You’re never going to feel ready to do something new.

Of course, it will be uncomfortable, even scary. That is normal. If you wait for the fear to go away, you’ll never do anything.

It’s NOT about making the fear disappear.

Is IS about not letting the fear run your life.

Here are 5 sneaky ways fear keeps you stuck and what you can do to take back control.

1. Fear, fears action. It’s terrified you’re going to take the next step and the next and the next. Fears job is to keep you paralyzed. Fear knows, once you act you will prove fear wrong and see it’s not so scary after all.

Action Item: Make a plan. List out all the things you need to do to accomplish your goal. Schedule a time you’re going to work on each step. Most importantly, execute one small step!

2. Fear always says forever. It says the thing you want to do will take an eternity. Fear can’t stand deadlines. It wants to be untethered by any semblance of time. Fear’s goal is to keep you stuck forever. Forever is a really loooonnng time.

Action item: Set 3 deadlines; daily weekly and monthly.

3. Fear grows best in isolation. Fear hates being shared. It knows you’re designed to grapple with it alone. You don’t tell anyone you’re afraid of failing or that you think you’re not enough. It knows you’ll hide.

Action Item: Get a coach or accountability partner. Talk to your family and friends. When you do this they tell your fear to shut up!

They’ll tell you, ” Hey, you got nothing to lose. Go for it. That’s a great idea. I can’t wait to see how that turns out for you. What do you need from me? I’d love to support you as you take on this new thing.”

Fear does not want you to bring in other people, especially people who are going to encourage you to act.

4. Fear is a magnifying glass and makes everything bigger and scarier than it really is. When you keep all those thoughts that scare you in your head, fear has access to your goal and feeds them with more fear.

Action Item: Write out your goals and exactly what is scary about them. This gets the fear out of your head. Then go back and write a counter statement to each fear.

Something like this:

Fear: I’m afraid I’ll fail.
Counter statement: I’m going to start, and I’ll learn something along the way.

Fear: I’m afraid people will judge me.
Counter statement: It really doesn’t matter what other people think of me. It only matters what I think, and I’ll always wonder what could’ve been if I had only tried.

5. Fear is blinding and all consuming. Its goal is to keep you so busy up in your head doubting yourself that you completely forget WHY this is so important to you. Don’t stare so long at your fear that you lose sight of your vision.

Action Item: Revisit your WHY. Why is this important to you? Before fear got a hold of you, what about this goal excited you?

When it comes to fear, always ask yourself, “What’s the worst that can happen?” You’ll find fear is nothing more than a bully.

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The Habit of Self-Doubt: Crush It and Build Real Confidence