A few months ago, I was walking across the campus of my alma mater (Northeastern University, Boston- go Huskies!). As I passed the dorms where I had spent so much of my college life, I was overwhelmed with a sense of home, something deeper than just nostalgia. It’s like the difference between telling yourself you belong someplace and actually feeling deep into your bones that you belong, that no one can question your right to be there. This is weird because as a 40-something woman on a college campus plenty of people could question me, but I didn’t feel any of that worry. I knew where I was going and how to get there, familiar with the twists and turns and oddly shaped buildings. It was like rediscovering a favorite sweater in the bottom drawer and delighting in that it still fits.
But then I was hit with the realization that never once in my time as a student there did I walk across campus with this feeling. I was so afraid all the time then, so lost, worried about the judgments of others and feeling like an imposter. I grieved then for that girl who was me. She didn’t revel in the belonging of being on campus in the city, only feared the dangers around every corner, worried about being alone, and too scared to leave her room without a buddy.
What would my college experience have been if I’d been this fearless and confident back then?
Not long after that realization, I met a former classmate for coffee. When I told him about my epiphany, he expressed shock saying, “you always seemed so confident. I would never have known you felt that way.”
It’s true that I rarely let my fear show, and I still moved toward my goals relentlessly never seeming to hesitate. I did this with the mindset that I’ve often seen on posters, Instagram posts, and embroidered pillows:
Feel the fear, and do it anyway.
I realize now that this mindset was a frequent cause of exhaustion and burnout. Consider the analogy of a gas tank. You have a certain amount of energy each day to do things and there’s a baseline “fill level” when you wake up that depends on healthy habits like nutrition, exercise, and quality sleep. As you go through your day, some activities use your fuel whether a little (creating an outline for your day) or a lot (an emergency meeting with your toxic micromanager boss about upcoming deadlines). Other activities might fill the tank like a smile from the barista who remembers your favorite coffee order or volunteering for a cause you care about. “Feeling the fear and doing it anyway” costs energy. It means summoning the strength to push past a hard-encoded biological response.
If this has been your experience, you’re not alone. There’s a damaging cultural attitude about fear that creates what Brené Brown calls a “shame storm”. We’re either not supposed to feel it at all, or we’re supposed to perform heroic feats of bravery as we summon the inner strength to push past our fears.
A Different Path
What if we could move through life with a less exhausting way of managing fear? How much more fuel would you have to do the things that matter?
Last week, I heard from a former client who is now moving to NYC to start her first “real” job after college. We’d done a lot of work on fearlessness together and she said that the difference now was that she felt so much freer. “Before, I would get stuck, trying to confront my fear, analyzing it, and criticizing myself for feeling afraid. Now when I notice fear, I pause and acknowledge it but choose not to engage. I have so much more energy for everything else. It doesn’t trap me anymore.”
It’s not about denial or recklessness where we ignore the fear entirely. It’s about building awareness and making a conscious choice about how to show up in your life.
3 Daily Strategies for Building Fearlessness
Use these strategies every day for 21 days, and you WILL notice a big shift.
Meditation
I know, I know. I bring up this tactic quite often. It’s only because it is the best way I know of to create the all-important pause button. If you want to be truly fear-less instead of running on empty trying to fight fears, being able to recognize when fear is first starting to rise is crucial. Fear is the anticipation of a negative outcome. The things we fear are always in the future, even if we’re worrying about something that happened in the past because what we really fear is that it will happen again. The more you build your present moment awareness, the less fear will hold you back.
When I bring up meditation, I often hear the same concerns. There are many ways to meditate, and there tends to be frustration and worry about not “doing it right”. Another concern I hear is about not having enough time, or a good space to do it. I hear you, and I promise you can do this. Try the challenge below for the next 21 days.
The challenge:
Each morning, dedicate 5 minutes to the following practice. That’s it – just five minutes! No need to gather special cushions or apps or anything. If you want to put on some light background music, that’s up to you. If that stops you from doing it because you have to spend additional time setting things up, forget it and go with the natural background noises of your chosen space.
Sit comfortably with feet flat on the floor and either close your eyes or gently unfocus your gaze so you’re not really looking at anything in particular.
Begin by taking three deep breaths with a relaxed belly- in through the nose and out through the mouth.
