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Posts in category Fear

Where is your focus taking you?

October 22, 2013 Written by Curt Rosengren

One day a few years back I was in the gym, running on the treadmill. As I ran, I was watching hockey on a TV in front of me and a bit off to the side. Absorbed, I stopped paying attention to the treadmill. Slowly, step by step, my stride started drifting in the direction of my gaze.

Suffice it to say, it didn’t end well. My left foot came down on the non-moving side of the machine, causing me to stumble. My right foot hit the still-moving belt, and succumbing to the laws of physics, I shot backwards off the treadmill.

Trying to play it cool, I jumped back on immediately without missing a beat. And without missing a beat, the treadmill shot me right back off. It caused enough of a ruckus that everyone in the room turned to look. “Hey man, you OK?” All there was left was to fend off my feeling of humiliation with humor. “Nothing hurt but my pride,” I laughed as I cautiously mounted the treadmill again.

And that’s exactly what we happens to us so often in life. Our focus determines our direction. That fundamental truth can be used to your advantage, but too often our focus drifts off-target. We start directing our attention to our fears, or to our self-limiting beliefs, or to our destructive habits, or to what’s wrong with our life.

And when our focus turns away from the goal, guess what happens? We drift off the path. Sometimes it’s a slow drift until we find ourselves lost in the middle of the overgrowth, wondering how the hell we got there. Other times it’s a bit more dramatic, and we end up getting shot off the back of the treadmill.

Do a focus check

Where is your focus on a consistent basis? Do you center your attention on the vision of who you want to be and what you want to create in your life, or is it aimed at your fear of what could happen? Do you pay attention to what’s positive and enhancing, or is your awareness filled with the limiting and destructive?

Realign your focus

If you need to realign, how can you shift your focus to reflect your vision of the life you want to create? Here are some ideas.

Start with a vision: Without something to focus on, drifting is inevitable. That vision could be a goal, a picture of who you want to be, how you want to live your life, etc.

Take stock of the drift: How is your focus drifting? Are you replaying worst case scenarios over and over in your mind? Are you spending time creating a negative world view in your mind by watching the news? Are you wasting time focusing on things that don’t really matter?

Course correct: Once you know what your ideal focus is and how you’re drifting off track, ask yourself, “What would acting in alignment with that vision look like? What would support movement towards it? What specifics steps would lead me in that direction?” Start bringing more of that into your life.

Odds are good this will be a constant process that you will need to revisit again and again and again. That’s fine. Because even if you find yourself drifting off-target again and again, when you make a habit of regular course correction, the net result takes you in the direction you want to go.

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Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst TM

Time for a career change? Start with The Occupational Adventure Guide 

Energize your life, Overcoming obstacles
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Newsflash! Everyone else is clueless too!

June 28, 2013 Written by Curt Rosengren

In my Passion Catalyst coaching work, there’s a frequent conversation I have that goes something like this…

Client: Everybody else seems to know what they want to do in their career, and I’m just lost. I’m stuck. Gawd, I suck. There must be something wrong with me.

Me: Don’t worry. Everyone else is clueless too.

OK, so that’s a really abbreviated version of the conversation, but it’s the basic gist of it.

If there’s one thing I have learned over the last dozen years of helping people energize their careers (and their lives), it’s that the facade of “I’ve got it all together” doesn’t run very deep for most people. Underneath is a litany of uncertainty, doubts, and fears.

Take people’s careers, for example. When you look around, it’s easy to think that most of the people around you feel like they’re on the right path. And yet statistically, studies have shown year after year that over 50% of employees are dissatisfied with their jobs! And another 30+ percent are only “satisfied – as in, “It’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.” Only 15 percent or so really love what they do.

Not exactly in line with “everyone else seems to know where they’re going,” is it?

Just because people don’t wear a flashing neon sign advertising their uncertainty and dissatisfaction doesn’t mean it’s not there. So next time you feel compelled to compare yourself to how together other people seem to have it, just remember, “Everyone else is clueless too.”

It might not be in the exact same way you’re clueless. They might not have the same fears you have. They might have clarity where you feel uncertainty. But somewhere in their lives, in some way, I can just about guarantee that they’re experiencing their own version of doubt and insecurity.

