FEARS. Yeah, they do control your life whether you’d like to admit it or not. Of course, you’d like to change that, because I know, that just like me you seek a life of freedom. A life that isn’t consciously or subconsciously run by those anxiety-filled emotions crawling around within. Fear of what other people will think of you, fear of what you will think of yourself, or even fear of death. It’s a risk/reward game we often chose to bet safely on. The thing is, we are miscalculating that whole ratio. It’s subjectively unbalanced. And that’s why I’m every week challenging myself – and YOU – to face some kind of fear over a 5-day period. Big or small, singular or plural – you decide!
The rules are simple. You shall choose to face a fear that means taking some action that aligns with your values and believes, but also brings you closer to your goals. Closer to becoming the kind of person you’d like to be. A free mind. For instance, if you want to get over social anxiety, you need to be talking to some people. If you want to be able to handle rejection, you need to practice getting rejected! If you want to be able to jump of a cliff, you need to be able to coop with some heights! You see, as long as you design the challenge the right way and follow through on that goal, YOU CAN’T LOSE IN THIS GAME! This is a super important mindset you NEED to embrace if you’re not to hurt yourself along the journey.
What do you mean Alex? Well, to avoid creating emotional scares that only will make things worse, you need to baby step it and set a low minimum bar. For instance, if you want to overcome the fear of talking to strangers, your challenge could be to say hi to a random person. Then just doing that and only that, would be a win! If that person rejects you it doesn’t matter, because you got to practice in there and exposed yourself to rejection. An INVALUABLE skill to have, handling rejections that are!
The actual outcome of the interaction is not important at this stage. It’s all dependent on your skill level, and what’s the next action on your fear scale. Which means that next time – if you’re ready for it – you can raise the bar. We want to be constantly levelling up. Or well, you can, of course, fail If you don’t take the minimum action you sat out to do. Then the game will TEMPORARY be over. But we all have bad days, so don’t beat yourself up about it. Remember to have fun with it, see it as a game, and of course – there’s always next time!
So, just take a minute or two and think about ONE fear that is limiting you in life, and how different life would be without it. Play this vision out. And then ask yourself what the lowest hanging fruit would be; what kind of facing fear action could you take to expose yourself to this. Lastly, just consider how acting on that thought would add a ton of excitement and purpose to your life for the coming days. Not to mention the feeling within if you’d actually execute on this thing. There’s no harm in fantasizing, right?
Let’s take my week challenge as an example; I’ve been of my interview game for a while, something I want to have close by heart if I’m to produce great content. Also, I want to truly understand how people think and work – hence I’ll be asking people If they’d like to do a short interview with me on the topic of freedom.
So that’s what my week is going to look like – setting off on a mission to set myself and the world free. There’s no turning back now. I’ve made it my personal goal in life to do this. This is my calling, and I will dedicate my life to make this vision come true. A vision of a free-spirited world. Woho, have I lost it or what?!
Feel inspired, but past experiences tell you this feeling will pass? Social commitment is a GREAT WAY TO FOLLOW TROUGH, that’s why I’ve been able to keep these weekly challenges up (this is my 108th in a row). So, commit to me down there in the comments, just write #FF1 if this is your first Facing Fear challenge, and I personally will be asking you if you followed through or not at the end of the week. I’m creating a movement, so spread, share or tag someone that you’d like to challenge on a facing fear challenge this week!
See you in the week and good luck,
/Alexander
