Seven ridiculous fears I had last month and how I kicked all their asses

Dark, scary woods represent fear to some
Image by WTL photos on Flickr, used under Creative Commons license.

Spoiler alert: check me out on Fear, Exposed!

Fear is what keeps us from doing what we want. It keeps us paralyzed.

Why are we so afraid? For myself and probably anyone reading this, we have safe, cushy lives. Our chances of going hungry, being eaten by tigers, or falling off a cliff are vanishingly small. So are we happy? No, we get busy fearing smaller things instead. Even when the things we fear are excruciatingly tiny and ridiculous, the fear can still stop us if we let it.

Just to show you how stupid this can be, I’ll give you a list of things I was afraid of as recently as last week. Laugh if you want. Then I’ll tell you how I overcame them so you can try it.

  1. Skype. (I’m serious.) I developed a “should already know this” complex about it. Then my boyfriend told me his mom, who is in her 80s, was already using it! How embarrassing would it be if I couldn’t get it working?!

    Now that I’ve tried Skype, I realize just how silly I was to be afraid of it. How did I get over it? I really wanted to talk to Lach from The Art of Audacity, and he lives in Thailand.

    Sometimes, if you want something badly enough, that’s all it takes, especially if the fear is small.

  2. Talking to people. This explains some of my fear with Skype. I’m so introverted, I scored 100% introvert on Myers-Briggs.

    But what am I really afraid of? Most people are nice and want to help. This is not 9th grade–nobody is going to put a thumb tack on your chair, call you names, or make fun of you just for being you.

    Looking more closely, I realize that the two biggest fears I have with talking to people are that I won’t know what to say and that they’ll want something from me.

    If the conversation peters out, there are two easy solutions: end it, or ask a question about something that interests the other person. Done.

    If the other person wants something, you don’t have to say yes. If you know that, you have nothing to fear here. Make “let me think about it” or “no” your default response, and remember that you are not responsible for solving all the world’s problems. You’re free to say yes only to the things you really want to do. Once you realize that, you’re good to go.

    Sometimes breaking fears down and picking apart the things behind them is all it takes.

  3. Failing at business. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve joined Jonathan Mead’s Six Month “Quit Your Job and Do What You Love” coaching program.

    I love the idea of supporting myself with my own business: being able to set my schedule, choose my projects, and spend most of my time doing work I love. However, the business part has always seemed like black magic.

    For this fear, getting help from someone who knows what he’s doing has been golden. We’ve worked together for about a month now, and he’s blown the cover off the grand mystery of how to build a successful business. He’s helped me define what I have to offer people, and he’s helped me see the things I need to do to make this work. He’s even given me a good order to do them in. Also, he acts like of course I can do this, why not?

    I think that attitude has rubbed off on me, because I’m no longer afraid I can’t make it happen.

    For fears that are big and nebulous like this one was, structure helps a lot, and advice and encouragement from someone who has been there is even better.

  4. Guest posting on other people’s blogs. I’ve heard since before I even started this blog that guest posting is the best way to get the word out about your blog. I love what I’m doing here and think it’s valuable, so I want to reach as many people as I can, yet I never made a move. Why?

    Trying to get a guest post on someone’s blog combines many fears: talking to someone, possibly someone I don’t know; not knowing everything; asking for help; possibly being rejected; and possibly lacking that elusive coolness factor.

    I don’t know how long I would have waited to try this if Coach Jonathan hadn’t assigned me three guest post pitches in one week. I procrastinated my hardest, but when I found myself still alive the morning they were due, I knew I had to either do them, or let myself and him down. I wrote the pitches.

    I discovered two amazing things. Once I finished writing the pitches and sent them to Jonathan, I caught myself wondering expectantly if the recipients had responded yet. I hadn’t even sent the pitches to them.

    I was terrified of contacting these people, but once I took the time to think about what ideas might be a good fit for them, I shifted from fear to eagerness.

    Once I sent the pitches to the bloggers, I realized another thing: I was more afraid they’d say yes than no. (If they said yes, I had work to do, and what if it wasn’t good enough?)

    Suddenly I was seeing guest posting the same way as any other time I’ve submitted things for publication. Sometimes they get accepted, sometimes they get rejected. A rejection just means that particular idea or way of presenting it isn’t what those people need at this moment. Try the same people with a different idea, and send the same idea to other people. That’s it.

    Once you realize that’s the worst that can happen, there truly is no peril here. For irrational fears, defining the worst case scenario often dissipates the fear by making its foolishness obvious.

  5. Modern web technology. I’ve known the web since its early days. Back then, I was on top of all the hot stuff. But I ended up doing other things, and 2011 found me knowing nothing about PHP, CSS, Ruby, e-commerce, Drupal, Joomla, et al.

    I hate admitting I don’t know stuff. The fear really boils down to inadequacy. Web stuff used to be my thing, plus I’m a PhD, so I think I should know everything.

