Experience the Fear and Proceed Anyway


Dr.Susan Jeffers, in her book Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, discusses how tasks and activities outside of our comfort zones may cause us to feel uneasy. This discomfort is predictable – it is a typical human response to challenges that may seem a bit out of the ordinary.

Jeffers suggests that when you encounter a task that represents a hurdle or a roadblock, you need to let yourself feel all the emotions that arise. Are you uneasy? Quivering? Lightheaded? Is your stomach upset, are you trembling, or do you feel fearful?

When you’re forthright with yourself about how you feel (namely, scared!), initiate your action anyway, Jeffers says. Often you’re able to break through your fear and overcome the obstacle that loomed so large when you weren’t being honest with yourself.

It is vital to recognize that fears about certain situations or tasks you face need not be debilitating. You don’t have to hide underneath to covers when the big, bad deadline is out to get you. Indeed, if you allow yourself to feel the fear of whatever task you have been putting off, in whatever form the fear takes (facing penalties for missing a deadline, missing out on a one-time opportunity or investment, and so on), you actually position yourself to more easily begin the task at hand. So, get scared, and get started!

Before a car’s ignition will start, you need to turn the key, unless of course it’s hot-wired. Before you blast through the procrastination, you feel the fear. When regarded as a routine, feeling the fear can become an important weapon in your arsenal. The next time you dread launching a new project, allow yourself to experience the full gamut of fear-related sensations. Feel the fear and start anyway.

If one of your underlying reasons for procrastination is the fear of success, then your immediate mission is to gain reliable knowledge of how this success would actually affect your career and life. You can talk to or read about others who have achieved similar success, or you can talk to associates and friends about the success. Or, simply sketch out on paper how you see the situation unfolding. Your guesstimates are as good as anyone’s. In any case, get your thoughts down on paper; doing so helps deflate the fears and uncertainties.

Hereafter, rather than letting feelings of fear stop you, you may be pleasantly surprised to find how much easier it is to start. Indeed, you have passed the first step on your road to self-starting you have felt the fear.