The FEAR of starting something NEW
Do you know that feeling of holding yourself back with procrastination, with endless planning but never acting, and finding any kind of excuse to not do the things you should or want to do?
When you think about it, it is weird that we avoid situations even when we really want them. "I want to meet new people, but..", "I want to start my business, but..", "I want to post my art online, but..".
We have so many excuses and rarely something positive to say, which is already sad when you think of it. Most of the time when we push our work back for hours or even days and weeks (and man..sometimes we hunt the starting point over many years..), it is a COMBINATION of losing control, overwhelming tasks, and too much thinking. Humans, when they grew up, are programmed to run away because of fear and to search for security. Like a caveman who had to run away from a dinosaur to not die. We also get programmed through our society. We get punished when we fail or when we do things wrong in school or business and that’s why we even dont try new things anymore because of the fear of failure and being judged. But like cavemen, we HAVE TO go out of our cave to explore the world and to develop our own life. There is no way around it.
🌱 But why is it so hard to just start when we know this?
As i said before, our brain is programmed to be secure and comfortable. So whenever we try to go out of this safe zone, we have to work really hard to overcome the normal function of running away from what the frontal lobe of our brain is responsible for.
The same with breathing. Our body is programmed to breathe automatically to survive.
But even when it’s hard to overcome this natural function you can reprogram or at least push against the fear or sneak behind it to accomplish something. The sad thing is you have to do the work every time again. But well that makes life more interesting and challenging.
🌱 Little storytime
I can remember when i planned to work on my first book last year. I always had on my bucket list to write at least one book in my life. Because i think books are amazing to express your thoughts and emotions to the world and they are something that will last forever. (maybe not when the world would explode though..) Books are kind of a footprint of yourself. Something that can bring joy or knowledge to others even when you already resolved into stardust to go on the next journey.
The thing about writing a book was, i never wrote a book before, and i never learned anything about this area, i guess i even wasn’t good at writing at all. A complete beginner. So from my perspective, i was a baby learning how to walk.
I realized i stepped into the 1st trap of running away - too much thinking. That means that negative thoughts slowly came in like 'im not good enough, 'so many people before I already wrote books so I’m not special', 'nobody wants to read it', 'im not a professional writer', 'What if when i fail' and so on. This already freaked me out but then the 2nd trap followed immediately - overwhelming tasks. Think about "writing a complete book" is such a big task that you even dont know where to start. People often start pushing things away because they are too stressed. Remember it is always easier to go in small steps instead of going all in at once. Think about climbing a mountain. It is way easier for you to go and slowly hike up the mountain with the things you already know and to learn on the way up than to be forced to focus on everything at once while climbing with professional gear but you dont know how to use it. This brings me to the 3rd trap - losing control. Human beings hate losing control over their lives. That’s why most people dont take the risky way. They hate their jobs but money makes them secure so they stay. They dont leave a partner or the country because having the acquired habit makes them secure too even when they dont feel good. When you do something UNKNOWN, you dont know what the future looks like and that is scary. I had all three things and pushed writing this book away for many years. The same applies to this Patreon account. I wanted to open it 2 years ago but never did because out of fear. Like i said before you have to go through the whole hard process every time again when you start something new. To be honest, it doesn’t get easier and needs a lot of work, but the more you learn about life, yourself, and specific topics, the smarter you get to overcome things like fear.
"The more you learn about a topic, the merrier less you fear the things you were once scared of."
🌱 So what can you do to overcome this fear of starting something new? Starting your first video on a YouTube channel, posting your first art online, or teaching your first class.
Well, you probably heard already all the advice and tips from others on how they overcome this fear of starting something new. And there these tips are all good. For example 'breaking big tasks into smaller ones', 'work just 5min and you will automatically keep going' and many more. The thing is, NOBODY is the same. That means because something works for someone doesn’t mean it will work for you too. So you have to try out different tips and advice to find YOUR special key to open new ways. Giving tips is always hard because there is no golden rule for anything or anybody. (I know.. i hate that too. It would be so much easier if this would be real.)
