Hello my friend,
91% of what we worry about never actually happens.
Fear shrinks when you take action.
Research shows that the brain reduces its fear response once you start moving toward the thing you’re afraid of.
The key? Stop overthinking. Start acting. (Steve Magness)
How do you deal with fear?
Do you have the upper hand or does it make the decisions?
This is a battle we all face.
Some of us more than others.
Certain scenarios more than others.
When there is something novel, a change or an unknown fear will often show itself.
But what if we viewed fear differently?
What if we framed the things that scared us as exciting?
Fear and excitement are in fact very similar.
They feel the same in our bodies.
Yet the choice in how we label them will determine the emotions built off them and the decisions we take from them.
How we frame any given situation will be the defining factor.
So why does fear even exist in the first place?
It evolved as a survival mechanism to protect us from danger and potential harm. The physiological response of ‘fight or fight’ was critical when trying to stay alive.
When every day was a matter of survival we absolutely relied upon the emotion of fear.
But as you’re reading this you aren’t living in those times.
We don’t need to use fear like we used to yet our brain still prompts the emotion.
Our amygdala (the crucial part of our brain responsible for processing emotions, particularly fear and anxiety) still behaves the same way when facing daily decisions.
It wasn’t built or has evolved for our modern way of life.
Therefore we feel feelings of fear in all kinds of common situations.
In reality many of these situations aren’t worth fearing about.
Many situations that overwhelm us offer no threat to us yet our outdated brain tells us otherwise.
Many of these same situations can be exciting, not nerve racking, when we reframe them.
When we get closer to them.
And when we take action on them.
Despite feeling the fear.
What if you moved closer to your fears rather than further away?
When a situation seems difficult, challenging or uncertain our amygdala can start racing. This is normal.
But when we feel fear it doesn’t necessarily mean something is wrong and that we should back away.
It’s actually an opportunity to lean in.
We will then often see many of the same situations for what they are - exciting, or indeed not worth fearing about.
We don’t need to let fear get in our way.
Stop overthinking, start acting.
Things I’m learning
We are very suggestable in crowds.
Suggestibility is fundamental to influence. The psychology and social engineering of crowds relies on the tendency of individuals to be influenced by external triggers, including social pressures. Receptive crowd participants are more likely to conform to the behavior of others in the crowd. Those who are uncertain or lack clear guidance are especially vulnerable, as professional crowd manipulators and paid activists know. Receptive individuals conform by adopting the attitudes and actions of the group without being fully aware of the consequences of their behavior.
Playing the long game.
“The trick in any field - from finance to careers to relationships - is being able to survive the short-run problems so you can stick around long enough to enjoy the long-term growth.” - Morgan Housel
The misery of non-acceptance.
“In any situation in life, you only have three options. You always have three options. You can change it, you can accept it, or you can leave it. What is not a good option is to sit around wishing you would change it but not changing it, wishing you would leave it but not leaving it, and not accepting it. It's that struggle, that aversion, that is responsible for most of our misery. The phrase that I probably use the most to myself in my head is just one word: accept.” - Naval
Question
Are you paying more attention to all the good you already have, or of that you’re missing? Either way that choice will much decide the quality of your life.
That’s all for this week.
Thanks for reading!
With love, Nick x
p.s. slow down.