How to: fear
Being vulnerable is hard. Especially at work. If I asked you what you’re afraid of, would you laugh it off and talk about the things that used to give you nightmares when you were six? Or the big things — death, or the death of a loved one. Coming to physical harm?
Talking about what we fear emotionally is far harder.
Fear; vulnerability — it’s the type of fear that stops us from doing things, whether that’s ending a relationship or moving house or applying for a new job. We’re afraid in case we’re lonely, or it’s complicated; we ‘fail’ or we’re rejected. It’s OK to talk about fearing spiders. But it’s much harder to talk about some of the things that routinely hold us back.
As with any of the things we fear, you can’t control life. It’s tempting to think so — in an age of social media and curated visions of distant lives; of rampant efficiency and productivity and planning. When many people have been told for many years that they can do everything. Or anything. But life isn’t about control. Life is, often, about the bits you can’t control. How you respond to chaos when it comes; how flexible you are; how adaptable. How you face the challenges that are out of your control.
And that’s when fear becomes almost paralysing. When, suddenly, you can’t make a decision for fear of making the ‘wrong’ decision, or getting the next step wrong. Sometimes, the better it seems things are going, the more paralysed you become; when that nagging feeling that you’re about to be revealed as an imposter, strikes.
It’s worth remembering at this point that fear’s a good thing, too. It’s designed to keep us alive. There’s a very good reason for it. And — beyond staying alive — adversity can drive people to extraordinary things. Indeed, “adversity causes some men to break; others to break records,” said writer William Arthur Ward.
But, as we’ve become more comfortable, and civilised — in the widest sense of the word — we’ve also come to fear things that aren’t the life and death responses that fear helps us maintain. In Spring, we’re largely talking about work and workplace stuff, which is why when I talk about fear I’m not really talking about fear of dying, or of hurting ourselves. This is really fear of emotional pain — of being vulnerable; being lonely; failing.
There are things you can control, and things you can’t. You can’t control your boss’ mood today or whether your train gets in on time, or all the things you have to do for your family before you can sit down to do the thing you really want to do for you, later. But you can control the little things that chip away at our confidence and resilience: what you eat and who you follow; the boundaries you set, routines you create and how you respond to things that are difficult. You can control when you ask for help, and how you speak to yourself.
Remember when you were little and you just had to do loads of things, whether you were good at them or not? You had to play sports and learn stuff and go to new places… You had to sing in assembly and wear silly costumes in the school play. And — whether you like netball on a freezing winter Wednesday morning or not — they were just the things you did.
But as you get older, you only do the things you’re good at, or you’ve already learned. You do a job you know how to do; you might play a sport you’ve already — to a greater or lesser extent –mastered. You certainly don’t sing in public any more — unless, if you’re me, you’re drunk.
But our world is changing, and learning new skills keeps us adaptable and flexible. Learning something new teaches you that — excruciating and frustrating as it is — it’s OK to not be great at something, or have much still to learn. We won’t be doing the same thing for 40-odd years, like many of our parents. We’ll have portfolio careers. So we need to get used to that uncomfortable feeling of doing thing we’re not 100% comfortable with.
So what can you do to smooth the ride? Shawn Achor — Harvard-trained happiness researcher and New York Times best-selling author of The Happiness Advantage — says people who take time out to note the things they’re grateful for every day will release dopamine in their brains. Gratitude, he says, is one of the best ways to create a long-term positive mindset and develop strong social connections, which is the greatest predictor of long-term happiness: “Positive brains have a biological advantage over brains that are neutral or negative. This technique teaches us how to retrain our brains to capitalise on positivity and improve our productivity and performance.”
If you’re worried about something, how can you rationalise it? Write down the pros and cons of the situation; you’ll feel, if nothing else, like you’ve got all of the evidence to make the best decision you can. That’s one of the reasons journaling works for a lot of people. The minute things have tumbled out of your head, and are sitting there in plain black and white, they’re a lot less scary. Yep, even bank statements (although that’s a whole other chapter).
But when something’s lurking — preying on the edges of your mind, and surfacing in those 5am moments, what’s the smallest step you can take to achieving it or confronting it? We’re all, pretty much, scared of massive change. But what about making small changes?
