Big, Fat FEAR Holding You Down in a Head-Lock?

You know that fear right?

You've written an awesome article and want to send it to your favourite website, but instead you stare at your computer screen for hours, watching cat videos and feeling the fear build up.

You feel paralysed with terror that you'll put yourself out there - your services, your talent and your creativity and someone will say "this is no good".

You want to quit your cubicle corporate job but that little voice inside says "You'll never be able to make money with your passion, it's safer to sit here until the right opportunity comes along".

"Next year, next time... I'll wait for the fear to subside before I take action."

Does that sound familiar?

I use trick tactics to wrestle that fear. I've been known to quite literally force myself into situations to confront it dead on.

Public speaking sends me into sweaty, heart palpitations but I keep forcing myself to do it by booking dates and seminars where I have to show up. One of my first real jobs at age 17 was doing crowd warm up presenting for children's shows. Twice a day, I had to make a largely impromptu 15 minute speech to hundreds of children, bored teenagers and their parents. I simply had to get over it or I would be fired.

Once I'm up on stage, I usually have no problem opening my mouth and pouring reasonably coherent words out. But the thought of it still scares me. Every time.

Here's the bad news - fear will never completely go away. The stars will never align perfectly and you wake up every day pumped to pursue your dreams. I have heard many, many successful people say this (although some days are much easier than others).

The fear will be ever present but it will come up in different forms. What's scary for you today won't be as scary for you tomorrow. You might almost wet your pants over sending an article out to your local paper, but after a few times it won't be a big deal. Then someone suggest you send it to the Huffington Post and you'll feel like throwing up!

It's part of being human, we're always looking to learn and grow. Then you'll have something new to fear. Isn't that great?! David Neagle calls it "New level, new Devil".

Just because I overcame that fear when I was 17, doesn't mean it's still not scary. I have to constantly dance around the edges of that fear by doing the same thing. I'll book a new teleseminar date, get people to sign up and then I have to do it. I'll commit to a workshop date and the fear of letting others down forces me to write a speech and turn up.

I do the same thing with my coaching clients. Together we set actions that you can't back out of, and that move you forward in awesome ways. Auditions, article proposals, workshop dates, etc. And great things happen - new opportunities, pay increases, published articles, workshops, all which may not have happened without taking the plunge and committing no matter what. (By the way, so amazingly proud of all of you).

You know what? Sometimes your worst fear does come true. You'll get a bad review, you'll get an article rejection, someone makes an idiot comment on your blog. It's never as bad as you think. It does suck, but you're insulated somewhat because you did it - you took action and it's awesome.

So, let's demystify the fear. It comes up for everyone and there's no point looking for a complete cure. I see that as a wonderful thing. You can relax and know that fear is never going to leave you entirely so take that as your sign that you can move forward.

My mantra since those days as children's show presenter was: "Fear gives you the energy you need to do your best in a new situation". It really helped me re-frame the fear. It wasn't a blockage, it was helping me by making me more aware, more energetic and very present to what was going on around me.

Once you've realised your fear is like that stalker friend, you can just move through it. How? As Mike Dooley says "Visualise daily and take baby steps". That's it.

So, don't wait until you're ready. Make it happen by tricks and self-delusion if you have to. It may be the only way, but that's fine. Just take that first step today, ok?