Recognize Fear

A friend recently asked me, “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”

Cliff diving?

Deep sea spelunking?

Thanks, but no thanks…

Hold a snake?

Run into a burning pet store to save a bunch of snakes?

I don’t think that’s what she meant. It’s more of what you could accomplish, what you could be, how you could leave your mark upon the world.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized it’s not an easy answer. It really starts with “what does ‘afraid’ feel like?”

Fear is insidious in how it appears - maybe it's hunger or procrastination or the idea that "I can get to that later." Maybe it’s “I’ll just hit that snooze button one more time…”

Fear of monsters under the bed, falling off a high building, or being crushed by a pearl white baby grand piano are easy to identify and describe.

The fear of success...? Maybe not so much.

To make matters worse, that feeling of “afraid” will change – fear is sneaky like that!

My challenge is to recognize that my instinct to check Facebook when I feel “stuck,” to grab a piece of chocolate, to see if I’ve received anymore emails in the past three minutes, whatever is distracting me from my task is a shade of being afraid.

How do you recognize fear, in all its many forms? How do you push through? Take time this week to notice. Let me know in the comments below what strategies work for you!