You Are a Badass®: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life

by Jen Sincero

When you find yourself letting fear push you around, look at it from a different perspective. Start by breaking it down, finding what it is that you’re really afraid of and then flipping it around to make it work for you, not against you. Show it who’s boss. Feed your fear a suck-it sandwich. For example: I want to write a book but can’t get myself to sit down and do it. Why not? I’m scared that if I do it will be terrible. What happens if it’s terrible? If it’s terrible I’ll look stupid. Then what? People will make fun of me. Then what? I’ll feel ashamed. Okay, so you’re not writing your book in order to protect yourself from feeling stupid and ashamed. Now flip it: How stupid and ashamed will you feel if you don’t write your book? Very. I know it’s a brilliant idea. And it’s a big dream of mine. So will your strategy of not writing it in order to protect yourself from feeling stupid and ashamed protect you from feeling stupid and ashamed? No. And since you’re risking feeling stupid and ashamed either way, which version is worse—trying to write it and having it be terrible or never going for it and living an unlived life of mediocrity, wimpiness; and shame? Living an unlived life of mediocrity, wimpiness; and shame. Break it down so you can really look at, and defuse, what it is about a situation that’s scaring you. Fear is all about how you choose to look at things, so by changing your perspective on it you can let the fear of NOT doing the thing you’re scared of fuel yo...