    A comment on this blog broke the impasse. I mentioned this fear before, and one of my friends wrote that I don’t have to catch up on everything that’s happened in the last 15 years, just learn the current stuff!

    Whoa! Clearly, it’s true. It took me a while to act on it, but now, when I want to know how to do something, I pick up a book and start playing with it. Oh right, it’s just programming–I can do that.

    Sometimes, redefining the scope is what it takes. We don’t have to know everything, and once we learn a little, the whole thing loses the scary mystique of the unknown.

  6. My project ending at work. I’ve had my ups and downs with my job, but overall, it’s treated me well, let’s not forget the money! On top of that, I’ve enjoyed the project I’ve been working on for the past year.

    That project is ending, so I’m nervous that I’ll be laid off. What if I can’t find another job?

    The budget where I work seems to be all right, though, and I’ve been doing a good job. That leaves worrying about being stuck on an awful new project. Even if it’s a great project, it will be different, and that alone is scary!

    For this one, I just had to wait it out. I got one new project, and although it involves a crapload of meetings and teleconferences (hate!), it seems to be pretty good work. In fact, I’m learning JSP, AJAX, Eclipse, Subversion, and two graph-drawing libraries, none of which I’ve used before.

    Normally, all that would scare the pants off me, but I’ve decided to adopt a growth mindset and be excited to learn all this new stuff. I’ve complained that my skills are out of date–here’s my chance to catch up on several things, and they’re going to pay me to do it!

    Sometimes, a change in attitude is what it takes to turn a fear into an opportunity.

  7. Succeeding at business but going broke personally. Say the coaching works, and I achieve my dream of supporting myself and quit my job. Woohoo!

    But, that makes me a self-employed person, and everybody knows their finances are a mess! It’s all ups and downs. What if I can’t make ends meet?

    Luckily, I stumbled across a book about this, and it spelled out exactly what to do to make sure you have enough money to cover emergencies, pay your taxes, stay out of debt, and save for things like retirement, a new car, or a trip to Tahiti.

    There’s no need to have screwed up finances just because you work for yourself. If you get paid irregularly, use percentages instead of fixed dollar amounts per month. Each time you get paid, whether it’s $50 or $5000, immediately move appropriate percentages for taxes, retirement, and your emergency fund into special accounts for those things. If you’re saving for other big things, set up an account and a percentage for each one. If you have more than a month’s expenses left over, put it in a holding account so you won’t spend it all. Then it will be there for the next lean month.

    That’s it! It’s simple arithmetic. Obviously, if you don’t have enough money coming in month after month, you need to do something about that, but otherwise, there’s no reason a self-employed person should have worse finances than anyone else.

    In this case, identifying my faulty assumption and looking at the facts were enough to dispel the fear.

The good news, and the bad news, is we’re statistically more likely to die from sitting on our asses and eating too many french fries than of doing anything.

It’s easy to look at these fears and think “well, duh, those are nothing to be afraid of,” but almost everything we fear is like that. Shed a little light on it, start defining it and breaking it down, learn what’s really going on and what you need to know, and the fear often evaporates. It’s amazing.

If you want to feel a lot of this quickly, do a lot of interesting new challenges in a short time. The effect builds on itself, and it feels great.

Oh yeah, and about guest posting? I would have thought the one thing scarier than writing a guest post would be writing a guest post about my fears and weaknesses, especially on the blog of one of my major, super-successful heroes, but guess what? I did! It was surprisingly easy. Check it out–I think you’ll like it.

14 thoughts on “Seven ridiculous fears I had last month and how I kicked all their asses”

  1. Cara! This is awesome! Makes me wonder if you’ve been swimming around in my brain, because I’m working thru exactly the same fears. And it is empowering to face them, shed light on them, and begin to grow into someone who can handle them with more moxie.

    I had to overcome a fear of Skype too, working with Lach, but it’s been so amazing. He is patience incarnate. πŸ™‚

    Congrats on the guest posts! Your words give me courage on that front…somewhere down the road, I’d love to try that, too. I really appreciate your transparancy here. Blessings to you as you continue to smash fear and grow strong!

    1. Thanks!!

      That is funny about Skype–I was sure I was the only one! πŸ™‚ Lach is awesome–I can never stop smiling after talking to him.

      And it is empowering to face them, shed light on them, and begin to grow into someone who can handle them with more moxie.

      For sure! What a rush!

      Keep on growing! Try the guest post thing–it’s way easier than I expected. However, here’s what I’d do differently:
      – Don’t pitch three at once! It’s overwhelming to have that many to write if they all say yes. Even two was almost too much for me.
      – For my pitches, I sent a headline and a paragraph on the idea in a short email introducing myself and all that. By the time I had done that, I was super excited about each idea and wanted to write it immediately. If you find yourself in this situation, write it immediately! That’s way better than finding yourself a week or two down the road going “what was I going to say about this? Oh crap, I have to finish this by tomorrow morning and I don’t know what I’m trying to say!”

