mean that you’ll ever be able to run a three minute mile, but everyone should be able to do their very best time.
Getting this to work takes constant vigilance. Awareness is key. Force the freeze frame every time fear slithers into to your awareness. The more often you are able to freeze the frame of fear and create an opening for any alternative through awareness, the easier it will become to turn the energy of fear into excitement and get something done you really want to do.
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