Overcome your greatest fear

* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podcast audio

 In a training this week, I was asked a question, which is how did I overcome my fear of public speaking? And it really made me think about the concept of fear and how you can navigate working through anything that scares you. So in today’s episode of the podcast, I’m going to be talking to you about overcoming fear.

 As I shared in the intro for today’s episode of the podcast, something I’ve been doing a lot more of recently is speaking and in particular paid speaking. I am really enjoying it, which just absolutely blows my mind as someone who had such a terrifying fear of public speaking that I couldn’t even speak in a meeting at my work. I have tried so many different modalities over the years to try and work through this fear of mine. And I truly do believe that I’ve got to a point where for the most part, I Have the fear under control. And I actually am really starting to enjoy the process of speaking in public or even speaking on podcasts. Gosh, I remember the first podcast that I was a guest on, I literally had a panic attack and we had to stop the recording. And these days I appear on podcasts all the time, and I honestly can’t even remember the last time I got nervous. I’m so used to it by now.

So let’s, first of all, start with where fear comes from.

Our fear is our body trying to keep us safe. And whether you realise it or not, you may have had an experience where your body tried to do something and got scared and decided, well, I ain’t doing that again. We might not even be conscious of when it happened. Okay I know that I’ve tried to think back to when my fear originated, and I can’t actually pinpoint a single incident. So, there mightn’t have been one particular incident, it might have been a number, or it might be something that I can’t even remember. But nonetheless, the reason that fear is there is to try and keep us safe. It’s like, Hey, this thing’s really dangerous, or this thing’s really scary. When you did it before something bad happened, or we felt like something bad was going to happen so let’s avoid doing this thing.

Now I want you to take a moment and have a think about what your fears are. And you might’ve noticed when you actually start to think about this, that they have changed over time. I know I’ve definitely gone through periods with flying where it feels a bit icky. For the most part, I’m fine. But I know once I had a really terrible flight, I was shaking by the end of the flight. I did not want to get on another plane again. So you might’ve had something that has always been a fear of yours. You may have had a relationship with fear in a particular area that’s been worse at some particular times and not so bad at other times. But it’s just really curious to start to explore what those fears are. And I really don’t believe that it’s important to understand the source of where it came from to be able to navigate through it. But I do think that recognising that it’s there and also recognising you want to navigate through it is also very important.

For example, if say my fear of flying had continued, I am someone who is a passionate traveler. That would have really gotten in the way of me being able to get out and see the world and travel. So I had a really strong incentive to get over that fear. Likewise, with my fear of public speaking, it was so bad that I couldn’t even film myself to post a story on Instagram. And what I realised was that if I wanted to build that know, like, and trust connection with my audience, I needed to be able to let them see my personality and see if there was going to be a click or a fit there. It was something that I recognised was holding me back. And so I really said, Hey, I’m going to need to work through this fear if I want to step into my next level.

So take a moment and have a think that’s the fear. What’s the incentive? What’s the motivation to be able to navigate through it?

Because I’m a money coach, I’m going to give a money example here as well. Let’s just say that you have a fear of looking at your numbers. Let’s just say that you have a fear of investing in your business. Let’s just say that you have a fear of selling any of these things might be limiting your ability to scale as a business owner. So that’s a pretty strong incentive to want to navigate through it. So when starting on this journey, I tried everything, which I think is always a great strategy when you are wanting to solve a problem. So many people when they are faced with a problem, think I’ve got a problem. It’s too hard. I’m going to ignore it. Or maybe they might try one thing and then be like, I tried to fix it and it didn’t work.

Now, if you’ve been a listener of the podcast for a while, you will know that another big thing that happened to me in my life was that I was in a major car accident a couple of years ago. And having been on that journey, a lot of people have shared with me their own stories about having a similar thing happen, being in a major car accident and some people never navigated through it and they said, I tried this, it didn’t work and so I just don’t drive anymore. Or I’m just in chronic, constant pain. Now, when this challenge came up for me, I went all in on, you name it, I was trying it, I tried acupuncture, I was doing hypnotherapy and I really think that trying different things and not just, don’t just do one session of something and say it didn’t work, but you know, giving something a serious shot and seeing if it works for you. It’s a really great strategy because this is the other thing, sometimes something that will work really well for one person isn’t going to work the same for someone else. So I do believe that you have to try things that might help for you. So there’s strategies like external strategies, like kinesiology or Reiki, like actual healing modalities. You could also try things like therapy and actually processing the trauma and understanding where it’s come from, talking through it, lots of different things. I tried hypnotherapy many years ago and it cost me a lot of money. But again, I had a really strong motivation to work through this. So what happened when I was doing the hypnotherapy was that it actually did work a little bit, but then I had an incidence where I went into total fear panic mode, and then my subconscious mind decided this hasn’t worked. And so what happened because my subconscious belief was there, see hypnotherapy doesn’t work, it became a self fulfilling prophecy.

