“I’m afraid to try something new!”

I hear so many people tell me this! 

They say they want something to happen. They’re passionate about what they want to do. They tell me they have the qualifications, maybe the experience as well - and they certainly have the desire.

So WHY AREN’T THEY ALREADY DOING IT?

“I’m afraid to try,” they say.

Imagine.

“I’m afraid to try.”

Might that be you? A tiny bit??

You know what? Many of my Design your Future clients were afraid too before they started working with me. They knew, or thought they knew, what they wanted, but actually getting it? Too afraid. (Not any more!)

 “Afraid to try”

Well, thank goodness you didn’t have these fears when you were a baby - or you’d still be in your pram! Thing is, we all have fears and while fear of the unknown is very, very natural it’s just that - a fear. I used to be afraid of trying new things!

It was years before I dared write my first book (years that you could say were wasted.) I told myself that no-one would want to know what I knew I would never be good enough. I convinced myself I was an impostor all that kind of nonsense and once I actually stepped out of my comfort zone and WROTE the thing it opened the floodgates! As people loved the books I was encouraged to write more of them. I’m now up to no.16 and counting!

All that fear that held me back …

Learned fear

But fortunately for us, we are born with only two fears - fear of falling and fear of loud noises. Those are part of the APGAR tests they do on newborns - you know to test for neurological deficits. They look for the specific startle responses a healthy baby makes the baby makes a sort of star jump and that’s all there is - fear of falling, and fear of loud noises. 

EVERYTHING else is a learned fear something we’ve decided to be afraid of. Did you know that?

You made up the rest of ‘em!

That’s why some people are afraid of heights

Or dogs,

Or water,

And most people aren’t.

It’s a fear they picked up somewhere along the way perhaps an over-protective parent telling them “Mind you don’t fall” …

Perhaps someone else who was afraid of those things transmitted that fear? or perhaps they had a nasty experience themselves and decided automatically that all such interactions forever more, would be bad. It’s understandable that if a dog bit you. You’d be wary of dogs in the future but it’s not sensible!

There are reasons things happen and learning how not to provoke a bite from a dog and allowing all the enjoyable times you can have with dogs would be far more helpful. It would be a much more profitable use of your energy and take the shackles off your life!

Thing is, whatever the fear is and however it arrived it’s a LEARNED fear and if you can learn something ..

You can UNLEARN it!

Can you see how this works? That you can manage any fears you may have, and find a better way forward?

Next time we’ll take a look at the emotions and thoughts driving these fears - and how to resolve them!