Focus your attention on each part of your body, starting at the top of the head and scanning down slowly- eyebrows, nose, cheeks, jaw, etc. As you scan, simply notice – what do you feel? Maybe you notice that you’ve been clenching your jaw or that your belly is growling. You don’t need to do anything about this. Just notice and move to the next spot.
When you get to your toes, take another deep breath and imagine letting all the tension in your body release with your exhale.
If thoughts or emotions come up, just notice them the same way you noticed the parts of your body.
Stay in that curious mindset. If you get distracted, it’s ok! Notice that you were distracted and start scanning your body again.
Repeat until the timer for five minutes is up.
The first week or two you will get distracted a lot and that is fine! You’re doing it exactly the way you need to. Trust the process.
Permission Slips
Meditation helps with awareness and building the pause that will create space for a new response. To actually move into new response patterns, you must give yourself permission to change. It sounds silly, but it really works. It’s about setting an intention to do things differently whether it’s avoiding sarcasm with your boss or setting a timer when you get an upsetting email before sending your reply.
The challenge:
What have you been waiting for permission to do, say, or feel? What do you need or want to do differently? Make a list, and each morning after you meditate, or once you get to work, write yourself a permission slip on a sticky note. Put it somewhere you will see it throughout the day as a reminder of the change you want to make.
Examples:
I give myself permission to say no to non-essential tasks.
I have permission to set an away message when I’m doing a focused task.
I give myself permission to be angry when my coworker is a jerk. I don’t have to smile and act like everything is fine.
I have permission to love my body exactly as it is today.
Make your own! If you want to keep your permission slips up and add to them over time, that works too.
Plan to Win-Win
Much of my own fear and anxiety came from the pressure I placed on myself to “win”. I had a very rigid idea of what success meant and every situation felt like the stakes were all or nothing. Either I would succeed or fail. I’d get the job or I was a loser. I’d either get an A or prove that I was too dumb to be an engineer. There wasn’t much room for error, and it created an unreasonable amount of stress and fear.
The fearless approach is to look at a spectrum of success and create a plan for a win no matter the outcome. This thinking borrows quite a bit from the engineering design process of iteration. A “fail” is still a win because we take what was learned to do “fail better” next time.
Let’s look at the job example:
In the interview, I set a goal to answer all questions confidently and build the rapport that will land me the job. I have zero control over whether they will choose me for the job – there are so many factors that have nothing to do with me or my performance, like whether there’s an internal candidate and I’m just here for due diligence or maybe the hiring manager is having a bad day, who knows? So I change the goal to what I can probably control. I will be confident and authentic throughout the interview.
I also set a backup goal – maybe something happens, they ask about that one job where I had a very bad experience and mention they personally know my old manager. I falter and stammer – dang it! My primary goal is blown. By thinking ahead, I’ve set a backup goal that I will be pleasant and listen attentively which will help me to recover faster in the event of a setback. To help achieve this goal I wear my bracelet that says “breathe” and take a steadying breath.
Then I set an always-win goal – something I’m guaranteed to be able to do even if I forget to breathe and I spill coffee on myself and whatever other worries I have come to pass. In this case, I will take note of what happened and use it as a learning experience to do better next time, whether it’s to avoid wearing white (because coffee stains) or practicing a speech for that pesky work gap on my resume.
The challenge:
For the next 21 days, whenever you do your planning (daily, weekly, etc) look at the big tasks or events that are creating fear for you. Come up with a win-win plan with tiered goals to create a spectrum of success.
Primary goal: how do you want to show up? Place the burden of success only on what you can control. Remember that what others think or do is out of your control.
Backup goal: If there’s a stumbling block, how will you recover during the event? Usually, this goal is related to an attitude or mindset that is a little easier than the primary goal.
Always-win goal: No matter what the outcome, you can guarantee that something will be learned. Ask yourself: what can I learn here? Sometimes, just using that shift can allow for recovery after a setback and put the other goals back into play. Use your pause button!
Ready? Make a plan and declare your intention to use these strategies for the next 21 days. I recommend putting a 15-minute slot into your morning calendar to remind you to meditate and create your permission slips.
Have a question or comment or experience to share? Comment below or email me: devon.grilly@rockthepivot.com