fear | The Caleb Barney Collection

Embracing your fear to make you better and live with less anxiety

Embrace your fear. Everybody fears something. Don’t be ashamed of it and don’t recoil from it. If you fear making mistakes and you don’t embrace it, you will do everything in your power to not make a mistake. Eventually that will lead you to stop taking any chances at all just so you don’t look bad…

But the thing is, it’s all in your head. Most people won’t judge you for making mistake. And if they do, it’s pretty hypocritical. Everyone makes mistakes. The best learn from their mistakes and from the mistakes they’ve observed others make. They not only learn from that isolated incident, but they also can apply their new found knowledge in other areas of life. They figure out where the carryover is and become better predictors for future events. Then they test the hypothesis and keep pushing.

The more you push your limits, the more you grow. But if you don’t want to push your limits and always want to stay within your comfort zone, you might grow slowly, or you might not grow at all. And in a worst-case scenario, you’ll actually end up getting worse.

Embrace your fears. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, to look weak, to look dumb… If you don’t understand something, ask a question. If you think you can lift the weight, but you aren’t sure, try it anyways. Ask for a spotter. People like to help if you let them.

Are you justifying your fears?

Stop justifying your fears just so you can stay in your comfort zone. If you do so, you are deliberately holding yourself back, even if it is subconsciously. You give yourself an excuse or you say things like, “well I didn’t really want that anyways,” or, “I have to give up too much to get that,” just to make yourself feel better about not getting what you really want.

In reality, all of the best things in life take work to get. Sometimes, it takes a lot of work. Because if it was easy, everyone would do it.

If you’re OK with taking it easy and not living life to the fullest, that’s OK too. That’s part of the trade-off. But at least be honest with yourself… It’s not because you didn’t really want it, it’s because you didn’t want to have to do what it takes to get it.

Controlling your responses to negative stressors

Everyone feels the same emotions…fear, insecurity, heartache, hunger, tiredness, anger, joy. What separates our role models and heroes from those who we do not look up to is how they respond to those emotions.

If you want to be the best version of yourself, take a look in the mirror. How do you respond under stress? Do you take out your frustrations on others or treat them poorly? Would you want your kids to act like you do when you’re stressed?

If you want to be more like your role model(s) or to become a role model, the first step is to be aware of how you’ve seen others react under stress. Are there people you would like to emulate?

After you’ve seen the responses of others and determined which actions you deem commendable, the next step is to be aware of how you currently react under stress. What behaviors, actions, or words do you say/do that you’re proud of and what do you want to stop doing?

After taking note of what you already do, start monitoring how you’re doing from this point forward. Be strict, but forgiving with yourself. You want to start taking the right actions right now. But if/when you mess up, own your mistakes/actions, apologize if necessary, and move forward.

Cut yourself some slack, especially in the beginning, because it takes a while to form a new habit (of responding appropriately to any/every situation). But remember, if we want to be the best version of ourselves, if we want to be a role model to our kids, if we want to make others around us feel better about themselves, and if we want the world to be a nicer place, it all starts with us. We can’t control what other people think, say, or do, but we can control ourselves. It just takes practice.

Facing your fears

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” Friedrich Nietzsche

This is true for overcoming physical challenges, but also for overcoming mental challenges.

The biggest mental challenge sometimes isn’t even real. It’s the fear of “what might happen” if you do something. A lot of times, it’s that fear that holds us back from achieving our full potential. We fear that we’ll fail, that others will judge us, that we will be rejected or look dumb. Those fears might be realized. Nobody is immune from failing. BUT, what we need to focus on is not the failure itself, but rather that we mustered the courage to take action.

It’s just like Teddy Roosevelt’s “Man in the arena” speech. In it, TR says:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

When you face your fear, you feel like it’s going to kill you at first, but it doesn’t and you are stronger for it.

Don’t let your emotions lead to bad decisions

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Don’t let someone sell you something you don’t want or don’t need. They will try to appeal to your emotions (especially fear and greed – two of the most powerful emotions to manipulate). But ultimately, it’s up to you to decide if you want to gamble your money, time, or energy away with them.