If you use other people as a measuring stick for assessing how you’re doing in your life, you will always be able to come up short. Why? There’s a quote I love from pastor and author Steven Furtick that somes it up brilliantly:

“One reason we struggle with insecurity: we’re comparing our behind the scenes to everyone else’s highlight reel.” 

So remember, when you fall short in your comparisons, you’re only seeing the highlight reel. Let go of how other people are doing, and focus on your next step.

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Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst TM

Time for a career change? Start with The Occupational Adventure Guide

Overcoming obstacles, Personal development
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Do a good news experiment

June 27, 2013 Written by Curt Rosengren

A couple days ago I posted fifteen online sources for positive, inspiring news as a starting point for feeding your mind with what’s working in the world and nourishing a positive worldview.

One of the challenges with that whole idea is that good news is seldom as riveting and compelling as the bad news (that, unfortunately, seems to be how we’re wired).

The basic question then, if you want to ratchet up the impact good news has on your mind, is how do you create as much engagement around the positive as you can? How do you create as much opportunity for your mind to hook into those positive stories the way it gets sucked into the negative ones?”

The Good News Experiment

The list of positive news sources in yesterday’s post had its genesis in a conversation with a father I had recently about the barrage of negative, toxic news we’re all subjected to on a regular basis and the effect it had on the wordview his kids were developing.

As we talked about the challenge of finding a positive worldview to focus on in the midst of the 24/7 news cycle of violence, destruction, and scandal, I offered to compile a list of positive news sources for his kids. As I put that list together, I started noodling the question, “How do you make this matter? How do you make the energy of these stories compete with the energy of stories of murder and mayhem?”

The idea that popped into my head was simple: Talk about it.

The Good News Experiment idea as it originally formed focused on opportunities for family discussion, but it can just as easily be applied with friends and colleagues.

Here’s the basic idea.

  1. Identify your partners in goodness. This could be a ready-made group like your family, or you could create a Good News Group that gets together on a regular basis to meet in person, by phone, or on Skype.
  2. Decide how often you will meet. For a family, this might be a daily discussion (a great dinner time tradition!). A Good News Group of friends might meet once a week or once a month (keeping in mind that the more frequently you meet, the more naturally it keeps you focused on the good news).
  3. Decide how long the experiment will run. If you’re making the discussion a daily dinner discussion with your family, try doing it for one month to start with. If you’re meeting less frequently with your Good News Group, you may want to expand that period. In either situation, you can always extend it if you find it enriching.
  4. Spotlight your favorite news. Use the list below as a starting point for finding positive news. Each person can share their favorite positive/inspiring/etc. story they have come across since the last discussion.
  5. Discuss it. Each person can share what resonated with them about the story and why they found it compelling. Use that as a springboard to go deeper. How do the others in the group feel about it? What resonates? Are there similar things any of you may have heard of? Where else is news like that happening? What ideas come to mind that any or all of you can apply in your own lives? How do the stories counter the stream of negative perspective we’re fed in the mainstream news? Brainstorm questions to explore and see where they take you.
  6. Review it. Every once in a while, look back and review what impact your focus on the positive news has had. Has it changed or broadened your perspective? Has it given you ideas? Has it helped you counter the doom and gloom that seems to be so prevalent?

Do this as an experiemnt. Don’t just trust me that it’s a good idea. Do it yourself and see what kind of impact it has on you and your fellow experimenters.

I can’t tell you what will happen, but I have a sneaking hunch what might happen. When you have a space in your life specifically designated for focusing on what’s working in the world, and you know you’re going to be on the hook for discussing it, your brain starts to notice it more. You start to automatically look for good news you might be able to share.

And the more you notice it, the more space it occupies in your awareness, and the more potential it has to shape how you experience the world.

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Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst TM

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Energize your life, Personal development
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On being a quivering pile of self-doubt

April 12, 2013 Written by Curt Rosengren

As someone whose livelihood is based in a “subject matter expert” role, it’s tempting to present the world with my rock solid, I’ve-got-it-together face at all times. I mean, who would trust what I have to say if I weren’t a superhero who had it all under control, right?

