Fear is just a thought. Thoughts can be changed...

With the current state of our world in a panic, I think this is a good time to have an open discussion about something we all face which is fear. Whether you're experiencing this is on a physiological level or just mental anxiety this is something we all experience. When our bodies become in a state of fear we react differently than if we were in a state of certainty; we think differently, we move at a different pace. Cortisol levels rise and we feel a sense of heightened anxiety. This is fear working its magic to either do one of two things: take control of our bodies causing us to shell up and become defensive or act as a motivator and engaging tool to make us go on the attack. This is the primal fight or flight example that most people use.

In the 21st century, it becomes clear that the threats that presented themselves in our ancestral times are clearly different from today's digital world. We may have the same emotions and reactions from our ancestral time, the only difference is our environment has become safer and less dangerous. 

In practicing martial arts for over 10 years, studying various arts, I learned a number of mental techniques and strategies to counter fear and use it to my advantage. Martial arts is all about discipline and control. When a fighter loses their control they are easier to take advantage of - they make mistakes because they are not calculated. 

When it comes to fear I live by a simple metaphor "fear is just a thought. Thoughts can be changed." 

I think we all have had experience in our life where we were absolutely terrified of something. Yet, once the task was over, we realize that it wasn't as bad as we thought. Our brain and its emotional response actually made the problem worse than it seemed. One of my old trainers always told me "the only way to defeat fear, is to face it" and this is the honest truth.

Think about any performer, athlete, or someone who functions in a high-level environment. They are humans just like us. They experience similar emotions just like us. Well then, what is it that makes them be able to not freeze up and perform at such an optimal level? 

The answer is simple: perspective! 

Whether you believe it or not, you can control your thoughts. If I say "banana" did you not just think of a banana? Or if I say "Kobe Bryant" does this not trigger an emotional response and create a picture within your mind? 

The same technique works in a positive aspect to take control of your mind to perform optimally. If you put on some emotional music, and sit down and focus deeply on a moment in your life, maybe when you met the love of your life, or won an award, or got that promotion, you can actually start to feel those emotions you felt in that moment. As my mentor Tony Robbins would say, you "step into that moment." 

The same effect can work for things that may not have happened yet but you want them to! Whether this is landing a huge promotion, getting your next big break, or even finding the love of your life. If you focus deeply on these things, they can in a sense become part of you and eventually through enough persistence can become your reality. I cannot tell you how many times in my life I believed with full conviction that something was going to happen and it did. I wrote it down, I obsessed over it, and I forced myself through constant repetition to always look at the things I could control.

This is the secret with fear! The things we cannot control provide us with great uncertainty. Whereas, on the contrary, the things we can control provide us WITH CERTAINTY. If we program ourselves not just mentally, but physiologically through constant repetition to always be proactive, we can always react in such a matter. The more we do this, the more we come to believe it and condition ourselves. 

I've worked with thousands of students over the last several years and when I was teaching in high-schools I would tell them, "confidence not cockiness can disable fear." They would always ask me "how do you build confidence?" It's simple, through experience! I'm not talking working 25 years at Vale or a company, I am talking putting yourself in environments that you are not used to and reacting. 

Reacting in these new environments is going to compound; it is going to give you strength, it is going to push you to your limits and make you realize that a majority of your problems are created by your limiting beliefs and thoughts within your head. They are just thoughts, they ARE NOT REAL! 

Thoughts are nothing but just that, thoughts! However, they have the power to control how you react and feel. 

If you take control of your thoughts, you can essentially take control of your reality! You may not be able to control your external environment, however; what you can control is how you react in this environment. So when it comes to fear it comes down to conditioning your nervous system to react a certain way. The same way your habits are formed you can transform your mentality to any given situation. Before you know it, you start looking forward to things that you fear because you know the benefit it will give you. It is like leveling up in a video game! It's evolution and growth.

The only disclaimer in this is that there is a major difference between fear and danger. Fear is just a thought, whereas, danger is real, so please rationalize with this. Nowhere am I saying go try and jump off a bridge or wrestle a bear. What I am saying is that challenge yourself with the thrill of what you fear and set out to conquer it! This will help you reach a point in your life that you never could have imagined.

When I wrote my first book Life is Motivation, I designed what is known as 'The 5 Pillars of Fear.' These are the 5 fears that we each experience. The better we understand them, the better we can counter them. Remember, the key with fear is variant on your perspective. If you are asking weak un-empowering questions, you will never find a powerful answer. Hence, the better the question, the better the answer. Therefore, the better we can prepare ourselves to produce optimal results.

1. Fear of Failure
2. Fear of Judgement 
3. Fear of Uncertainty (or change)
4. Fear of Rejection
5. Fear of Death

The first fear is the fear of failure. What if I fail? What if I don't make the cut? What if I don't get the promotion? This is an un-empowering way to look at it. Yes, you may not get the promotion but who is to say that you can't? What if we were to do a minor shift and ask instead, "what if I get the promotion, how would that impact my life? Or "what if I go to work today and increase my sales numbers by 25%?" 

See the difference. You can look at it from either angle, but one doesn't make you feel good, and the other gives you hope. This is where following positive energy is so important. Even if inevitably you fail, the latter approach will give you better odds and emotions. The key is that if you do this enough times by taking the latter approach it compounds and conditions you. 

