How being surrounded by Sharks made me think twice about my fear of public speaking
I’ve been working from Portugal for the last few weeks and taking full advantage of the beautiful beaches by going surfing nearly every day.
On about my 5th day, I was out on my surfboard, feet dangling on the side when suddenly I thought of the movie Jaws.
Great…
My mind then proceeded to play tricks on me, imagining loads of sharks in the distance, surrounding me below, my heart jumping whenever I saw a weird shadow in the water.
This went on for a few minutes until I managed to calm myself down, realising it was all in my head and rationalising with the fact that there were supposedly no sharks in Portugal.
The fear didn’t completely go away but I stayed in the water and continued surfing. By the end of the week I had forgotten about sharks all together.
For me this was a perfect illustration of how our fears are a direct result of the quality of our thinking.
As a general rule of thumb, any fear that doesn’t involve real immediate danger is purely fabricated in the mind.
Fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of public speaking, fear of death etc…
While these fears are absolutely legitimate for the person feeling them and in no way am I saying that they don't feel real.
They are still a direct result of the quality of our thoughts and fabricated by our mind.
“I would like to start my own business, but I let my fear take over by imagining I will be worthless if I fail.”
“I would like to speak in public, but I let my fear take over by imagining I’m going to embarrass myself.”
Some of these fears are so strong that they completely immobilize us from taking any form of action.
But most of the time, these fears don’t really stop us from going ahead and doing things anyways.
Fear doesn’t need to be an obstacle we need to overcome.
It’s possible to just do things scared.
And with time, the more we do it the less scary it will feel.
So next time you feel a fear of something, ask yourself: Would it still be possible for me to take action while feeling this fear?
If the answer is yes, don’t try to beat the fear, just do it scared.
If the answer is no and you really want to change that, send me a DM.
How does YOUR mind play tricks on you?
Fill out this sentence in the comments:
“I would like to XXXXX, but I let my fear take over by imagining XXXXX.”
#personaldevelopment #overcomingfears #publicspeaking #motivation
