SUMMARY 

• Fear is something that grips us all. It’s something that holds us all back.
• If you’ve learned to be in a fearful state, you can unlearn that state. You can get yourself into a position to get around those fears and you know how to handle them so that they’re not handling you.
• And today that’s what we’re going to be talking about. So five things that can help you overcome any fears that you have.
• The number one thing that you can do to help overcome fear begins in the mind. It’s all about mindset. And specifically about you becoming comfortable stepping outside of your comfort zone.
• The number two thing that you can do to help overcome fear is to think about similar experiences. If you can remember back to similar experiences, this helps you overcome fear by giving you evidence that you’re capable of doing something like this.
• Number three: enlist support. Reach out to friends, family, colleagues, anybody that you can ask for advice who’s been through the experience that perhaps you’re afraid of.
• The number four thing that you can do to help overcome fear is publicly commit. Once you make a commitment to others, then it propels you, and necessity forces you to move forward, to step into that fear.
• And the number five way that I’ve used most often to help me overcome fear is just to get into the habit of taking a bold action. On a daily basis, ask yourself, “What’s one bold action that I can take today? Because if you get into that habit, that rhythm of taking bold action every single day, you will become more courageous and less fearful.

TRANSCRIPT

Fear is killing your potential. And unless you take action against this, unless you take action against the very force that’s holding you back, you’ll never reach your full potential in business and life.

Hi, my name is Eric Partaker and I am on a mission to help entrepreneurs become all that they’re capable of becoming. And look, let’s face it. Fear is something that grips us all. It’s something that holds us all back. It’s something that I regularly see with all of my clients at different points in time. All of the entrepreneurs I work with, at some point in time, recognize that it’s some fear, in some shape or form, that’s holding them back, holding them back from reaching that next level in their business or life. And the good news is, is that you can overcome whatever the fears are that are holding you back in life.

And I know you might think to yourself, “Well, no, this is just how I am, Eric. I’m like this. I’m afraid. I’m a person who’s constantly catastrophizing things or worried that the worst is going to happen. I live a fearful life, this is who I am.” But that’s just dead wrong. You weren’t born that way, for example. And if you actually have learned to be the way that you are, if you feel that you’re in a fearful state incapable of overcoming fear, if you think that you are in that state, well then, you’ve learned to be in that state. Because again, you weren’t born that way, right?

So if you’ve learned to be in that state, you can unlearn that state and you can get yourself into a position where you’re readily not, not having fear, that’s not what the game is about. You will always have fears. We will always feel different fears about certain things in life, but you’ll be in a position where you’re ready. You’re ready for the battle. You know how to get around those fears and you know how to handle them so that they’re not handling you. So they’re not forcing you in a bad place, forcing you to submit. Instead, you rise up to the challenge. You show up there on the battlefield and you win. You slay the dragon, you go forth.

And today that’s what we’re going to be talking about. So five things that can help you overcome any fears that you have. And these are things that I’ve used myself, that I’ve used with the myriad of clients that I work with entrepreneurs running small to medium, sometimes large businesses. And they work. They’re evidence-based, they’re science-backed. These principles will help you overcome fears. So we got five to go through. Make sure you stick around for all of these, because if you implement all of these, you will show up so much more courageously in life. And if you show up more courageously in life, don’t you think that you’ll be achieving a lot more in life too? Don’t you think that you’ll be a lot happier in life?

So number one, what’s the number one thing that you can do to help overcome fear, it begins in the mind. It’s all about mindset. And specifically about you becoming comfortable stepping outside of your comfort zone. I’m sure you can relate to a moment in the past, an incident or something, a new skill, or something that you were learning. And you were afraid that if you did whatever that was and if you made a mistake, it was going to be horrible. And everyone would be laughing at you and life would just go down the drain. But what happened in reality, it probably wasn’t nearly as bad as you thought.

And after you did it, you probably felt a lot more confident and you probably looked back, I’m sure, as I have in the past and said to yourself, “Gosh, it’s crazy how much fear I had built up about this? It wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be.” And that’s how we build confidence. So the first thing that you need to do to help overcome fear is reframe your mindset about your comfort zone. Reframe what stress is, reframe the fact that stepping outside of your comfort zone is actually something that you can do. Why? Because you probably have done it before.

