“Waiting to develop courage is another form of procrastination, don’t let fear hold you back.”

On today’s Coachcast we talk about facing our fears and taking action while you are afraid.

Everyday we all face fears that hold us back.  These can be large fears that hold us back from taking massive action or small fears that delay taking little steps.  Either way, we find ourselves crippled by fear.  This can be small things like waiting to make that call to your client about a past due invoice or potential change issue.  they can also be large things like avoiding making that move into a new market for fear of failing or fear of success.

To be successful we need to learn to action while we are afraid.  We need to recognize our fears and work through them.  Trying to eliminate them doesn’t work, fear is an emotion that exists in us for a reason.  It makes us cautious and more calculated.  We don’t want to suppress our fears, we want to learn how to work within them.

This is something that happens by just flipping a switch, it takes time and continuous effort to get comfortable working within our fears but the outcome is worth the effort.  By learning to deal with our fears we can avoid the things that are holding us back and keeping us from living a full life.

Dal Carnegie said inaction breed doubt and fear and action breeds confidence and courage.  The key point he makes is about taking action.  Notice that our inaction breeds doubt and fear and to counter that we need to take action.  Taking action is the most important thing we can do to face our fears and work within them.

[tweetthis]Waiting to develop courage is another form of procrastination, don’t let fear hold you back[/tweetthis]

To take this on we need to recognize the things that give us fear and tackle them.  When you are making your daily plans and you have tasks that cause fear you need to tackle those first.  Eat the frog first as Brian Tracy would say.  By tackling these difficult tasks first we get them over with and we can stop dwelling on them and focus on the rest of our day.

There are some things that can help you work within your fears.  In order to take action it’s important to prepare for taking action and get yourself in the proper mindset.  Before you get ready to tackle these tasks to a few minutes to get yourself ready.

You can start by working on some gratitude, I am sure there are people out there that would give anything to be in your situation and have the opportunities that you have.  You need to remember that and have an attitude of gratitude.

Take another couple of minutes to reflect on your past successes.  We all have times in the past where we faced out fears and the outcome was successful.  We even have times when the outcome wasn’t successful but it wasn’t near as bad as we feared it to be.  Reflect on those times to help build your confidence to push forward.

Last, re-frame your negative thoughts into positive ones.  We often think the worst is going to happen and get caught up in the fear of that outcome.  Taking some time to re-frame the potential outcomes in a positive light can help ease the discomfort with taking action.

Now that you have yourself in the right mindset just remember your vision and reasons why and take action.  If you always act with the right intentions that fit with your values, vision and goals you can never make the decisions.

Take-Action Items

1. Recognize the things you fear

2. Tackle these first each day

3. Prepare for taking action by

   1. Having gratitude

   2. Reflecting on past successes

   3. Re-framing to positive outcome

4. Take action based on your values, vision and goals