So trying different things is a really fantastic way. Something that didn’t work for me, might work really well for you, but I’m gonna share the biggest thing that worked for me. And it was this, it’s called exposure therapy. If you aren’t familiar with exposure therapy, let me explain how it works. Essentially, with your fears, you will have a different, I guess, levels of how much the fear brings up in you.

So for example, for me, public speaking wise, something recently, actually, I was placed in an opportunity where I could speak to 4, 000 people. My body went into proper panic mode. I was really unprepared for, I, I, it was such a big leap and level up that when the moment came, I was absolutely terrified. Because that is like one of the scariest things for me. Then talking to a group of 100, 150 might be like an eight out of 10 talking to a smaller group of people now, like a room full of you know, 20 people might be I don’t know, a five out of 10 and talking on a podcast where I’m sitting in a room, talking to a camera, like I am right now might be a one out of 10.

So basically what you can do with your fear, whatever it is, think about giving little steps and putting things from steps one to step 10 in terms of the most scary way that this could be exposed to you to something that you think that you could handle.

Another thing that I’m scared of is snakes. Right? So a 10 out of 10 for a snake would be actually holding a snake and having to touch it. Oh, I get the heebie jeebies even just thinking about, but a one out of 10 might be looking at a picture of a snake. Like I can look at a picture of a snake and my body doesn’t have too much of a reaction.

So have a think for you. If you can put things on a scale, something that’s a little bit scary, but you think you’d be all right up to things that are absolutely terrifying for you. And then the way that exposure therapy works is that instead of jumping straight to The 10 out of 10 most scariest thing, you try doing things a little bit at a time. And what you do is you do the things that are the least scary way of being exposed to this thing until you get to the point where it’s super comfortable. So an example of this, What is me speaking, doing a live on Instagram, I now do not get scared at all doing that. I don’t prepare. I can open up my phone, start talking, and that doesn’t scare me to do that. But I know that many years ago, that was a 10 out of 10 scary for me. To be talking live with no notes, anyone could comment or jump in at any time, that terrified me, but because I’ve done it so many times now, it’s not something that scares me anymore.

So this is what I want you to check in on is how you can write things and then how you can start to just do the thing again and again and again and again until it becomes easy for you. This is really related to brain science, which I know that I’ve been talking about recently. But essentially, we have neural pathways, and the way that I think about neural pathways is that it’s like a walking track. If you’ve ever been bush walking, you’ll know what I mean, you know how there’s that well trodden path. Think of those as things that are in your brain, and if you are wanting to create a new bushwalk or a new path, I know that my brothers and sisters and I like to do that. We’d go and bash down and try and bash down a new path. It’s actually a lot harder to create a new path than it is to keep walking on the existing one. So that’s what our brain does. If something’s been there well ingrained so many times, that’s our default way of thinking. And to go and do something new, it’s scary. And so what we need to do is we need to like form that new pathway until our brain then thinks, Oh, this is, this is okay. This is new. This is normal. A bit like me with doing my lives on Instagram, right? Now I’ve done it so many times that the new neural pathways formed. My brain’s like, no, that ain’t scary for me anymore. Does that make sense?

So have a think about how you can start to do the thing that scares you up to a level that stretches you, but doesn’t terrify or retraumatise you and just keep doing it again, and again, and again, and again, and again. And I want to be honest with you, when you are doing this thing, particularly if it’s stretching your bit, which it really should be. It’s going to suck. It’s not going to be fun, but you know, growth isn’t meant to be comfortable. When I first started speaking, for example, I wasn’t like, Oh, this is fantastic. It still felt yuck, but you do it and you do it and you do it and you do it until you get to the point where you’re like, Oh, This isn’t so bad.

It’s the same with having difficult conversations. I know when I first started managing a team, it was so awkward to have a performance conversation or have a, an icky conversation about something. But the more and more that you do it, the more that your brain starts to say, this is okay. I can have a conversation. It can be uncomfortable and I’ll still be okay on the other side. So this is what you’re wanting to do, expose yourself, push through the discomfort, keep doing it again and again and again, and again, and again, until there’s a new neural pathway formed that says, Hey, this thing’s actually okay. And you know what? You might even start to enjoy that thing that scared you. It’s true. I know you’re thinking it’s not possible, but I can genuinely say I really am starting to enjoy speaking and inspiring people and being able to be in front of new audiences. I really do feel like this is part of my purpose and mission, and maybe the thing that scares you is as well, maybe it will open up new opportunities, new windows for you.

So I really believe that the best way to navigate through fear is by doing the thing that you’re scared of and try not to do it on a macro scale straight away. Because like I said, that my action may actually retraumatise you, try and just do it bit by bit step up until it gets to the point where it’s comfortable. So whatever your fear is, I really encourage you to start to embrace it and remember the growth comes through discomfort. And on the other side of that fear might just be some beautiful opportunities waiting for you.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s episode of the podcast, and I can’t wait to drop by and chat to you again next week. Adios.

* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podcast audio