      1. Thanks for the tips. It’s good to know it’s easier than you thought…I always struggle with feeling overwhelmed and wondering where to start with things! One at a time is usually how I operate. And that’s good advice about writing on a topic when you’re inspired…probably a good idea to write it out as soon as you send a proposal, then even if it’s not accepted you can share it somewhere else. Always good to get the practice and discipline with the writing too, I would think.

        Thanks again…every day I find myself more excited about travelling over new ground. πŸ™‚

        1. probably a good idea to write it out as soon as you send a proposal, then even if it’s not accepted you can share it somewhere else.

          Exactly!

          …every day I find myself more excited about travelling over new ground.

          Woohoo! Feels great, doesn’t it? πŸ™‚

  2. Great that you’ve written out these fears.

    One thing I’d say, in my personal experience I had to deal with the underlying fearfulness in my personality.

    Dealing with that helps prevent a constant stream of new things to be afraid of.

    1. Good point! How did you deal with it? I do tend to be kind of a timid, fearful person, at least in recent years–any advice for changing that?

      Thanks!

  3. It’s funny how we perceive ourselves versus how others perceive us. I have to say that I’ve always thought of you as being extroverted and really good at making conversation with people you don’t know. Of course I’m comparing myself to you…so does that make me 110% introverted?

    Great post! It’s amazing what really analyzing your fears will do…I’ve actually had to do that with weight loss. Surprisingly, it seems that a fear of what I will look like when the weight is gone has been a huge stumbling block. I’ve decided that if I don’t like it, it’s easy enough to gain the weight back!

    1. No kidding, you thought I was extroverted?!

      Actually, on second thought, I used to be much less introverted than I have been for the past few years. I swear I blew a few circuits in my brain having to deal with all those students in Edinboro. I think I liked people before that. 1000 whiny emails of excuses have got to be the root of my “OMG, people!!! They’ll probably bother me! Run!!!” impulse.

      That’s really wild that you were afraid of what you’ll look like after you lose weight–most people use that as their motivation! I’m sure you’ll look awesome. But good call on the worst case, lol.

  4. I just discovered your blog today and had to subscribe it to my RSS feed immediately. I love this post- a lot of the issues and fear you have resonate with many of us. For some people, starting a blog may seem like nothing, but for me it was so scary! I had used the net for years and randomly blogged- but WordPress and CSS and SEO what the heck is this??? I was so intimidated and overwhelmed at first. I felt the fear and did it anyway. Likewise I had been wanting a dog for months but was worried about the cost and the responsibility. I got in touch with a local rescue and found a foster dog which meant I wasn’t obligated to adopt and didn’t have to shoulder vet expenses on my own- turns out I love my foster dog and I want to keep him! I was scared I “couldn’t handle it,” but it has brought so much to my life.

    I also committed to finishing my graduate program even though taking a student loan scares the bejeezus out of me. Now that I’ve faced my fear, I know that I can think more clearly to find ways to pay off a loan or find additional funding- but you have to face it first to make it work!

    Great post, totally inspiring and I can’t wait to read more!

    BTW- I totally love your layout. I’m a WordPress noob, and totally need to get on the “better layout” bandwagon since the basic one I chose is less than ideal…. tackling layouts is another ‘fear’ I need to get over! Thanks for posting!

    1. Hi, Ruby! Welcome! πŸ™‚

      We sound a lot alike. It’s amazing how little it takes for something to seem too much to handle! Go you for facing all these fears and tackling things a little at a time–that’s the way to go, I think.

      About the layout, I had a really ordinary free one for a long time–I just did a redesign about two weeks ago. This one is a premium theme, but it was exactly what I wanted, so I decided to go for it. Ideally, a new layout on your blog should be as simple as install a new theme and click activate! It’s not always that smooth, though–sometimes there are conflicts with plugins that cause the theme not to work. Maddening! When you decide to do it, if you find things not working, try disabling all of your plugins so you can isolate the source of the problem. That _shouldn’t_ happen, but it has twice to me. No biggie, just frustrating. πŸ™‚

      Getting a really nice design is well worth the trouble, I think–since I did mine, people seem to stick around more.

      Anyway, thanks for your comment! I’m glad to have you!

  5. Amazing! I feel like I am reading my own post. Well, maybe my own post in a year.

    I promise I won’t steal anything! Well, maybe Mr. Mead.

    Thanks for the inspiring and motivational read!

    1. Wow, thanks! I can think of no higher compliment!

      I definitely recommend the illustrious Mr. Mead. I’m two months into the coaching program, and during that time, I think I’ve made at least 5x the progress I made in the previous 4-5 months by myself. He rocks! If you’re not ready for the investment of a coaching program yet, check out his ebook Reclaim your dreams. (I reviewed it awhile back– review here–because I thought it was so awesome; that was my introduction to him.)

      I checked out your blog, too–good stuff! πŸ™‚

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