Feel the Fear… and Do It Anyway: Dynamic Techniques for Turning Fear, Indecision, and Anger into Power, Action, and Love

by Susan Jeffers

We fear changing; we fear “staying stuck.” We fear success; we fear failure. We fear living; we fear dying.

So many of us short-circuit our living by choosing the path that is the most comfortable.

If you are afraid of being rejected, this fear will affect almost every area of your life. Rejection is rejection—wherever it is found. So you begin to protect yourself, and, as a result, greatly limit yourself. You begin to shut down and close out the world around you.

At the bottom of every one of your fears is simply the fear that you can’t handle whatever life may bring you.

If you knew you could handle anything that came your way, what would you possibly have to fear?

All you have to do to diminish your fear is to develop more trust in your ability to handle whatever comes your way!

From this moment on, every time you feel afraid, remind yourself that it is simply because you are not feeling good enough about yourself.

What matters is that you begin now to develop your trust in yourself, until you reach the point where you will be able to say:

Whatever happens to me, given any situation, I can handle it!

She will never break the fear barrier until she is made aware of her faulty thinking; she simply does not “see” what is obvious to those who are out there doing it.

As I began to do things on my own, I began to taste the deliciousness of an emerging self-confidence. It wasn’t all comfortable—in fact, a lot of it was extremely uncomfortable. I felt like a child learning to walk and falling frequently. But with each step, I felt a little surer of my ability to handle my life.

The fear will never go away as long as I continue to grow. As long as I continued to push out into the world, as long as I continued to stretch my capabilities, as long as I continued to take new risks in making my dreams come true, I was going to experience fear.

The only way to get rid of the fear of doing something is to go out and do it.

One day, as I was approaching that once-dreaded classroom, I realized I was no longer afraid. My fear had turned into sweet anticipation.

What really made the difference, however, was the sense of accomplishment I felt in pushing through fear and doing things on my own.

The only way to feel better about myself is to go out . . . and do it.

The “doing it” comes before the feeling better about yourself. When you make something happen, not only does the fear of the situation go away, but also you get a big bonus: you do a lot toward building your self-confidence.

Not only am I going to experience fear whenever I’m on unfamiliar territory, but so is everyone else.

I can’t remember not being afraid, but it never occurred to me that fear would prevent me from taking the risks necessary to get what I wanted. I just went ahead and did what I had to do to make my ideas work—despite the fear.”

Pushing through fear is less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness.

It means that no matter how “secure” any of us feel in the little cocoon we have built for ourselves, we live, consciously or unconsciously, with the fear that the day of reckoning will eventually come.

people who refuse to take risks live with a feeling of dread that is far more severe than what they would feel if they took the risks necessary to make them less helpless—only they don’t know it!

We can’t escape fear. We can only transform it into a companion that accompanies us in all our exciting adventures; it is not an anchor holding us transfixed in one spot.

FIVE TRUTHS ABOUT FEAR 1. The fear will never go away as long as I continue to grow. 2. The only way to get rid of the fear of doing something is to go out . . . and do it. 3. The only way to feel better about myself is to go out . . . and do it. 4. Not only am I going to experience fear whenever I’m on unfamiliar territory, but so is everyone else. 5. Pushing through fear is less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness.

The former hold their fear from a position of power (choice, energy, and action), and the latter hold it from a position of pain (helplessness, depression, and paralysis).

I am talking about power within the self. This means power over your perceptions of the world, power over how you react to situations in your life, power to do what is necessary for your own self-growth, power to create joy and satisfaction in your life,

A self-assured woman who is in control of her life draws like a magnet. She is so filled with positive energy that people want to be around her. Yet it is only when she has become powerful within herself that she can become authentic and loving to those around her.

We’re not totally incapacitated by our fears, but we’re not exactly feeling a great sense of power and excitement, nor are we quickly sprinting toward our goals.

1. Draw an enlargement of the Pain-to-Power Chart and place it on your wall. Just the simple act of making the enlargement will make you feel a little more powerful.

Remember that much of the trick of moving from pain to power is taking action; ACTION IS VERY POWERFUL!

2. Just to keep you from taking yourself too seriously, you might want to write somewhere on your chart “Angels fly because they take themselves lightly.”

3. Put a pin at the place on the chart where you see yourself situated at this moment in your life.

4. Each day look at the chart and ask yourself, “Do I see myself at the same place, or have I moved?” Move the pin accordingly.

5. If you keep in mind the direction you want to go in, it will help you make decisions about what you are doing in your life.

Before you take any action in life, ask yourself: “Is this action moving me to a more powerful place?” If it isn’t, yo...

6. Make your use of the chart fun. Approaching it as a game keeps you light about the situation.

7. You might want to make different charts for different areas of your life. To be really powerful, you need to be in charge of all aspects of your life—your work, relationships, environment, body, and so on.

You may wonder if you really need to go to such lengths to get yourself moving. Trust me—you do! In the beginning, you need all the gimmicks you can get to remind you of where you want to go.

From this moment on, remove “I can’t” from your vocabulary. When you give your subconscious the message “I can’t,” your subconscious really believes you and registers on its computer: WEAK . . . WEAK . . . WEAK. Your subconscious believes only what it hears, not what is true.

“It’s a problem” is another deadening phrase. It’s heavy and negative. “It’s an opportunity” opens the door to growth. Each time you can see the gift in life’s obstacles, you can handle difficult situations in a rewarding way. Each time you have the opportunity to stretch your capacity to handle the world, the more powerful you become.

“I hope” is another victim’s phrase. “I know” has far more power. I hope I will get a job. I know I will get a job.

If we view the world through these dark-tinted glasses we begin to feel numb—not only to the bad things in life, but also to all the wonderful things.

People who display an inner strength are treated differently than those who come across as weak and helpless. The more powerfully you speak, the more you will be a force in the world around you.

All these new ways of communicating allow us to get really cozy in our comfort zones, but real power comes from seeking to step out of them.

I suggest that each day you do something that widens that space for you. Call someone who seems intimidating, buy something that you need that costs more than you would ever have paid in the past, ask for something you want that you have been too frightened to ask for before. Take a risk a day—one small or bold stroke that will make you feel great once you’ve done it. Even if it doesn’t work out the way you wanted it to, at least you’ve tried. You didn’t sit back . . . powerless. Watch what starts to happen when you expand your comfort zone:

As the drawing shows, with each risk you take, with each time you move beyond what feels comfortable, you become more powerful.

As long as you are taking those risks—no matter how small—you are moving yourself to the right on the Pain-to-Power Chart.

Each night before you go to bed, plan the risk you are going to take the following day. Close your eyes, and in your mind’s eye, practice doing it. This is called a visualization—the creation of a mental image of something in an effort to achieve what you want. Make your visualization as clear as you possibly can. Also, as you go through the day, be aware of where you find yourself hesitating, and start planning your future risks based on these observations. If you can push through the hesitation at the moment you recognize it, great. Remember that the more you expand your comfort zone, the more powerful you become.