Remember when you were a little kid and every night you went to bed scared that the monster in the closest was going to eat you?
Maybe that was just me. Whatever. I’m still pretty sure there’s something living in my basement.
What I mean to say is that when you’re a little kid, it’s pretty common to take a mildly uncomfortable situation and turn it into a giant, scary nightmare.
Then, of course, you grow up. You know what happens then, right? You take mildly uncomfortable situations and turn them into giant, scary nightmares.
Nothing really changes.
Monster Hunting
When you’re just a youngster, you don’t have a lot of experience looking in closets, under beds, or in basements, so it’s natural to be afraid of the really scary things we don’t know don’t exist yet.
For some reason though, when you grow up, you stop being scared of the monster in the closet and start getting scared of all the monsters in the big, wide world. You don’t know what’s out there, so it’s easy to assume it’s something harmful to be avoided.
Then you get old. You’ve long forgotten the monster in the closet and you’ve seen some of the world and realized it’s not so bad.
But there’s this really scary generation of new people growing up and you don’t know what they’re going to do to the world you worked so hard to build. So, you lament that all these new, scary people are going to destroy your country, and then the whole world.
Nothing really ever changes. We think we grow out of our fears, but we don’t. We just find something new to be scared of.
Worryin’ Away the Time
On any given day, there’s so much we don’t know. It’s a lot of work and, sometimes, even stressful to confront it and figure it out, so instead we fear it.
We fear and avoid it. There has to be a reason we feel that way right? It’s for our own good. Our own survival.
In each phase of life we’re certain of something new that’s going to ruin us, yet here were are. We make it anyway, not to mention everyone else that made it before us.
Boy, were we lucky, right?
Here’s the thing. Our brains are crazy. Every day they lie to us about how terrible things are or how bad they’re going to be, but when we finally ignore the fear and look in the closet — when we finally quit our jobs, climb our mountains, travel the world, have kids, start businesses, get to know people — we forget all about how scared we were before and realize everything’s pretty much okay, the world will keep turning, and we’re going to survive.
Fear is always worse than reality. Just look at what happened when I went skydiving.
It’s so natural to assume the worst case situation any time we do something unfamiliar, but reality bears the truth again and again that the worst case scenario is so unlikely that it’s not really worth worrying about.
As Seth Godin puts it, “Worry is the act of experiencing failure repeatedly in your head before it ever happens.”
What a waste of time, right?
Rather than spending all your time planning for the worst case scenario, why not plan for the best and do a little preparation for the possible realistic failure? How can you ever really succeed if the number one thing on your mind is how bad failure could be?
Getting Lost in the Woods
When I climbed my first mountain, sure I was a little nervous, but what good would it have been to repeatedly worry about getting lost in the woods and dying? That would have been the worst case scenario, right?
I don’t know that I could have even taken the first step if that’s what was on my mind.
Instead, I planned on climbing up and down in great weather and having a good time with my climbing partner. I prepared for bad weather and I was equipped to spend a night in the woods if I got lost and things got really bad, but I wasn’t about to waste my time thinking of how awful it would be to die on a mountain.
In fact, thinking like that is a great way to talk yourself into giving up if you ever did get in trouble. And you know what, we did get lost – a few times, actually. But, because we were prepared for a realistic worst case scenario and continued to plan on a great climb, we worked our way out of it.
If you ever want to take on something incredible, but you’re too nervous to make the leap, just remember every other situation you’ve ever been in where things could have gone wrong… but didn’t.
Remember that the worst possible scenario that you play out in your head is completely unlikely. Remember that worrying is experiencing failure before you’ve even given yourself a chance to fail. Remember that you’ve got a whole bunch more fears to get over in the future, and get on with today.
How do you remind yourself that your fears are always worse than reality? Let me know in the comments.
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Image by: Zephyrance
I felt like that lady with the big outragious hat, fanning myself in the church pew as I read this:
“Mmm hmmm.”
“Mmmmmm hmmm.”
“That’s right.”
Ending with a rousing “Amen!”
Sometimes, when I’m in that weird panic zone (usually at night when I wake up and my mind runs amuck), I let myself run out the “worse case scenerio” as far as I can take it, to the ridiculous degree. Eventually, I see the silliness of my fear and can regroup to a more realistic, problem-solving stance.
Good thoughts, Tyler and a reminder I need to absorb like a mantra as I prepare to “launch”.
Good luck with your launch, Julie! It’s a lot scarier now than it will be when it happens.
Wait….there is no monster under the bed?
Seriously, though, you are spot on. Fear is the worst enemy. Nothing will ever be as bad as fear makes it out to be. Once I have done something I was scared of, soon after it is done, one of the first thoughts is to always wonder what scared me in the first place.
The really funny part of the equation is when people fear to make a mistake. This is funny to me because a mistake is just an opportunity in disguise.
Every mistake we make can serve as perfect examples and teaching guides, the way that no lesson ever could. If people learned to embrace mistakes and learn to grow from them (but never repeat them) the world would be a lot less fearful place
That’s always a good outlook to have, Steve. See your mistakes as opportunities to improve. I know it’s the only way I’ve managed to keep myself going when things got really tough and it felt like I was screwing everything up.
How do I remind myself that fear is always worse than the reality? I acknowledge that it’s there first. Fear is one of the many emotions that reminds us of our humanity, and it should not go ignored. But then after that I treat fear like a band-aid. If I am about to do something that is new to me, that creates a sorce of fear, I plan to do it as quickly as possible – like ripping off a band-aid.
