{"id":27294,"date":"2014-10-06T05:00:09","date_gmt":"2014-10-06T10:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhyatt.com\/?p=27294"},"modified":"2014-10-06T05:00:09","modified_gmt":"2014-10-06T10:00:09","slug":"reframe-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fullfocus.co\/reframe-fear\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Reframe Your Fear and Let It Work for You"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you ever get uneasy\u2014or even afraid\u2014when you\u2019re close to achieving something big in your life? I do. In our recent relaunch of Platform University<\/a>, for instance, we started with fewer responses than I anticipated.<\/p>\n\n

I began estimating the results for the entire campaign based on those early results and didn\u2019t like where things were going. I started messaging members of the team, asking questions, reworking our strategy, and adjusting our tactics. Almost immediately, the results began to improve.<\/p>\n

Later that same morning, my daughter and Dean of Platform University, Megan, said something that made me laugh.<\/p>\n

\u201cDad,\u201d she said, \u201cyou should really schedule \u2018Time to Panic\u2019 on your calendar the morning of every launch. You\u2019re going to do it anyway, so you might as well schedule it!\u201d She was right, and there\u2019s a big plus in recognizing the pattern.<\/p>\n

I recently met a base jumper in Switzerland. He told me he feels almost unbearable fear every time he jumps. He\u2019s consumed with it the moment his feet leave the mountain until his chute opens several seconds later. Why? Because he thinks, Maybe today\u2019s the day my chute won\u2019t open<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Despite that fear, however, he keeps jumping. He turns his fear into something constructive. I experience something similar every time I speak, write a book, or launch a product. When the feeling of fear hits me, I use this three-step process to transform panic into performance:<\/p>\n

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  1. Notice the feeling.<\/strong> Like Megan joked, this is one of those things you can practically put on the calendar. The truth is, I feel profound unease every time<\/em> I do something important. But I don\u2019t let that stop or slow me down. I recognize it for what it is\u2014a normal part of the process. When I do that, I\u2019m free to get past it. How?<\/li>\n
  2. Objectify the feeling.<\/strong> When the feeling of fear first comes, I experience it down deep, like it\u2019s actually part of me. But it\u2019s not. And when I take the feeling from an internal, subjective experience to an external, objective fact, I can look at it, evaluate it, and put it into perspective.<\/li>\n
  3. Reframe the feeling.<\/strong> I\u2019ve given hundreds of speeches, but whenever I prepare to go on stage, I experience some level of fear. After years of practice, however, I\u2019ve trained myself to process that feeling differently. When I begin to feel anxious, I tell myself, My body is just preparing itself for peak performance: I\u2019m amped, alert, and ready for action.<\/em> By reframing my emotion, I can turn what\u2019s otherwise debilitating into something motivating.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\t\t