So whatever i tell you here you have to try it out for yourself. It helps me through and maybe you can try this out and see if it works for you too.
The first thing you should do is know WHY you wanna do the new thing. And be honest with you. Why is it important to you? What feeling do you have when you imagine you already have it? If you dont know the why let’s say your why is your sword⚔️, then how can you fight against the negative mindset dragon 🐉. (I wish i could draw that picture now! Ideas everywhere~) You need the why to have something when everything or everyone wants to push you down. That’s why it’s so important!! FIND YOU'RE WHY.
If you are more interested in finding you're Why, there are 2 books from Simon Sinek - "Find your Why" & "Start with Why". Maybe a good read for you. :)
Another thing that helped me during my journey is to think like a kid again. Sounds a bit strange in the first place but it actually makes sense when you think about it. Babies and young kids dont have a problem at all doing new things. Because of the simple reason of FUN! They are curious, they wanna have adventures, and they dont take it too seriously and just give poop about how they look to others or if they fail. They just do it to be happy. And that is something we adults lost over the years. I know the world is more complicated than a kid can imagine, but for your own sake, you should find your inner kid voice again. Most problems we have are actually not as bad then we think anyway.
A very important point you should never forget too is:
"Whatever you are gonna do, do it for yourself, not for the applause." - Robin Sharma
Why is this important? Well, 90% of our thoughts and actions are mostly because we think of others. What is not automatically bad? Thinking about others in a positive way is something amazing and a good value for everybody. But we tend to think about others in a negative way most of the time. 'What do they think about me', 'Am i as good as..', 'Would they like me', 'will they laugh about me', 'do i say the right things', 'do i fit into their group' etc. Thinking that is very emotional for us and that is mostly the reason why we dont try new things. Because we feel judged every single time we do something, even when nobody is judging us at all. Especially in the digital world. It’s all just in our minds. Try to imagine, what if when you would be the only person on earth right now, would you have any struggle to record a video, or post all your art online? No. Because the fear of being judged by others is away now. Sometimes we just need to build our own vision around us to feel better. Like, imagine people naked when we speak in front of a crowd. I call it daydreaming and do that a lot. It helps me to focus more on myself instead of the opinion of all the others. Because when you learn to study new things just for the sake of yourself, you will feel lighter inside and freer. Stop the judging mindset and turn it into something more positive.
The last point that helps me a lot is when i remember myself to be not perfect. And this is harder to accomplish as we all know, but that is a different topic. The reason why you should be a friend of imperfection is simple. Starting something new will always turn out messy and wrong in the beginning. For everybody. That’s why we all start to fear in the first place. We like being perfect, we like creating beautiful things and we like those other people like what we like. Becoming friends with your imperfection means laughing about the things which go wrong and just keeping moving with a smile on your face. Enjoy the journey, enjoy it in a non-judging way. Dont take things too seriously too and see every failure as a new point on your journey. Without seeing these points we couldn’t see the whole road.
"The first draft of anything is shit." - Ernest Hemingway
No matter what is useful for you. The only thing i know what is helpful on everybody's journey is to control your mind. Because everything gets a lot easier when you dont have these pity mindset talks with yourself. So when you want to overcome something, work on your mindset and thinking. This is the only thing that will help in the long term.
And you know, 90% of the things we wanna do are not a 'live or die' scenario. So what is the worst that could happen? You won’t die when you fail. No matter what, it is a try worth it. And most of the time it’s easier and not as worse than we thought it would be. Fall and stand up again. That’s what we do since we are babies. So why stop now?! If people laugh about you, dont worry about that, they forget about you within 5min because those people hate around not only you. They have a bunch of people (maybe all) on their hate list but dont remember any single one they hated. Because the only reason to hate them is not to hit you personally. They just want that feeling of 'greatness to push others down', and they dont care which person it is. Do just ignore those people. Dont think more of them than they think about you. Give it 5min and then delete them from your mind. :)
"When life pushes you down, stand up again. Thats how creatures are made. To walk, to live, to survive."
Interesting Link(s)
➥ Why is 'WHY' so important
➥ The Fear of Starting
➥ How to start a Dream