Andrew talks about this too in ‘setting goals’ but, sometimes, when you’re focused either on something you want to achieve, or something that scares you, you forget to look back to see how far you’ve come. Measuring progress definitely applies to facing your fears. You’ll often be amazed how far you’ve got with something, even if you really feared it to start off with.
When times are tough, it pays to keep an eye on the long term. I had a particularly bad week at work a month or soago, getting hit with problems I couldn’t do anything about, but in a situation where I had to take responsibility for them. And because of the way I organise my world — I pay attention to details; I’m meticulous, and make a point of doing what I say I will — it made me fearful. Not just about the thing I was dealing with, but it had a knock on effect on other things. What were the other things I thought I had under control, that would surely now bite me around the next corner? The only way I could rationalise it was by thinking ‘this too will pass’. It’s difficult, when you’re embroiled in the middle of something, to get that bit of perspective. But pass it will. Next month, you’ll barely remember it.
Psychiatrist Steven Wolin defines resilience as your capacity to rise above adversity. When something goes wrong, he says, you must stay in control, rather than let the situation take over. And turning fear into a challenge WILL make you more resilient. Overcoming one thing you were afraid of has an enormous impact on your ability to overcome other difficulties — even if they’re not related (read Alexandra Heminsley’s interview on page xxx if you want to know more…) And having a purpose makes you more resilient, too. It’s that eye on the long game.
Do you do something every day that scares you? It sounds like a massive cliche, but it IS true. Doing something every day might be a bit much, but there’s a huge sense of achievement when you do something that you’re scared of, whether that’s speaking in public, running a marathon or leaving your job to follow your dream. All of those symptoms you feel — your racing pulse, your sweaty palms — are a completely natural way of your body making sure if can do its bit if you need to get outta there in a hurry. It’s making sure you’re on full alert, ready to perform. So make the most of them. You WILL feel great.
If you’re feeling fearful about something right now, have a look at the #ShareYourRejection hashtag on Twitter for a vulnerable, honest and human dose of social solidarity. Social media gets the blame time and again for making people feel worthless, inferior and, well, fearful — but this is a genuine cause for good, and it is a delight. Being rejected, and facing your fears makes you more resilient. It will make it easier next time, honest. It’s the antidote to the idea of instant success –failing to get what you want — which is a massive fear for people — is genuinely good practice in building resilience.
The journalist Elizabeth Day hosts a podcast called How to Fail. She quotes actress Natalie Dormer, talking about her relief at reaching her 30s: “You’ve fucked up. When you’ve fucked up a number of times, hopefully the idea is you don’t fuck up as badly the next time when you’re presented with the same or a similar situation. I’m strong because I’ve been weak, I’m wise because I’ve been stupid.”
And the truth is, you often won’t know how to fix something, until you’ve broken it, or failed at it several times over. In my first full-time, permanent job, when I was 21, I was always afraid of setting off the burglar alarm in our building, which I was responsible for opening up first thing, and closing up at night. And — even though I’d been told how to override it, I always worried about it. Until the time when I set it off, and managed to turn it off again. It’s not one of my bigger failures, but I feared it all the time. But it wasn’t until I messed up that learnt how to sort it out. We learn by doing; from our mistakes, certainly. But just by the act of doing. And that’s why we shouldn’t fear making the wrong decision.
We’ll all fail. In both big and small ways. Success isn’t about getting things right the first time.
(If you’re wondering about other fears and fuck ups, well… I slagged off a former boss in an instant message, and accidentally sent it TO HIM; a first night out in a new job in London inadvertently ended with a ‘police incident’; I was almost sacked from the same first job where I feared the burglar alarm for publishing a link to the Anarchist’s Cookbook, which included instructions for making a bomb. I think my fear there may have been misplaced. But here I am.)
It’s really difficult listening to people talk about failing when the stakes are different from yours; if they have significantly more money behind them, or ‘firmer credentials’. More experience. While we’re getting better at talking about failure, it’s often through the lens of current success. And while thats inspiring, life is not a Hollywood movie and it certainly doesn’t always work that way. But if you look back at things you were afraid of, and things you thought were a failure at the time, how many of them really matter now? The fact that you’re still here, thinking about them — that’s success. And if you’re feeling like that now, then this too will pass.
(Oh, and NOBODY likes speaking in public. The only way you get good of it is by practising, and learning a few techniques that will get you from the beginning to the end. And remembering that your fear is keeping you on your toes; alert and active. You’re completely normal.)
