fear

Fear is a common theme in life coaching. But not the type of fear you feel when you’re crossing a road and the Number 60 appears from nowhere and bears down on you!

The fear that is relevant is the one that you feel when you consider doing something that is challenging to your sense of personal comfort or personal identity. To do something that a shy person wouldn’t do, to do something that a person who can’t date wouldn’t do, to do something that someone who is heterosexual wouldn’t do. To do the unthinkable, although, in reality, you may have thought of little else for the past ten years.

It can be as real a fear as the one you feel when the Number 60 is only inches away. It can be flat-out panic, it can be totally and physically overwhelming, it can be so great that you are unable to even consider getting through whatever it was you were considering or starting. It may be so frightening that you have never even got close to it.

Equally, it may be so low key that you don’t recognize it as fear, don’t know why you can’t push yourself ahead. At this level, fear is probably a greater enemy to you, because you are not aware what’s at work, making it more difficult to do anything about it.

There are ways to spot fears, and ways to deal with them. In the end, this type of fear can become a positive emotion and a valued one: when you feel the fear, you know there’s something worthwhile ahead, something worth pushing into, because the emotion is telling you are up against a block, that thing that stops you achieving, and if you push now, you will get through it.

Don’t let the blocks block you. Feel the fear and don’t just do it anyway, enjoy it! Know that when you feel the fear, life is just beginning to get interesting.