Research & Practice Brief

Breaking Through Fear to get to Trust: How to get past doubts and procrastination and move into action

By Dr. Angela Owens-Schill, DBA, MBA, MEd, MLitt , WBIL Team Member

On a dark, rainy cold morning at 4:50 AM, one of my saintly parents was driving 15-year-old me to my first early-morning, cross-country indoor track practice. I was anxious about the experience I was anticipating. Tired but wired from the fear of showing up and not being able to keep up with my peers or make my coach happy, my stomach was in knots. Somewhere between that moment and the start of practice, I found myself staring at the back of someone’s t-shirt. The word FEAR was in big letters constructed from bricks and a hammer was shattering the fear into pieces. That image was empowering, and it gave me the courage to walk onto the track during the winter months every morning before school and find that I was capable of the hard work that I would later actually enjoy.

That experience over 30 years ago came back to me as I thought about fear in light of a conversation a colleague and I had during a podcast interview with author and coach, Andrea Liebross. In discussing her work and the ways she helps others reach their full potential as entrepreneurs, the idea of fear and procrastination was raised. As an adult in the workplace, there are times when I have allowed fear to stop me from taking actions that would improve my confidence, increase my skills, and deepen my satisfaction.

Liebross, who outlined how we can get past our fears, by thinking big - stepping outside of our comfort zone and moving beyond the mental blocks that keep us stuck.

Andrea suggests that thinking big can aid us in moving beyond unfulfilled potential, procrastination, and ambivalence. Andrea employs a TRUST acronym to outline that path that we can apply in helping us overcome our fears and reaching our goals and potential:

Thought Options – We have options in the ways we think about anything. We might automatically take a negative-heavy approach to thinking about something we would like to accomplish. Rather than letting fear cloud our thoughts about potential outcomes, we can give equal airtime to alternative, optimistic thoughts.

Real Problem – The real problem behind not taking action can often be distilled down to not wanting to feel unwanted feelings – like fear. If we are willing to move through hard emotions, we can reach solutions on the other side. We can restructure our thoughts in ways that acknowledge uncomfortable emotions while also responding in ways that lean on potential positive outcomes rather than only anticipating negative possibilities.

Embrace the Unknown/Uncertainty – We can prepare a plan for moving forward and then choose to be okay with not knowing the outcome. We can practice being okay with taking action even if we do not know exactly how something is going to work out but trusting that something will work out.

Secure Support – While we have wonderful friends and family who support us, they may want to save us from discomfort. Finding coaches and mentors outside of those circles can offer us effective insight and perspective that can help us see past the fear and discomfort that might otherwise derail us.

Take Action – This is where we utilize strategic decisions, harnessing everything else in the TRUST acronym to take committed, “massive action” actions towards our goals or plans. Envision yourself in the future, having already succeeded, and ask yourself what actions you should take to reach that ideal. You will likely be given the insight you need to move forward.

Moving into a new year, often a time when we have new visions and goals of how we want to show up in our lives, we can look to tools like these to help us in our efforts. Restructuring our thinking can help us move past fear, doubt, procrastination and worry – ultimately leading to more favorable and successful outcomes in our professions well as personal lives.

If you are interested in learning more about Andrea Liebross’ insights on thinking big, you can hear the full podcast episode here.