The Fine Line Between Fear and Excitement?—?And How to Cross It

I can name a few pivotal moments in my life where I was faced with a life-altering decision. It was a crossroad, a fork in the road that will take me ‘somewhere’ — but I wasn’t sure what it was.

I’m sure many of us have stood in this exact same metaphorical ‘spot’ before. Some of these crossroads include switching up our careers completely, choosing to move to another country, deciding on going steady with our significant others, or perhaps starting a big project that we feel like we might yet be ready for.

Transitionary Periods Cause Doubt and Uncertainty 

There is something very fascinating with a lot of these transitional moments in our lives. They all share one two main qualities: doubt and uncertainty. When doubt and uncertainty meet, the common feeling that we might get is fear.

Fear is deeply rooted, a visceral feeling that prevents us from taking action, that stops us in our tracks, and causes our breathing to shorten and pupils to dilate. 

Let’s look at this from a mathematical perspective: 

Doubt + Uncertainty = Fear 

Biochemically, this reaction is a reflection of our overactive amygdala, triggering our ‘fight-flight-freeze- response, sending signatures to our hypothalamus which stimulates the autonomic nervous system. Tl;dr — our brain is telling us that we’re in fucking trouble.

These triggers, however, are indicative of something more — it is sending us a signal in our brain that whatever is about to happen is apparently perceived to be harmful or a threat to survival. 

However, there is actually a fine line between fear and excitement. In fact, the observed physical response looks almost identical to fear - our heart rates are increased, a boost in mental state, a shot of adrenaline.

When I first started my career in PR & Communications, I was not as extroverted as I was today. In fact, I was shy and I had a fear of interviewing others and talking on the phone. I didn’t really sleep well the night before an important call, and it was really taking a toll on my stress.

I liked some aspects of my job, but I didn’t like the fear it gave me.

Before, I listed out all of the tasks I’ve been doing on a graph where I plotted my confidence in execution and the payback. It looked something like this:

The Old Model — Do What You Know You’re Capable Of

“What should I do?” Graph — circa 2015/16

Although this graph 'made sense' logically, I realized that I was operating in a fear state. I was trying to reduce my doubt in myself by focusing on the tasks and projects I was ‘confident’ enough to carry out, but only toyed with the ideas that have high potential feedback and lower confidence — because I was scared. I was scared I couldn’t do them.

This put me into a state of doing things because I thought I ‘should’ be doing them(coming from fear), and not because they are what I ‘want to be doing’ (coming from passion). The reality of the situation: I never actually got around doing higher payback projects.

I also tried to control the outcome of my actions — attempting to reduce the uncertainty element. I wanted to focus on items that will give me a more predictable result, taking my attention away from the present moment and what I was able to control. My mind was absorbed by worrying about factors outside of my control, rather than what I could control.

Then I realized something. In my ‘most-definitely-not-scientific’ opinion, there is only one major difference — let’s look at the formula again. 

Passion + Uncertainty = Excitement 

After I realized that passion is the key to overpowering my fear, I reorganized my graph to reflect this model. I replotted the above points.

The New Model — Lead With Passion

“What do I want to do?” Graph — circa 2019

Interestingly, the only ones that seem to truly appeal to me now were the items that I once was scared of — the ones I tried to avoid but knew in my heart that they were worthwhile. I just needed to start them. The rest was auxiliary.

What does ‘starting’ mean? It means sticking to a launch date and continuously deliver and improve. Launch until you train yourself to get used to launching. It’s the biggest form of exposure therapy. Repeat it until you’re not scared of it anymore. 

Case Study 1 — Launching a Podcast for the First Time

When I first started my podcast, I was scared I couldn’t even book one guest. So I set a goal to reach out to five people. 3/5 said yes. I then made it a goal to reach out to 10 people per week, and launch 1 episode every two weeks. Regardless of what happens, I made it a routine for myself to find guests, send a pitch, and invite them onto the show. 

I eventually started getting bookings from guests themselves. The initial work, in the beginning, was worth it. 

There were also times when I missed. I took a few months break from the podcast, thinking I was drained and being underwhelmed with the results. Again, I fell to the trap of trying to control the outcome, rather than enjoying the process.

I dusted myself down and picked the podcast back up — this time only interviewing people I would want to meet in person, and saying 'no' to the people who did not excite me.

Case Study 2 — From Student to Content Marketer

I was once faced with the unfortunate news of a mass layoff while I was on vacation in Japan. 80% of the employees had to say goodbye suddenly, leaving me without a job to go back to. I was still enrolled in college at the time, so it was difficult for me to find another job that would allow me to complete my courses while getting hired.

Then I realized that the job I had did not actually excite me. There was always a sense of security and certainty, but there was no passion. What I actually was truly passionate about was creating engaging stories to capture the hearts of consumers, to help growing companies and passionate people win customers through content marketing. 

 To do this, I decided to start my own content marketing agency — but this was not an easy feat. Originally, my goal was to book one paying client by the end of the month, but that goal was too outcome-focused. 

Instead, I started small. I will reach out to five businesses a week until one said yes. Was I scared of rejection? Of course, I was! But the excitement of waiting for their replies and seeing the ‘read receipts’ made it worth it. Magically, within the first week, I already booked four clients which ended up signing multi-month contracts. The rest was history. 

I made lifelong friendships with my clients, developed some amazing skills and memories, and eventually landed myself at Procurify after some weird events twisted with serendipity and fate.

Which leads to my last formula:

(Passion + Uncertainty)*Courage = Joy

There is a fine line between fear and excitement — and you can cross it, too. All it takes is to see opportunities with passion, rather than doubt. You have the power of choice.

Once you fall in love with the process and the choices you make, the outcomes can no longer phase you.

When you’ve truly broken past your walls of fear, you’ll start to accumulate more courage. A truly magical moment will begin during this time — you will start to find joy in everything that you do. 

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”

― Rumi