4 fears holding everyone back

The Sunday Night Review #175

This week has been wild.

I launched a new product to my YouTube email list last week, and I’ve been talking to lots of YouTubers about it since.

In total since last Thursday, I’ve had 19 sales calls.

And I had 6 of those on Thursday alone (stupidly forgot to block off lunch in my calendar).

It’s been trial by fire.

I had no idea what was going to happen, I thought I’d just open applications and see what came through.

Fortunately, it seems to have worked. I went from idea to marketing to sales in less than a week.

Crazy. Apparently, you can just do stuff.

But throughout, I’ve had a reminder of a valuable lesson.

I was scared to launch the product to my audience. I worried that it wouldn’t work, and I’d look stupid for trying.

But fear doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do something.

It often means you should. If you feel scared it’s because you care, because you don’t want to mess up, because it’s important to you.

Instead of fear being something that you run away from, fear can be something that guides you.

I think a lot about something the psychologist Corey Wilkes says “when you make fear known, you rob fear of its power over you”.

So sometimes I say to myself:

“ok, I’m scared of quitting my job, right, what does that mean? What am I actually scared of? Is it what other people think? Or my career falling apart? Or having no money? What’s probably going to happen? If the worst case scenario happened, what would I do to fix it? What fear am I avoiding? Am I just scared of failing? Is that so bad?”

Stuff like this swirls around my head.

So, to make it less swirly inside my tiny brain, I often write stuff down.

Then you really make fear known. When the words “I am scared of failing” stare back at you from the page, you see things more clearly.

Plus, it makes it easier to categorise your fear.

Corey says there are only four types of fear:

1. Fear of Failure – You’re scared to mess up, so you don’t start.

2. Fear of Ridicule – You’re scared of what people will think, so you stay quiet.

3. Fear of Uncertainty – You’re scared of what will happen, so you stay in your comfort zone.

4. Fear of Success – You’re scared of big changes, so you hold yourself back.

He calls these The Four Horsemen of Fear.

Each one holds you back from doing one big really important thing.

Trying.

If you expect to fail, and people to judge you, and are scared of not knowing, and aren’t willing to change, then you never try.

And trying is the most important and underrated shortcut to getting what you want in life. Because you can’t win if you never start.

Trying defeats fear. It makes things less scary. And it’s the only thing you can truly control.

It’s all about having a go. Starting. Attempting. Trying.

Almost everything is learnable. But you have to try first.

It’s a lesson I keep on learning.

Many good things in life come down stream of an attempt.

Have an epic week!

Tintin 🫡

P.s.

Corey explains this stuff way better than I do.

He has a bunch of resources that are worth checking out around this.

1. His article and video about the four horsemen of fear.

2. His interview on Modern Wisdom with Chris Williamson.

Thanks for reading The Sunday Night Review!