The second fear is the fear of judgment. This is a very prominent fear we have all experienced. Think of a moment or moments in your life that you didn't want to do or say something. Maybe it was not wanting to speak your mind about something you are passionate about. Perhaps, it was not asking someone out you liked? It could even be something as simple as not posting something on social media. The reason being that you are scared someone you barely know will have an opinion about you.

I have a funny example from when I was a teenager to put things in perspective. I was at a party with my friends years ago and there was this pretty young lady across the room. A friend of mine thought of every excuse in the book. Fear made him completely shell up. "What if she doesn't like me? What if she laughs at me?" He thought of everything. He came to me and said, "Connor, what do I do." My answer was simple: "Go say hello..." 

There is no secret here, just reassurance. The funny part about this is that it happens all the time! We work ourselves up with all of these possibilities when sometimes all it takes is a little push and reassurance. Keep it simple, look at the positives. Think about this for a second, you are going to let someone's judgment of someone who barely knows you, ruin your confidence and take you down? My favorite is that 95% of the time people aren't even thinking about you anyway so why let their opinion take you down. 

The third fear is the fear of uncertainty or as some of my students call it, the fear of change. The reality is that as a human civilization we can only predict and know so many things. If we look at the case of COVID-19 we could predict it's impact and significance but no one can really know for certain. 

Uncertainty and change are an essential part of our lives. Things do not last forever, and no matter who you are at some point you are going to have to adapt to the ongoing changes in our environment. If we use COVID-19 as an example, specifically pertaining to the people who are not considered essential, we can see a specific trend. 

People are dividing into groups: hysteria, acceptance, and disbelief. The underlying factor here is that no matter what, we do not know what is going to happen, we can only pray that it will not be significant. If we follow our protocols, we hope the problem will not be exacerbated, however; anything can happen. The key thing here is that change and uncertainty are inevitable. Hysteria will cloud our judgment and disbelief will make us ignorant. So what does that leave us with? Acceptance and obedience by waiting it out and following protocols. 

If you keep consuming the content the news spreads it just perpetuates the problem. It confuses you and makes you uncertain. Whereas, the reality is things are not going to be like this forever so we better best prepare for our future and the coming changes. We cannot change that there is going to be change! We can, however, change our perspective and how we perceive our current situation. Maybe now is a time you can work on that project you've put on the back-burner, or perhaps, start writing that novel. Remember, the quality of questions controls the quality of your life (i.e. the answers). Instead of playing the "why me" card, maybe ask yourself "how can this make me better" or "how can I stay proactive during these hard times." 

The fourth pillar of fear is the fear of rejection. Some of the greatest success stories ever written have had rejection as an underlying factor towards someone's success. Rejection is a part of life. Not everyone is going to like you. Take Mother Teresa for example. She gives her life to help people and still someone like Christopher Hitchens writes a book mocking her. 

Focus on the people in your life that want to be around you and who are not rejecting you. Rejection is just another way of telling you to dig deeper and to push yourself when times get hard. It's a time to reflect and evolve. Yes we know it hurts and it sucks but it is inevitably part of your growing process. 

In sales, for example, rejection is fundamental. However, the better you get at sales and the more you evolve the less you get rejected. This is obviously variant on your product and integrity but for the most part, applies well. 

The last fear is the fear of death. This one hits us all because whether you are religious or not, no one wants to die. It sucks that this is a fundamental part of our lives. Death has terrified me since I was a young boy. It was only until I started to invest in my personal development and read about the stoics that I realized death is actually the most potent motivator on the planet. You are going to die and so is everyone else. It's positive because when you actually think about it, it can give you that extra push to call and tell someone why you love them. It can help you push through your fears and ask out the person you like. It can help you take the leap of faith as an entrepreneur. 

When I lost my best friend several months ago it ripped me to my knees; it felt like someone took a knife to my core. A brother, someone so close to my age leaving this earth can be a real shock. I realized though through my friend's death that it was time to start spending more time with my family and friends. It was time to start living my life to the fullest with my best friend being my guiding angel. I truly feel now that he is with me every day. I've taken some of the best parts of his personality and absorbed them into the depth of my character. 

That's the power of the fear of death. It hurts so bad but it is your reason to keep fighting. It is your reason to always give it you're all in every situation. It is the reason to be the best you possibly can be because one day you will be gone. How do you want the world to remember you?

As crippling as fear may present itself within our everyday lives it is actually a positive. Fear is a growth tool, it helps us evolve, and can even motivate us to do things we never thought were imaginable. Fear can help us discover ourselves and be better humans. 

In my concluding thoughts, I wanted to share a story. I was at a conference years ago and I had the opportunity to sit beside Chicken Noodle Soups author, Jack Canfield. Jack is an extraordinary human being with a very strong message. He went on the stage that day and made the simplest analogy about fear I had ever seen. He put up a photo of a little boy standing and the end of a diving board scared. The boy was thinking of every reason to not jump. Then seconds later a little girl ran up and pushed the boy off of the diving board. Off the little boy went. He realized that it wasn't as bad as he imagined.

My point is that no matter how hard life hits you or no matter how scared you are there will always be two ways to look at it. You can follow the crowd that does nothing but exacerbate your fear, or you can go with the crowd that is going to push you past that fear and help you become the best version of yourself. With all of the changes going on today in the world, you need to prepare yourself with the proper tools to ensure you don't let fear make your problems worse than they already are. Find the people that can help push you and put things in the right perspective. And always remember, fear is just a thought, and thoughts can be changed...