Jolt!, Phil Cooke [reading women txt] 📗

For millions of people today, certain fears are simmering just below the surface. For most, you’d never know there was any problem at all. We keep them hidden away from public view, and we’ve mastered the art of disguise and concealment. In fact, some people spend their entire lives refusing to acknowledge these emotions. We spend an enormous amount of emotional effort keeping our insecurities, anxieties, and fears under control, but at a great toll on our emotional well-being.

» IMAGINED FEAR IS JUST AS TERRIFYING AS REAL FEAR.

Neuroscientists at Yale University and New York University discovered that patients who expected to experience an electric shock suffered anxieties similar to those who had a response to a real threat. Researcher Elizabeth Phelps was quoted in a Psychology Today article (September 1, 2001): “A lot of our fears and anxieties are learned through communication. If someone tells you to be afraid of a dog, then the brain responds as if you actually were.”

In other words, our brains don’t know the difference between real threats and imagined threats, which does much to explain why the National Institute of Mental Health reported that nineteen million Americans suffer from anxiety disorders. Someone who is perfectly safe, but who has a fear of being robbed, suffers just as much as someone living in a situation with a high risk for robbery or someone actually in the act of being robbed.

Because our brains don’t discriminate between emotions that are real or imagined, fear can dominate our lives and is just as devastating as physical injury.

For the most part, fear is nothing but an illusion. When you share it with someone else, it tends to disappear.

—MARILYN BARRICK, PSYCHOLOGIST

According to a 2004 article on “Conquering Our Phobias” in U.S. News and World Report, some of the most famous people throughout history suffered from serious fear, many just like those listed above. Napoleon Bonaparte was crippled by ailurophobia, the fear of cats. Queen Elizabeth I is said to have been terrorized by anthophobia, a general fear of flowers, and she particularly feared roses. Howard Hughes was nearly paralyzed by mysophobia, a fear of germs; and Edgar Allen Poe, Harry Houdini, and Adolf Hitler were claustrophobic.

Even the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, experienced agoraphobia, a fear of crowds and public places.

Although anxiety issues and phobias affect millions of Americans, most of us would deny dealing with any overwhelming fear and rarely consider it a serious problem. But truthfully, many small fears hinder us on our journey toward change, and unless we face them, we’ll never fully reach our potential. Perhaps you don’t even consider what bothers you a fear. Perhaps it’s just a feeling or situation you avoid or leave to others. Whatever it is, the way to overcome the issue is to recognize it as fear and make a decision to change.

WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

Fear of speaking in public?

Being able to lead discussions, conduct workshops, make effective presentations, and speak to employees is a critical skill required for leadership. Overcome your fear by taking a public speaking class, volunteer to be a discussion leader on your team, or offer to lead the next brainstorming session. I also suggest spending time with people who are good at public communication. Run your questions by them, get their advice, or ask them to coach you in public speaking.

Fear of failure?

This fear is amazingly common in workplaces across America, and it keeps millions of people from achieving their potential. Look closely at the real impact of failure’s actual consequences, and you’ll often laugh at its power over you. So what if you make a mistake during your presentation? Chances are, no one is going to shoot you. So what if you miss the mark on the project or make an error in your calculations? We all want to be perfect, but the fact is, we’re all flawed.

In reality, the irrational fear of failure and refusal to embrace mistakes creates far more mistakes in the long run. When people won’t face the possibility of having made errors, they often refuse to have someone else check their work or ask for help reviewing a project. As a result, they make more poor choices and mistakes, which continue to feed their insecurities.

Fear of not being good enough?

My wife grew up in a home where, after the untimely death of her younger brother due to a heart condition, few things she ever did were good enough. Her parents were wonderful people who didn’t know better, but they placed expectations on their only daughter that a normal child could rarely fulfill. Her parents held Robby up as the ideal child, and everything Kathleen and her older brother accomplished was compared against the impossible standard of Robby. Growing up, they became all too familiar with lines like:

“Robby would have never done that.”

“Everyone loved Robby. He got along with everyone.”

“Robby was so much more disciplined than you.”

Like many parents in this situation, they weren’t intentionally trying to hurt Kathleen or her brother, but they recalled a perfect (if inaccurate) picture in their hearts and minds of their son who had died, and Robby became the ultimate example of the perfect child.

Years of hearing those comments created insecurities in Kathleen, and in spite of the fact that she is an accomplished actress, teacher, wife, mother, and partner in our company, it took her a long time to overcome the fear of not being good enough and a need to compare herself with others.

Just as Kathleen discovered about her life, you are good enough. I once heard an old gospel preacher shout, “God didn’t create no junk!” He’s right. You have talents, gifts, and abilities like no one else on earth.

Like your fingerprint, you are unique, different, and exceptional. It’s not about being as good as others; it’s about being different from others. Stop spending so much time comparing yourself to others, and spend your time discovering your unique gifts and