Why We Fear Starting And How To Overcome It
When you first come up with a new goal or find something new you might like to try, it’s easy to be excited by the possibilities and how it might change your life.
However, too often after the inital rush of excitement wears off, you delay starting.
There’s many reasons for this: time restraints, not knowing where to begin, or thinking of all the things that could go wrong.
Most of the time, though, you don’t start because we’re scared.
But what are you afraid of?
Failure
Success
Being seen
Not being seen
The unknown
It not being exactly how you envisioned it
That you’re judged
That you’re praised and held to a higher standard
That others have done it and done it better
That you’re not capable
And so on, ad nauseam.
Whatever that fear is, it often prevents us from actually starting. Maybe it feels futile, or that it’s better to stay still and quiet and not change much.
I like examples and have three examples from my own life wehere some level of fear/worry/nerves held me back.
Playing Guitar
I put off learning guitar for a long time because I was worried it was frivilous, which I’d been taught was wrong. That I shouldn’t do something unless I can get something from it.
That inner voice, the critical one, would say what if people find out, what will they think I’m trying to do? It’s completely insane and unjustified, so many people play guitar, but these are the places our brains go to. I forget I can do it just for the hell of it, just because I like it.
Starting a history podcast
I’ve wanted to start a history podcast for a long time. I studied history as part of my degree and have always loved it. When the excitement wares off, however, my brian turns to fear: what if no one listens, or worse, what if everyone does and hates it?
It’s also the size of the task, the work involved. It can feel insurmontable so my brain goes to why bother.
Losing 20 pounds
Here, my fear wears the mask of futility, of thinking I’m not capable of it.
Can I even do that? Am I capable of that? I haven’t managed it before, why bother?
You might have noticed from my own examples of fear or worry that my innner dialogue of fear was a lot of what ifs.
Our brains have been wired to act in a certain way, and to stay in our comfort zones. When we start to make moves out of our comfort, the brain starts raising the alarm and sending thoughts of fear and worry in an attempt to keep us safe and comfortable. It’s trying to keep us safe from the unknown, even if it feels stifling.
With your inner voice telling us it can’t be done, simply because you haven’t done it before, you turn and run back to your comfort zones.
You procrastinate. Especially when it’s something you’ve never done before, and especially when it’s something as important to you as a dream or a goal.
You get a fear of starting.
You delay and put off and think I’ll work on it tomorrow. I’ve personally done this for years and it got old a long time ago. You know you are not going to feel good about it, that nothing positive can come of it, and that you’ll regret not starting sooner.
Eventually you get so fed up with ourselves we decide to make a change.
How do you do that?
Take the pressure off
We can put a lot of pressure on ourselves when it comes to something we really want to do or reach or attain. We may know what we have to do to get there, but we’ve put it so far up on a pedestal that it feels insurmountable. A kind of, I’m not going to get there so why even start?
For me, I have a lot of thing I want to do or try, a lot of goals and I’ve put a lot of pressure on them to give me something.
There’s a quote I love from Your Are A Badass by Jen Sincero:
“I just want to see what I can get away with.”
This takes the pressure off. You’re not asking these things to give you anything, or to magically change your life. You just want to see what we can get away with.
Let’s take my examples and have a look at them: I just want to see if I can learn to play guitar; I just want to see if I can start a history podcast; I just want to see if I can lose 20 pounds.
Do you see the difference there? It moves me from I have to do this to get that thing, to let’s just see if I can do it.
Break it down
The second tip I have is to break your goals all the way down. Your goals are going to feel insurmontable at first. There’s so many steps between where you are and where you want to be.
Learning guitar, learn one chord. Starting a history podcast, figure out a topic and read one article on it. Lose 20 pounds, do 10 minutes of cardio. Your goals are made up of the cumulative effort to get there, but it always starts with a single, small thing, done over and over and over again.
Give Yourself 10 Minutes
Tell yourself you only need to do 10 minutes. That takes the pressure all the way off/
I’m not a morning person and I’ve got my snooze button set at 10 minute intervals and everyday I’m hitting that thing two, three times to not even get more sleep but just to lay with my eyes closed before I have to get up and face the day. So I figured that if I could give myself 10 mintues to lay there doing nothing, I could give myself a 10 minute timer to start. It’s how I got out of my own way to write this post and figure out what I want to say. It’s how I’m starting that history podcast.
Do it badly and be a beginner
Another reason we put off starting is perfectionism. In your head everything is perfect and works out. You want whatever you’re doing to be perfect. We rarely let ourselves be beginners, make mistakes and not do something perfectly the first time.
I worked on one podcast script/outline for months at some point its time to put it out. The truth is it’s never going to be perfect, so try doing it badly. Show yourself it’s not that scary to be a beginner, or to do something badly.
Your mind is going to fight you. You’re going to have to drag yourself through the terrible workout, or first draft, or first chord progression. You’re training yourself to let go of perfectionism and let something be made. As the saying goes you can make it perfect later, for now you’ve got to make it exist.
The Korean Mom Podcast had an episode on what she called the Rubbish Challange. She recommedned posting 100 pieces of terrible content in the space of 30 days.
Even if you putting content out isn’t what you want to do, the principles and lessons behind it works for everyone. The sheer volume of “bad stuff” you’re putting out there almost tricks the brain. It conditions it to move past the fear, because like procrastination, perfectionism is fear.
We let ourselves off the hook for that fear because we think we’re being martyrs. It’s not going to be perfect so I’m saving myself and everyone else from experiencing what is not perfect.
This method desensitizes the brain, and at some point it’s not scary to do it badly anymore. You’ve taught your brain it’s okay to not be perfect.
Today we’ve gone over why we get scared of starting our goals and why we put them off. We’ve also gone through 4 ways to overcome this feeling and finally get started on the goals that light us up. Let me know your own tips for getting started even when you’re scared.
