Tuesday 20 October 2020

Dealing with Fear-Taking Action

 Dealing with Fear-Taking Action 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)
 

Having discussed the two steps in dealing with the fear, let us understand the 3rd step, which is more powerful in overcoming fear. That is confronting the fear through ACTION.
 

As discussed, being aware of your fear WITHIN and Knowing more about fear through enhancing perspectives all lead to half of the battle won. Real confidence comes when we take action against fear. We can not build confidence through external stimuli all the time. Absolute certainty will be made deeply at the subconscious level only by doing and experiencing through actions.
 
For example,

You may have fear about your public speaking capability. You may be aware of your inner fear and learn many public speaking techniques through various external sources like books and from others. Still, you may struggle with inner fear. You can overcome fear only when you take action by speaking in a small group.

When you speak in a small group and experience success, your subconscious mind registers the successful event. Next time, when you speak in larger groups, your mind pushes you with positive reinforcement of earlier success, and you may do well. Again, the mind registers this event as a positive reinforcement. This way only, you can overcome the fear of public speaking of any size.

The point is you are overcoming the fear only by taking action instead of stopping at the first two steps. Most of us are comfortable in the first two steps.

Similarly, in a professional environment, you may fear of new initiatives or new policies or processes in the organization. Fear is natural. The only way to manage fear is by taking action as follows.
  1. Recognize it
  2. Enhancing the perspectives through external sources
  3. Confronting it by taking ACTION in small and extend it
The choice we have is either fearful or FACE it through ACTION.
 
If you are fearful, the fear engulfs you. When you confront it through action, you have control over fear. It is a process that requires awareness and action!

Let us discuss other disturbing emotions next week!

Have a great week, till then!

Dealing with Fear- Rationalise it.

 Dealing with Fear- Rationalise it.

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

Last two weeks, we discussed the intricacy of FEAR and the 3-step process of dealing with fear, either imaginary fear or fact-based fear.

1.Recognize 
2.Subsidize with rational thinking
3.Confront it through action
 
Having discussed step1 Recognize last week, let us understand more about step 2

Subsidize with rational thinking:

Fear is just an emotion. The emotion can be subsidized with rational thinking with datapoints s or enhancing the perspective.

For example,

you may have a fear of exposing yourself to larger audiences on public speaking. That is natural.

You can subsidize the emotions with logical input by asking yourself. 

What will happen in the worst case if I present myself?
Do i have any past experience of failure?
What was the context?
How are others doing, and what techniques are they adopting?



When you enhance your logical perspective from other's experience, books, observation, you eventually subsidize any emotional aspect, say fear. It just needs awareness and practice of looking at emotions with logical data points.
 
In one of the retailing organizations, the management wanted to bring a reform in its sales and cash management aspects. Still, they feared losing the existing customers even though the reform would help all in the long run.

How did they manage the fear?

First, the management team had recognized and admitted the fear of losing. That led to the second step.

 Second, they checked with few customers on a trial basis and also learned the best practices from the other industries, which helped them to enhance the perspectives on dealing with the fear of losing. 

Third, they implemented clear policies and communication processes to the dealers, and to their surprise, the market accepted the initiative.
 
The key learnings are that fear is emotion and natural. Eventually, it can be offset with reasoning. For which, we need to widen the perspective!

Let us discuss step 3 next week!

Till then, have a great week ahead.

Sunday 11 October 2020

Dealing with fear -Recognize it !

 Dealing with fear -Recognize it !

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

Last week, we discussed FEAR and its dimension. Fear is unique to each individual, and through awareness and structured process, we can overcome some of the imaginary and fact-based fears.

In my personal experience, there is 3 step approach to deal with any fear.

  • Recognize
  • Subsidize with rational thinking
  • Confront through Action

1.Recognize:

First, we need to be aware of the reality that we are afraid of something. This step calls for self-introspection and honest ourselves to admit the fear.

We tend to display some of the behaviors or patterns when we have Feared of something

  1. Try to be a high perfectionist to avoid criticism or rejection
  2. Try to procrastinate the activities by citing some reasons
  3. Want to say NO but not able to do so
  4. Hiding behind excessive work or social media or other distracting activities
  5. Micromanaging the task of self and others

 Fear is an emotion; the individual only can identify the inherent pattern related to fear and acknowledge it. Once you recognize the pattern, you are in a position to address it.

For example, one of my clients struggled with micromanaging and was comfortable doing the task himself. During the probing process, he realized and admitted his fear of delegating the job to someone as they spoil his reputation. That moment is the turning point for transformation. The moment he recognized the fear, he was ready for the next step in dealing with the fear.

The key is to recognize the feeling of fear. 

The action point is to list down all the fear you have in all aspects of life and classify the fears like fear of rejection, failure, visibility, success, etc. Also, categorize them, whether imaginary or fact-based.That is the first step in dealing with fear, either imaginary or fact-based!

Let us discuss the other two steps next week.!