Make Fear Your Friend to Achieve Your Goals

Fear – we all hate that feeling of being uncomfortable and scared. Fear also shows up in anxiety, overwhelm , feeling stuck, and self-doubt. Fear has many masks.

However it shows up for you, fear stops you from taking action to go to the next level in your life. As a result, you can’t live in your highest version of yourself and be happier.

Let me use this analogy to help you understand conceptually how you may be allowing fear to keep you playing small.

If you look at a spaceship, it needs to have to enough momentum to escape the gravitational force field in order to enter space. Once the rocket enters space, then it’s smooth gliding from there and the view is phenomenal, isn’t it?

Now imagine that YOU are the spaceship and the gravitational force field is your comfort zone, and outside of your comfort zone is fear. You need to have enough momentum and energy to take yourself past this force field in order to really get to where you need to get to when it comes to achieving your goals – whether that’s making new friends, trying a new hobby, changing your relationship with food, achieving your dream body, starting a new business or letting go of a toxic relationship.

Once you achieve your goal, you experience a state of feeling exhilarated, powerful, and proud of yourself, amongst other amazing feelings. It’s truly incredible how the Universe really does provide you the supports you need to help you get to where you want to go, when you are truly opened to it.

Whatever your “goal” is, let yourself make friends with fear, because without it, your goals are not challenging you enough to get you into your Highest Self. So making friends with fear is about leaning into the resistance, rather than avoiding or fighting it.

Here’s an example. My client Kate (note: name is changed to maintain confidentiality) came to see me because she wants to lose weight and feels frustrated with not achieving this goal. She has been following a very structured eating plan. However, her approach to her relationship with food has her constantly obsessed with it- from the amount of time she has to take planning and prepping so that she eats the perfect amount of protein, carbs, fats down to the measurement, to thinking about the next meal she eats, to figuring out how to sneak in that cupcake and then work out extra hard so she can eat it, to overindulging at parties at the bread and dessert table, to obsessing over the number on the scale and getting frustrated that the results are not happening fast enough…she cannot stop obsessing about food, and it completely controls her life. She’s constantly thinking or talking about losing weight to her friends and family.

What I invite Kate to do next is to learn to let go of control in her relationship with food. The very aspect that keeps her tight and controlled is the same aspect that is keeping her playing small and “falsely safe”. Letting go of control of course brings up extreme amount of discomfort and fear. “If I let go of being so structured and controlling with food, how will I ever lose weight?!” This does not make sense to Kate because her fear makes her believe that letting go emotionally and mentally is equivalent of letting herself go physically. In fact, this is not true.

Kate needs the “momentum” of learning to face her fear and work through it, which is where I come in to support and guide her with strategies so that she can pierce past the boundaries of her comfort zone (that is, how she was going into relationship with food).

After only working with Kate for a few sessions and having her understand the negative impact control had over her in mind, body and spirit, and learning tools to approach her relationship with food and her body in a more loving, gentle way, she started to lose the weight. Today, Kate has lost her goal weight and more importantly, speaks to herself kindly and feels at peace in her relationship with food. She is “soaring” and feeling free! Yay Kate!

If you’re inspired and resonate with Kate’s story, I’d love to support you as a Self-Love Transformational Coach!