Fear is good

A high performance team chases goals that sit just outside of their comfort zone.?This requires the team to take risks, raise standards or work harder.?Whenever you strive for more and stretch your comfort zone, fear (in the form of self-doubt and insecurity) often creeps in.?To sustain a competitive edge, you will need to have a healthy relationship with fear.

Fear is an inbuilt safety switch designed to stop you from doing dangerous things.?This is particularly useful as it prevents you from walking in front of traffic, touching hot stoves, and other activities that would result in injury or worse.?It moderates your behaviour to keep you safe.?

To achieve targets faster in tough and competitive markets, you need to take risks and try new things.?This is where fear will hold you back.?

Fear stops you from taking risks, trying new approaches, sharing ideas and launching projects because it is busy keeping you safe - not just from a physical injury, but also from 'emotional injury', such as looking incompetent, feeling unintelligent or being sad.?

Fear's job is to keep you safe - however it doesn't distinguish between keeping you safe from the threat of a physical injury and that of an emotional injury (feeling sad, embarrassed or stupid).?

Whenever your brain perceives that you are doing something that may result in an 'emotional injury', fear will kick in and stop you from doing it.?It does this by amplifying your insecurity, self doubt and pessimism.?In these situations, you might hear yourself say 'I can't do this', it's all too hard', 'I'm not cut out for this', etc.?Blame, self-pity and excuses are often by-products when fear is keeping you safe.?

This is when fear can turn your comfort zone into your prison.?

The key to a high-performance team and thriving under pressure is to use fear to direct you, but not instruct you.

Dr Amy Silver (author of The Loudest Guest), explains that we need to "change the role of fear from controlling to commentating on your life."

Amy explains that "When fear controls you, it can become so overwhelming that you even become afraid of fear itself. You become self-critical, hate your fear, and ultimately become ashamed of it and your other feelings.

When fear directs you, it helps you to identify opportunities and warns you about risks. But it can overdo this, and you find yourself overthinking outcomes and resort to doing only the predictable. You become full of self-doubt and choose comfort over challenge." [1]

Fear should be present whenever you are trying something new, aiming for higher targets, having a difficult conversation, or creating change.?

Fear is the messenger that lets you know that 'this may fail', 'I might get this wrong' or 'I still?have a bit to learn'.?

Listen to the message and determine if fear is protecting you from a potential physical injury or a potential emotional injury??Look at the symptoms - are you blaming others, feeling self pity of falling into negativity.?It's a sign that fear might be in play.?

Resilience happens when you stretch your comfort zone, despite the fear or negative sentiment around you.?Resilience is not the absence of fear, but rather is the way in which you use fear to spring forward.??

Who is in your driver's seat?