Coaching Fear: How to Manage Your Relationship with this Primal Emotion

"One of the most common questions I am asked from transitioning military leaders is 'How did you overcome the fear of starting your own business.' My answer is always the same, "I never overcame the fear. It is still there. What's changed is my relationship to the fear . . . '"

One of the greatest myths in life is the idea that we can “conquer” or “overcome” fear. Fear is primal emotion designed to mobilize physiological responses for survival. It happens on a subconscious level. In other words, you experience fear before you realize that you are afraid. You will always experience fear. This is a lifelong relationship. The issue is how you choose to manage that relationship.?

Coaching is the most effective way to manage fear to achieve high performance outcomes. This is because coaching addresses fear for what it is - an emotion. A powerful emotion, but an emotion nonetheless. Consultants don't do that. Mentors don't either. Consultants will rationalize and analyze the situation from the perspective analyzing the facts bearing the problem. They focus on addressing risk and contingency planning.? Mentors provide encouragement, positive reinforcement, and strategies calibrated to their own talents, strengths, and experiences. What worked for them may not work for you. What triggers your mentor's fear response may not match what triggers yours. Only the coach gets into the uncomfortable space with an individual to understand the nature of this emotion and how it impacts their performance.

The Primal Nature of Fear

To understand the benefit of the coaching approach, we should first understand fear from a physiological and neurological perspective. The amygdala senses a potential threat and signals the hypothalamus to release hormones into the pituitary and adrenal glands to release adrenaline, norepinephrine, and cortisol. These chemicals redirect blood flow in the body (and the brain). We recognize this as the fight or flight stress reaction. All of this happens before you know it is happening. You recognize it by the physiological markers: Increased heart rate, elevated blood pressure, sweating palms, acute awareness, and - of course - fear. The binary nature of this survival system prepares us to respond to physical threats. Survival is the overriding concern.

When we experience fear, the amygdala hijacks the higher order processing functions of the brain. We react. Fear overwhelms our cognitive capacity to practice many social and interpersonal skills such as empathy, active listening, spatial reasoning, and access to long term memory. Ever witness a loud argument where the parties keep getting louder? They can hear each other well enough, but they are subconsciously responding to the physical nature of the noise. Ever been in a high pressure situation where you know the answer, but can't recall the details? These are the impacts of a degraded cognitive state from a fear reaction. The value of the coaching partnership is sitting in the space with a client to fill in those gaps of cognitive processing to discover effective performance strategies.

Empathy is an essential skill in coaching. Empathy is understanding how emotions present and impact an individual. Coaches recognize the emotions the client is experiencing without getting emotionally involved with the client. In the coaching profession, this is referred to as detached involvement. Given the open limbic nature of the emotion response system, this is a difficult skill to master. We are predisposed to ‘feel’ what people around us ‘feel,' and - as mentioned before - we feel before we think. The ability to remain objective in an emotionally dynamic space is what makes coaching so distinctive and effective as an intervention.

Understanding the Coaching Approach to Manage Fear

Think of the coach as the client's spotter. The coaching space is the gym. The fear represents the heavy weight the client is trying to lift. The coach doesn't do the heavy lifting for the client, but they are there to support the client. Their job is to set the conditions so that the client can do their own lifting. How they do that is what makes the coaching approach unique from other leadership interventions.

The job of the coach is to focus on the individual - specifically how fear helps or hinders their progress toward their objective. Notice I said “helps.” The coach doesn’t judge the emotion as good or bad. Their role is to make the client aware of the emotion and how that emotion is serving them. They do this by acknowledging and validating the verbal and nonverbal indicators. In the coaching profession, this is called “holding space.” They bring to the surface any latent signals of deeper emotion through tone, gesture, and body language so that the client can effectively process and understand the impact of the emotion on thoughts, behavior, and performance.

Once the emotion comes to the surface, the client can objectively assess how that emotion is supporting or hindering performance. In cases where it supports their performance, the coach works with the client to reinforce progress with conscious intention. In other words, the coach helps the client can transform the unconscious emotion into a conscious asset to improve performance. In cases where the emotion hinders the client - as is often the case with fear - the coach explores strategies to manifest alternative emotions with the client.

Applying Evidence Based Techniques

The coach can help their client shift emotions through a number of techniques. One approach is through reframing - approaching the problem from a different or more empowering perspective. The coach enables the client to understand how emotion impacts their thoughts and behaviors, and conversely how conscious intention toward the thought can shape their emotion. This is a graduate level application of emotional intelligence. Some of the most effective evidence based techniques include Cognitive Behavioral Coaching (CBC), Acceptance and Commitment Coaching (ACC), or Solution Focused Coaching (SFC).

Each of these techniques share origins with therapeutic interventions, but they differ from therapy because they don't explore the causation of the fear or trauma. Instead, they explore how the emotion impacts progress moving forward. Cognitive Behavioral Coaching is a process to understand the linkages between emotions, thoughts, beliefs, and behavior. The coach draws from the clients beliefs with more productive thoughts to help shape the emotion for positive behavior. Acceptance and Commitment Coaching allows the client to accept and validate the emotion without judgment. After all, fear is a natural, human response to unfamiliar or threatening situations. The judgment itself becomes a form of cognitive dissonance that increases stress. From there, the coach explores approaches that are more positive and dynamic based on the client’s natural, intrinsic drive (values, strengths, and purpose). Finally, Solution Focused Coaching reframes the client’s problem solving approach from one that focuses on the obstacle or challenge to the perspective of the goal or the objective. By beginning with the end in mind, the coach works with the client to explore different (and often more motivating) paths to achieve that end state.

Your Long Term Relationship With Fear

The nature of coaching is what distinguishes this approach from consulting or mentoring. Consultants can help you solve a problem, but problems and circumstances will change. Different mentors have different experiences. Their wisdom is based on the lessons they've learned. Coaching is the only intervention specifically calibrated to you.

The coaching experience provides a client the opportunity to understand how these subconscious phenomena impact behavior. Once the client achieves awareness, they can develop an understanding that leads to mastery based on their unique talents, strengths, and values. After all, the nature of the problem may change. You may lose touch with mentors throughout your life. The one constant in any challenge you face is YOU. Understanding how to manage your relationship to fear is one of the most important steps to enduring high performance outcomes through the most difficult challenges.

-- Jason Roncoroni 10/8/24