2 Ways To Change How You Feel When You Feel Like Quitting

Fear thinks about you a lot.

In a way, you should be honored because it never bothers people who are boring.

Fear doesn’t have time to harass people who have decided to live dull, distracted lives.

But oh, those who dare? Those who throw off the shackles of normalcy and dream?

Fear will meet you on your doorstep each morning.

I had hoped that when you reach a certain age, fear leaves you alone. That perhaps, like your belief in Santa Claus, you eventually outgrow it. Alas, I’m almost 50 and it still clutters about my head and heart with as much frequency as it did at 20. Worse still, I recently spent significant time with a 93-year-old and I’ll be danged if he wasn’t anxious.

If age and maturity were not the solution, I decided to find another answer to all those fears that hold us back. I started my search by looking for patterns. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me every time I fly and you tell me my carry-on bag won’t fit in the overhead storage, shame on me.

One of fear’s greatest weapons is surprise. Like a jump scare fear launches out of the shadow and knocks your block clean off. You’re unprepared for it, caught off guard and shocked in the moment. On the other hand, the things you’re expecting are a lot less scary. The things you see coming have smaller teeth. An NFL who is braced for a big tackle, absorbs it and plays on. The wide receiver who is stretched at maximum height and gets clipped out of nowhere is concussed right out of the game. Understanding that, I decided to apply some classic “if/then” thinking to some common fears.

A million authors have written about the “If/Then” approach, so I won’t dive in too deep, but here’s the summary. You essentially write out a situation that might happen and then decide ahead of time what you’ll do in that moment. For example:

“IF I have to travel for work, THEN I will pack healthy snacks so that I don’t absolutely crush the Delta Sky Club buffet.”

“IF it’s raining and I don’t want to run, THEN I will do sit ups, pushups and jumping jacks in my garage for 30 minutes.”

“IF a client wants to know what our business does, THEN I will send them this PDF and video that explains everything.”

Instead of waiting for a moment to happen and scrambling when it does, you prepare ahead of time so that in the stress of the moment, you have a calm response. You can do this in broad ways or get really granular.

For instance, Andy Andrews, a fellow author and speaker, once told me that he had a line for every type of emergency that could happen while he was presenting a keynote. If the power went off, then he had a line to say. If his water spilled, then he had a line. If the mic stopped working, then he had a line.

The more time you spend with highly successful people, the more you realize they ALL have incredible collections of, “If/then” plans. Why did Tiger Woods practice in the rain the week before the British Open? Because he knew it might rain during the tournament and he wanted to be ready.

“In/Then” was the tool I was going to use for my fear, but which fear would I practice with? Fortunately, fear is a consistent creature. Lions have never figured out how to use handguns in their pursuit of antelope. Lions have hunted the same exact way for thousands of years and the same is true of fear.

Fear doesn’t invent new ways to keep you frozen. It doesn’t have to because its methods are so effective. One of its favorite methods is this sentence:

“This shouldn’t feel this way.”

This one is tricky because it doesn’t really present as fear at first. It doesn’t look terrifying. There’s no obvious bogeyman.

Instead, what fear tells you is that there’s a “right way” to feel and you’re not doing it.

For example, when you hit the middle of a goal and lose your motivation, something that ALWAYS occurs, fear will sidle up to you and say, “This shouldn’t feel this way.” Fear will whisper, “No one else ever loses their motivation. Maybe you picked the wrong goal? Have you considered changing goals or maybe just giving up? Your lack of motivation might even be a sign that you’re not capable of doing this kind of thing. This shouldn’t feel this way.”

What fear is essentially saying is, “I alone possess the ‘correct feelings chart’ and you are failing big time right now.” Now, you’ll feel bad that you don’t feel motivated.

A counselor warned me about this exact issue years ago. He said, “The problem is that we have feelings about feelings. It’s often not the initial feeling that knocks us off track. It’s the secondary feeling about the primary feeling that gets you in trouble.”

Case in point: If you grew up in a family where anger was not an acceptable emotion, when you are an adult you will feel guilty whenever you feel angry. The initial feeling, anger, leads to the second feeling, guilt. Fear will say, “It shouldn’t feel this way. You’re not allowed to feel angry.”

If you listen to fear, you’ll feel guiltier, which will make you feel angrier, which will make you feel guiltier, which will make you feel angrier. Now you’re stuck in a loop.

A more practical example is what happens every time I write a book. Starting a new book feels terrible to me. I experience the same feelings everyone who writes does: confusion, frustration, doubt, insecurity.

Fear will come in and say, “This must not be the book you’re supposed to write. Maybe you should just quit writing all together. If you were a good writer, you would definitely feel happy right now. This is the wrong feeling.”

What do I do in that moment? I rely on two solutions for that particular fear:

1. Repetition
2. Relationship

Here’s how I fill out my “If/Then” statement.

“If fear tells me I should feel different while starting a new book, then I will remind myself that I always feel this way at the beginning.”

Fear can’t beat me with this particular lie because I’ve invested in repetition. Right now, I am working on my 11th book. I have learned through the process of repetition that:

1. I always feel kind of gross at the beginning.
2. I always lose my motivation in the middle.
3. I always feel like someone smarter has already written this book.
4. I always feel like the book will never be finished.
5. It always is.

Good luck fear. I’ve got this one whipped because I’ve done this particular goal so many times. I’ve put in the reps.

But what if you haven’t done the goal before and can’t rely on repetition? No problem, lean on relationship.

One of the fastest ways to beat the “It shouldn’t feel this way” fear is to ask someone who’s been there before. This is why Mom Groups are so valuable. You’re no longer alone in your feelings. You can say to another mom, “I feel like I’m failing right now. It takes two hours to get out the door and I haven’t changed out of my pajamas in three days.” And another mom will say, “Me too! I’ve felt that way.”

They’ll tell you those feelings you feel bad about are actually feelings everyone has. Fear will tell you that you’re the only one but then you talk to someone who’s been there before and they tell you the truth.

IF fear says you shouldn’t feel discouraged in your health journey, THEN you will talk to Linda. She’s lost the weight and kept it off for years.

IF fear says you shouldn’t feel like questioning your entire life just because your flight got cancelled and you had to spend the night in Milwaukee, THEN you will talk to Carlos who travels all the time and has known that same travel induced existential crisis.

IF fear tells you that you shouldn’t feel down because your book didn’t sell well the first month, THEN you will talk to Jon Acuff, because he will tell you to keep writing!

If/Then.

Don’t let fear tell you how you should feel.

Beat it with repetition, do the thing so often you start to recognize the feelings and get used to them. Beat it with relationship, keep wise people around you who will tell you the truth.

Jon

P.S. Read this to find a way to use new goals to beat old fears.

(I wrote this for my free newsletter, the “Try This!” Sign up today to get ideas just like this, twice a month. www.Acuff.me/newsletter )