And that’s a segue to the number two thing that you can do to help overcome fear, is to think about similar experiences. It’s very rarely in life that when we do something for the first time, and if it’s striking a bit of fear in us, it’s very rare that we can’t find a similar experience somewhere. It might not be completely identical, but something that is somewhat similar to what we’re facing right now. Something that we can remember back to and say, “You know what? That thing was sort of like this and I was able to do that. And so therefore I can do whatever this may be.”

So as a quick example, if you’re having to do some public speaking, you might think, “Well, I’ve never spoken publicly before,” but I bet if you go back in memory, there’s a time when you have spoken to a group of people before. Maybe it was a group of friends or a group of acquaintances, and maybe it was just a small situation rather than being up on a stage, but I’m sure you spoke to a group before. There was a similar experience. And if you can remember back to similar experiences, the way that this helps you overcome fear is it gives you evidence that you’re capable of doing something like this. You’ve done something similar to it before. That’s the second thing, similar experiences, a great tactic that you can use to help you overcome fear.

Number three, enlist support, or more simply, reach out to friends, family, colleagues, anybody that you can ask for advice who’s been through the experience that perhaps you’re afraid of. Who’s been through that before? Who’s done whatever it is that you’re trying to do before? Have a conversation with them. Often by doing that, they demystify. We get so worked up about, “Oh my gosh, how am I going to do this? I’m not like this other person. I have no chance to get whatever this thing is done.” I mean, I certainly felt that way, for example, when it came to making videos on YouTube. I thought, “Gosh, I’ve never done that before. How can I possibly do that?”

I felt the same before launching my first podcast episode. I’ve never done that before. How can I possibly do that? But what I did in every single one of those instances, same with writing a blog as well. What I did in every single one of those instances, was I just reached out to someone who had done it before and got some tips from them. And then very importantly heard that they were like me too when they started. And they thought it was a bit daunting and they were a bit afraid as well, but they overcame and they became better and better. That’s the third thing. Third thing is just think in your network, who can you talk to and enlist their support? Whose advice can you seek that can help you, fortify you, strengthen you, give you the confidence that you can go forth and do whatever it is that you’re slightly afraid of?

Because, look, like we said at the start of this, fear, it’s the number one thing holding you… it’s probably the number one thing that holds the entire world back. Think of all that you could achieve if you weren’t afraid. If you weren’t afraid of how you were going to look or you weren’t afraid of looking foolish or stupid, think of how much you could achieve.

The number four thing that you can do to help overcome fear is publicly commit. It’s crazy, but once you put yourself out there and say, “I’m going to do something on…,” such and such a date, and you make a commitment to others, then it propels you, necessity forces you to move forward, to step into that fear because you’ve just told the world that you’re going to do X, Y, Z on ABC date. So think about how could you make a public commitment to whatever it is that you’re afraid about.

Now how could you let others know? Whether that’s a post on Facebook? “Hey, I’m going to do this…,” on such and such a date or if it’s making a few phone calls to some friends, but make a public commitment because it creates this feeling of necessity in you. If you’ve promised others, it raises your game and makes you more likely to step up and do whatever it is that you’re saying.

And the number five way that I’ve used most often to help me overcome fear is just to get into the habit of on a daily basis taking a bold action. So one action, which seems audacious, or gosh, am I really going to reach out and contact that person and ask them for a favor. I’ve done this repeatedly. I’ve read a book and thought, wow, what the author said was absolutely amazing, and so I’ve reached out to them. I’ve reached out to them on social media. I’ve sent them an email. I’ve asked if we could meet up and talk. And I’ve had some of the most amazing conversations after performing a bold action like that.

So on a daily basis, ask yourself, “What’s one bold action that I can take today? Because if you get into that habit, that rhythm of taking bold action every single day, you will become more courageous. And as a result of becoming more courageous, you’re more likely to be able to overcome whatever current fears that you have as well as step up to the plate when any future ones come and just smash them out of the park.

I hope you’ve enjoyed that. And if you head over to my website @ericpartaker.com, you’ll also be able to subscribe to my weekly Insights newsletter.