Well here’s the truth. Often I do feel rock solid. But sometimes – more often than I would like to admit – if I were a superhero, my name would have to be [insert superhero announcer voice] SelfDoubtMaaaaaan. My superpower would be supersonic knee-knocking. And you know that herky jerky forward and back dance you do when you want to jump off the high dive, but haven’t quite convinced yourself it’s a good idea? That would be me springing (or not) into action.

Self-doubt: Everybody’s doin’ it

Why the true confessions post? Because I think it’s incredibly important. Let’s face it. If you’re going to do anything outside of the little box of the known, self-doubt is likely to come up. You’re going to venture into the new and unfamiliar, where success is no assured slam-dunk.

Self-doubt. Insecurity. Fear. We all have it at some point. Most of us try to pretend we don’t. Which is a crock o’ dung. The real trouble comes when we feel it and have ourselves convinced that nobody else does, which starts us feeling that something is wrong with us. “I’m such a quivering pile of self-doubt. Everyone else seems to have it together. I don’t have what it takes.”

Whoops! Hang on there, pardner. Here’s the real skinny. To varying degrees, in varying ways, everybody else doesn’t have it together (welcome to the human experience). It’s just that everyone else is hiding it too.

Having had the opportunity to work with people helping them create careers and lives that light them up, I’ve had a chance to see the “behind-the-scenes story” of many people who outwardly looked incredibly successful and together. Trust me on this one – you’re not alone.

It’s not if it happens – it’s what you do when it does

So really it’s not a question of whether or not you experience some form of self-doubt as you create a life worth living. It’s what happens when you do. Do you let it stop you? Do you let it define you? Or do you acknowledge that everyone experiences it to some degree and move on?

For some good ideas on what to do when self-doubt hits, read this piece on “How Self-Doubt Makes Leaders Better.” While it’s focused on leaders, much of it is really relevant for all of us, regardless of the role we see ourselves playing.

I admire people who sally forth (yes, I really just wrote that) into the unknown with a torpedos-be-damned, let’s do this thing attitude. But you know who else I admire? Possibly even more? People who are scared and uncertain, who don’t know if they have what it takes, who dive in anyway and start swimming.

(And for the record, if more people were 100% honest about it, that’s probably the majority of us.)

While I’m at it, here are a few more resources for what to do when self-doubt comes galloping through your living room and drops a steaming pile of…well, you know.

How to overcome self-doubt: 8 tips to boost your confidence – tiny buddha

Ten ways to overcome creativity’s number one crusher – lifehacker

7 Simple steps to conquering self-doubt – Advanced Life Skills

Overcoming self-doubt – The Minimalists (this one is focused more on interpersonal doubts)

So the next time self-doubt rears its head and threatens to stop you, grab a friend, look them in the eye and ask with all earnestness, “Am I human?” Assuming the answer is yes, remind yourself that self-doubt is just part of the human experience, explore some ways to move through it, and get back on your horse and ride!

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Join the Ripple Revolution TM

Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst TM

Time for a career change? Start with The Occupational Adventure Guide

Overcoming obstacles, Personal development
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How to make fear your friend

February 8, 2013 Written by Curt Rosengren

If you want to play a bigger game and step fully into the possibilities inherent in your life, the odds are good (like, oh, 100%) that you’re going to run smack dab into fear. And when you do, you have a choice. You can:

  1. Run screaming away in the other directions, your arms flailing over your head
  2. Grit your teeth and face the fear
  3. Put that fear to use to help you succeed

I’m guessing you already have a pretty good handle on how to do the first two, so in this post I’m going to focus on number three.

Limiting fear vs. productive fear

Think of your fear as coming in two varieties – limiting fear and productive fear. Limiting fear gets in your way, stopping you dead in your tracks.  Productive fear is fear you can tap into to maximize your chances for success. Far from dragging you down, it’s an essential piece of the puzzle in breathing life into your vision of what’s possible.

Sometimes the difference between the two has to do with what you do when you feel it.

Your fear might be there for a very good reason. Let’s say you have a vision of striking off on your own to pursue your passion as a self-employed solopreneur. You’re inspired. You can’t stop talking about it. But when you think about actually taking the steps to make it happen, your old friend fear yanks back on the reigns and hollers, “Who, Nelly! Not so fast!”