I recently sold the majority of my things (leaving me with only 150 items) and moved to Chicago. I knew no one and had no job lined up. I just did it. In a month. And moving to a whole new place was very much out of my comfort zone, but I had to, I wanted to, and to do it I had to do it fast before fear began to guide my decisions.
Will this band-aid-method always work, probably not. But, I take one step at a time, besides why worry if it will always prove successful? Like you quoted: “Worry is the act of experiencing failure repeatedly in your head before it ever happens.” Which, by the by, that quote is now tattooed on my mental arm.
Thank you, Tyler!
Damian.
You bring up a really good point, Damian. Acknowledge your fear. That sounds so simple, but I think it’s actually pretty common to be scared stiff about something, but not to recognize that feeling as fear but as some other emotion.
It’s like an automatic coping mechanism because it’s no fun to admit that you’re afraid. I don’t know if everyone feels like this, but it’s something I’ve noticed in myself.
This post has given me a lot to think about right now. For the last 5 months I have been struggling to get past some pretty major (major to me) fears that have been holding me back my whole life.
I have been mildly successful with dealing with some of the fear, but I still haven’t come as far as I would like. And yes, each time my fear was so much worse than the reality.
The quote “Worry is the act of experiencing failure repeatedly in your head before it ever happens” just really hit home. The realization that I am failing by default is a scary thought in and of it’s self.
Perhaps it time to give Damian’s “band-aid-method” a try.
Sam
Once you rip that band-aid off, things get a lot better. The pain is always temporary.
So true Tyler.
I have a half marathon coming up in a week and I’m a bit nervous.
Worst possible scenario: I die. More likely scenario: I hurt a little bit, but I power through and finish the thing.
Good stuff as usual
I think you’re going to have a great time, Joel. And if you don’t, you’ll get over it fast!
As per usual, excellent post.
I just want to add something: being prepared for a bad outcome doesn’t necessarily mean that you fear it. People usually justify their fears because they say, “Well, my fears could come true!” and, you know what, they’re right.
The problem is in how they approach it. They agonize about what’s going to happen if they fail (if that’s what they’re fearing), but they never make a plan in case they do fail. (Though, normally, I’m the type to say “I don’t have Plan B’s because they distract me from Plan A”)
One of my favorite videos on fear is Jonathan Fields’s TEDx speech on it here: TEDxCMU – Jonathan Fields
That’s a great talk that Jonathan gave. And that’s a good point, Brett. It’s okay to prepare for a catastrophic outcome, but you can’t let it consume you. When “avoiding the worst” becomes the main goal ahead of “achieving the best” that’s when you run into trouble.
I’m a “what if” kind of girl. I worry about things that I don’t have to worry about. I have to take situations and break them down into what may happen and whats the worst thing that may come out of a situation. It’s an obsessive mind game I play but after I’ve broken it all down I can put it to rest. I’m really working on being more carefree but for someone like me it takes time and conscience effort. I have come a long way and life is much more enjoyable when you can just go for it, come what may.
Beverly, I’m actually a lot like that as well. I have to make a conscious effort to remember that I don’t set out just to not fail. I set out to really succeed.
All those thoughts about worst case scenarios still go through my head, I just have to make sure I don’t pay more attention to them than the real goal.
Excellent points. Fear is so paralyzing that it can keep you from missing out on great opportunities. One of the biggest fears is the fear of failure. So many people are afraid to take a chance because of the possibility that they will not succeed.
And some people are afraid of success, but that’s a whole ‘nother topic!
I’ve been thinking about fear a lot recently, mostly because I am unemployed and have been wanting to take risks with my writing, including working on my first ebook. Writing a book (ebook or paper) is something I’ve wanted to do for years, but never made the time for it until now, because I have the time. Sometimes when you hit a wall, you just have to face those fears.
I also find that I have some incredibly supportive friends and family members to talk to about my fears, who help me to push through them.
Hey Lisa,
Surrounding yourself with supportive friends is one of the most important things you can do. It’s really true that the people you hang out with will play a huge part in determining the type of person you are.
Good luck with your writing!
I love this series on fear Tyler! I’ve been thinking about the topic quite a bit myself. I keep thinking of this quote from Dune: “Fear is the Mindkiller.” I’m also the type of person who will runs through “what if” scenarios in my head until I back down from what I want to do.
Except those things probably will never happen. The world isn’t nearly as frightening a place as you can make it in your head.
I always tell myself the worst case scenario and then realize that I could solve it/work through it, if it is necessary.
Thanks for mentioning family and kids in your recent writings. Now my wife can not use the excuse “that’s not for people that are married with children”. Thanks for keeping it risky!
[...] on fear, I can’t stop thinking about the two articles that Tyler Tervooren posted over at Advanced Riskology about—you guessed [...]
Hey Tyler. First off, thanks for starting this blog. My old photography professor Sybil Miller recommended it a few days ago and I’ve been visiting it every day.
When I graduated from college this May, I had a few dreams, some of which I successfully achieved, some of which I tried and failed. My biggest handicap was shyness. After moving to Dallas, I decided I wanted to start a small photography business doing portraits, but I had incredible difficulty wooing new customers. I didn’t believe in myself and it showed.
After using up my savings, I finally decided to get a salaried job to tide me over while I rethought my approach. This sounds odd, but that shitty, salaried job (managing a retail store in the mall) has completely changed my approach to people. I suppose you could say I just got desensitized. However, seeing the evil side of every middle aged woman with an out-of-date coupon has taught me a lot about being assertive and not letting people walk all over me. This has been an extremely valuable lesson, and while I certainly have plans for a different career path, I can’t help but be grateful for the tough skin I’ve developed in this position.
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