Do What Scares You

Everyone is afraid of something. And how successful you are depends on how much fear you step into every day.

This is not life threatening fears that I am talking about. It’s the mental blocks that prevent you from doing absolutely safe yet-for-some-reason-scary things.

For example — the fear of failure. The fear that prevents you from doing things that you’ve never done before. I found a mental trick that helps me personally to step over that fear. Think of it this way. If you decide not to attempt to do it then you have failed by default. Your outcome was zero. You did not attempt to change that. You outcome stayed zero. On the other hand if you’ve attempted — but failed — now your outcome is more than zero. It’s a progress right there. You’ve failed forward.

The fear of being judged by others is the most powerful one. The most limiting one. I’ve been battling it for over 3 years now. You are always judged. That’s just how humans are wired. But how not to be afraid of it? The solution here is to understand what’s the worst can happen and then test your theory, i.e. create that outcome or situation that you’re afraid of on purpose and live through it.

For example — I’ve recently had a glamour nude photoshoot with a Playboy model. That was the first time I’ve photographed a naked girl that I’ve just met 5 minutes ago. Scary, because for one — most certainly she judged my ability to create a rapport with her and a setting for her to comfortably get naked. And for two — the end result. Most likely she will judge my pictures of her. She will compare them with the ones she made before — and I can tell you for sure — that comparison won’t be in my favour.

You see what I’ve described above is the fear talking. Because what do I really know? Nothing, unless I’ll ask her and she’ll give me her honest answers. Which might not ever happen. Yet, I am already afraid. But the whole point of doing that photoshoot was to live through that fear. Live through that failure.

I’ve done it.

One fear down. One failure up.

Many more to work on. But now I am more confident than ever. Now I am stronger than ever.

What are you afraid of?