Let’s say the fear is one that you’ll try and flame out spectacularly, not only failing but failing in a way that nobody will ever see you in a successful light again (did I mention our buddy fear has a bit of a penchant for hyperbole?).

You’re at fork in the road. One road leads to limiting fear, and the other leads to the productive variety. Which one you take depends on how you approach it.

The road to limiting fear is easy, of course. Just let that fear stop you. Decide you’re not ready. Decide you don’t have what it takes. Find a million very good reasons why it’s not feasible. Your limiting fear will ALWAYS be able to find proof that you shouldn’t take that risk and step outside your comfort zone.

The road to productive fear might start with that same bundle of hyperbole – the fear of burning up in a spectacular flameout of failure – but it doesn’t take that fear at face value. On the road to productive fear, you look that fear in the face and say, “What can I learn from you?”

Mine your fear with questions

The road to productive fear is paved with questions. Why?

Because questions unlock the gold hidden in that fear.

The first question is, “Is that valid?” Sometimes it is. Often it’s not. You might realize that you have been getting sucked into a worst case scenario that really isn’t all that likely. We spend a lot of time at the mercy of huge fears that have a microscopic chance of happening.

But let’s say you decide it is a valid fear. What then?

To mine that fear for all the insights you can find, start asking questions, like:

What specifically am I afraid will happen?

Get specific about what you fear. Without a clear picture of what you’re afraid will happen, your fears will remain a more grown-up version of the monster under the bed.

What would lead to that happening?

Once you have gotten specific…get more specific. So you’re afraid you will crash and burn in the mother of all failures. Great. Now break that down into things that might lead to that failure. Looking back from the vantage point of that failure, you might see that:

  • It wasn’t a feasible idea.
  • I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.
  • I didn’t know enough about ______.
  • I didn’t have enough money to pull it off.
  • I didn’t have a good plan.
  • I didn’t have the right people involved.
  • I didn’t know the right people.

You’ll be able to put these to work in the next questions.

For each of the feared outcomes, what are some ways I could prevent that outcome?

Now you can look at the possible sources of that failure you came up with in the last question. What could you do about each of them? For example:

  • Not feasible: You could do the due diligence on the idea to make sure it really had legs. Talk to people. Ask questions. Start small and explore how it goes. Then you could refine your idea and your direction based on what you discover.
  • Lacking in knowledge: You could identify the areas where your knowledge is lacking and a) find a way to learn more about it and/or b) find someone who excels in that area and reach out for help.
  • Lacking connections: You could spend a year networking in the area that you are transitioning into so you have relationships to build on.

What will reduce the risk of this outcome?

One way of thinking of this question is filling in the blank in the following statement:

“If I _________, the risk of failure will be diminished.”

So, for example, you might identify:

  • If I create a well-thought out plan, the risk of failure will be diminished.
  • If I run that plan past people who are both knowledgeable and constructively critical, the risk of failure will be diminished.
  • If I work for an extra year before leaving my job and set aside as much money as I possibly can to help fund the transition, the risk of failure will be diminished.
  • If I ask for advice from people who know more than I do, and listen to it, the risk of failure will be diminished.

What are some things I might not be paying attention to that would make this outcome more likely?

Sometimes it’s the little things that add up to the result you’re afraid of. What do you need to be aware of? What do you need to be paying attention to? What are the little things you need to focus on from day to day or week to week?

How can I use the insights this fear brings to help move me forward?

Finally, you can continually ask, “How can all these insights help me move forward?” What steps will they help me take? What structure will they help me build that will contribute to my end goal? How do these insights make me better prepared to make a decision, and what is that decision?

A parting thought

Fear is close to inevitable. You’re almost guaranteed to run into it. And when you do, ask yourself, “Do I want this to be a limiting fear or a productive fear?” Then start asking questions and see where it takes you. When you mine your fears for the gold they contain, they can become an integral part of your success.

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Join the Ripple Revolution TM

Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst TM

Time for a career change? Start with The Occupational Adventure Guide

Overcoming obstacles
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