Working From Our Biggest Fear to Our Greatest Potential

Are there physical things you are too afraid to do?

I have always been an adventurer but I am also a chicken.

I have parachuted out of an airplane because I thought it was my biggest fear. I thought if I conquered it, I would eliminate fear in my life. I was wrong. I did it, but I had some terrifying moments before I left the plane. In those day we did it solo.

I have had some scary times helicopter skiing and even dropping down some steep chutes, but I was able to pucker up and move. Scuba diving never bothered my and I always felt comfortable under water. I drove a race car for a few years and I would at first be intimidated when I went out on old tires that slipped at high speed, but once I got the new tires on I was fine.

Having just read the book “Blind Descent”, I realize that one thing scares me the most; tight spaces where I can’t move. The adventurers in this book descend into deep caves rappelling down water fall cliffs and scuba diving through under ground water tunnels not knowing where they are going.

But the thing they do that scares me the most is crawling through long tight tunnels where you can barely move or breathe; Claustrophobia.

Currently, my real life scare is surfing off big waves. I know by experience that hitting water on a fall from on top is like landing on cement. I am trying to improve my skills so that everything is automatic and the technique makes the drop more successful.

But I learned in trying to conquer physical fear that psychological fears are just as bad. We get stuck in comfort zones and we don’t have to leave the safe space. I would not get in front of a group and sing and luckily I will never have to.

Some things are closer to home. When I started writing I didn’t ever want to talk in first person. I wanted to keep my messages about things and not about me. I wanted to talk about you and not me.

Sales people are often afraid to make the big important calls that could really be life changing. I am sure lawyers, doctors, journalists, and engineers all have career advancing steps they could make but would rather not.

In “Naturally Selected” by Mark Van Vugt, he discusses leadership and why some are leaders and some are followers. He takes us back before we were homo sapiens. Before man started raising meat and vegetables, he lived in small nomadic groups that moved around to find food.

There was a lot of equality and individuals in the groups were known for their skills and generally had the say when it came to finding game or defending against an attack or migrating depending on the specialty for which the group recognized the individual.

The reason we have many irrational fears is that they are passed down through the millennia in our genes and it takes a long time for them to be eliminated. Scientists have wondered why people are afraid of spiders and snakes and not afraid of cars. A car could really kill you.

People in those groups were leaders sometimes and followers at other times. Once man started to live in one place and create surpluses through animal and vegetable husbandry, he had to start defending himself from invaders. Leaders were needed to coordinate activities and especially defense.

A lot of our fears cannot be explained in today’s world because they were developed to fit another world.

One of the fears that hold people back is commitment. Not just commitment to a mate but commitment to their lives. We tend now to be followers most of the time. We have submitted our lives to being busy surviving but also doing a lot of meaningless things.

Seth Godin recently mentioned in a post that we avoid the lizard brain that would like to reach us. We avoid the limbic brain that would like us to feel. We avoid the right brain of the neo cortex that would like some quiet time to create, connect to mother nature, or to connect to universal energies.

We fear boredom. We stay so busy we don’t have time to find out who we are and what we could express if we got our mind, bodies and spirit on the same path. We are afraid of life.

It is amazing how many people don’t have a passion other than chocolate. It is amazing that people have few activities in which they can really lose themselves and track of time as well.

We are afraid to slow down. We are afraid to eliminate distractions. We would be afraid to sit for 30 minutes by ourselves with nothing to do. I figure the average person that lives to be 84 years old has 30,000 days.  How many of the days you have had so far can you remember? How many days in this next month do you plan to make special?

Can you separate yourself from what is going on around you? Do you define your self as a book keeper, father, funny person, or community leader? They are all good but after 30,000 days you’re dead.

You have a lot to offer, you have a lot to express, you have a lot to experience, and you have to face a lot of fears before you can really get on with it. Maybe you would rather crawl into a real tight space where you can barely breathe than declare yourself.

I learned that even physical courage never gave me psychological courage. What I did learn was that discipline gave me focus and confidence that I could do more. I used healthy eating and exercise to get control of my minds efforts to sabotage progress and pushing the envelope. One learns to manage fear, not eliminate it.

I started writing every day to find my voice and get comfortable with the medium. I moved close to nature so I could stay connected. I learned that I like to research which luckily blends in with my writing.

I committed to surfing which is exciting and gives me a chance to pucker frequently. I deal with my fears and try to take them a step at a time. The one thing I don’t want to do is wind up feeling I didn’t ever have a chance to find out who I am and what I can do.

For some reason I am afraid of saber tooth tigers, but luckily I don’t have to deal with that very often. What I do have to deal with is the courage to stick to my commitments regardless of where I wind up. I have to challenge my self to keep getting better at my core competencies.

Just like when we were nomads, people might recognize us for what we can contribute to the community.

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See Resource Books for personal and career development

Blind Descent by James M. Tabor

Naturally Selected. The Evolutionary Science of Leadership by Mark van Vugt

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