Through my personal search for self-improvement I’ve come across the concept of fear consistently in books, blogs, social media posts, podcasts, and interviews. Fear is part of the human experience. We’re all afraid of something. It’s not possible, or even helpful, to be ‘fearless.’

We can learn to embrace and ‘use’ fear rather than turning away from it or attempting to somehow get rid of it. Fear is useful.

Have you ever considered what you’re afraid of?

If you do, you may realize how much fear drives us — ways we think, ways we act, or ways we make decisions. Often fear is a result of conditioning. Our brain goes on autopilot, playing out the same patterns we’ve either learned from others or created for ourselves. There is value in making the time to reflect consistently to tease out the patterns of thought, the habits, and the routines that you execute without even thinking about.

What does fear look, sound, and feel like?

Fear comes in many shapes and sizes. Let’s look at the underlying, conditioned fears within our own mind — the patterns of thought which subconsciously drive us. Consider:

The fear of making a mistake, the fear of disappointing someone or letting them down, the fear of looking weird or looking incompetent, the fear of others not liking us, and on and on. Or perhaps the two most powerful… the fear of not being enough or the fear of losing something.

A common word we use to describe feeling afraid is ‘stressed.’ Tony Robbins says “stress is the achiever word for fear” and I believe there is a lot of truth to this. Pause for a moment. Think back to a recent time you felt stressed. Can you find the hint of fear at the heart of that ‘stress’? If you reflect genuinely and honestly you’ll find it. Let me give you an example.

The other day I found myself feeling ‘stressed’ at the thought of my particularly jam packed schedule — meeting after meeting from morning until afternoon with only a 30 minute break. My ‘mental chatter’ went something like:

“How will I get everything done? How will I keep up with emails, complete my daily tasks, be available for my team, stay present and focused during my meetings, take good notes, follow-up on the actions items, keep up my energy level, not lose my cool if interrupted, and leave on time to make it home for dinner? Meanwhile no one will even notice and certainly won’t appreciate all I have to do.”

If we dig a little deeper, perhaps you can tease out the underlying fears. There is a clear fear of not letting others down. There is a fear of what others think. There is fear of not being enough… a fear of not getting it all done… a fear that “no one will even notice and certainly won’t appreciate all I have to do.” There is even fear of losing something. A fear of losing control over my day, my priorities, and my emotions.

The point here isn’t that this fear is bad or that we somehow need to remove it. We only need to be more intelligent about our fear and decide to ‘use’ it.

After reflecting on my fears I made some intelligent decisions. First, I re-prioritized. I looked at my schedule and revisited my priorities for that day, that week, that month, and that year. Those meetings that didn’t align with my priorities I either declined or delegated. Secondly, I drafted a memo to my team explaining my availability and giving them set windows of time that I would be most available – allowing space for those ‘interruptions’. And finally I made it an explicit daily goal to leave on time which makes it far more likely that I will follow through.

I used my fear to create more control. I used my fear as motivation to create the type of day I wanted to live, not a day that someone else created for me.

The question is are you using your fear intelligently?

How can you start ‘using’ your fear today?

• Set aside 3-5 minutes to reflect on a recent experience of ‘stress.’ Think about what was at the heart of that feeling. What underlying fear is there? Make this reflection routine when you feel ‘stressed.’
• Take this reflection a step further by contemplating death. Death is a powerful motivator and ironically can be a great way to free yourself to live more fully. For more inspiration click here to read “The Tail End” by Tim Urban.
• Check out the concept of ‘Fear Setting’ explained by Tim Ferriss in a recent TedTalk. He outlines a very practical approach. Try it! Click here to view on YouTube