What’s Bigger than Your Fear?

In recent posts, I’ve talked about our stress response at work . The human brain is a highly sensitive security system tasked with conducting 24/7 surveillance of our surroundings. As it does so, it identifies potential threats to our safety and sounds the alarm – our fight or flight response – to shift us into survival gear. All of our resources are then reallocated to help us fight or flee the danger we’ve encountered. Danger might mean the threat of a predator, but, more often than not, it’s a social threat, such as failure, rejection or humiliation.

The effect of walking around with these ultra-sensitive security systems is fear. Fear plays an important role in our lives. Without fear, we might walk off a cliff, run in front of a train or try to engage a bear in the wild. It’s fear that tames our wildest impulses and keeps us from plunging headfirst into danger. But it can also keep us from being our best selves.

While physical threats aren’t as abundant as they used to be, social threats dominate our everyday experience. Because our brains respond so intensely to perceived social threats, we live in a virtually constant state of fear. Whether we realize it or not, our fight or flight responses are continuously activated because, at work, the threat of failure or rejection lies around every corner. And for those of us with anxiety, trauma or other factors that sensitize us to threats, the experience is even more uncomfortable and disruptive.

What’s the solution?

The solution to this challenge is not to fight fear. It’s not to shame and blame ourselves for this very important response. Fear will always be a dominant force in our lives because of its connection to our survival. We do not want to live without fear.

Instead, the solution is to find what’s bigger than your fear. Every time you are triggered, you are faced with a values conflict:?

Do you respect the part of yourself that simply wants to keep you alive? Examples of this might include:

• Deciding not to share your idea because others might not agree with you.
• Refusing to ask for help because you might look unprepared or unqualified for your role.
• Rejecting someone else’s idea because it threatens your ego.
• Avoiding a colleague because they make you uncomfortable.
• Lashing out at your team because they didn’t meet expectations.

Or, do you honor your values and show up as your highest self? This might look like:

• Sharing your perspective because, without it, the team might take an unnecessary risk.
• Asking a question because you may be a voice for others who are afraid to ask it.
• Showing curiosity when someone challenges your ideas.
• Seeking out colleagues who are different from you to learn about and from them.
• Looking for the lessons in failure and using them to motivate the team.

What’s bigger than your fear are your values.

Every time I work with a new client, I ask them a series of questions to better get to know them. One of the questions I consistently ask is, “What do you want your legacy to be?” The overwhelming responses tie to how we show up as humans in relationship to other humans. They want to be remembered as someone who cared for those around them, or helped others to grow, or left the world better than they found out. Nobody has ever said, “I want to be remembered for protecting my own interests at the expense of those around me.”

Yet, that’s what we do when we allow our fear to drive our behaviors. We send a clear message to those around us that our fragile egos are more important than the collective needs of the group. This is likely not our intention but it’s the nature of our inherently selfish survival mechanisms to prioritize our immediate self-interest over doing what we know to be right.

To find what’s bigger than fear, we need to consciously and consistently reflect on who we want to be in relationship to others. Each of us has an internal code of conduct that dictates how we think people deserve to be treated. This code reflects our deepest values. But our code of conduct takes a backseat to our egos when we’re faced with social threats.

Reflect on the following questions to better understand your values:

• How do you want others to experience you?
• ?What do you want others to say about you when you’re not in the room?
• ?What do you stand for? And what will you not stand for?

When you let fear take the wheel , you will rarely show up in accordance with your values. As I shared in a previous post, when we feel threatened, it suppresses our reasoning and empathy. We think only of ourselves in those moments. And because our reasoning is suppressed, we cannot be trusted to strategize during the fight or flight response.

If you know your values, you can use them as a guide during moments of fear, stress and uncertainty. Here’s how:

1. Write down your values and keep them visible at all times. The constant reminder will help you to stay connected to your vision of your highest self.
2. Before any meeting or important interaction, review your values and ask yourself, “How do I want to show up?” Anticipate where fear might show up and proactively identify values-based responses.
3. When you are triggered, push pause and ask yourself, “Which action is in greatest alignment with my values right now?” And make every effort to choose that path forward.

You will not always choose your values over fear. There will be times when your stress level is too high to move in this direction. Or, you may not feel psychologically safe enough to prioritize your values. The goal is not perfection. But if you know your values inside and out, and you keep them with you at all times, you will be far more empowered to push through the fear and show up as your best self.

Kim Meninger is a leadership coach, consultant and TEDx speaker who is on a mission to make it easier to be human at work. Please connect on LinkedIn to learn more about how to bring these conversations to your workplace.