How to stop making decisions from fear
Not long ago, I realized how much I was letting fear be my guide for life. Fear was dictating my decisions, what I said or didn’t say, how I chose to live, what dreams I followed or didn’t follow, etc…. It was keeping me in relationships that weren’t healthy for me because I was afraid of leaving them and missing out on something or being alone.
How many of us are working jobs we hate and dreading waking up each morning because we are too afraid to go after our dreams?
How many of us are in relationships where we aren’t happy or we’re being treated with disrespect because we are afraid to leave because they might change or we don’t want to be alone and may never find another relationship?
How many decisions do we make based on fear instead of the leading of the Spirit, love, and hope? Sometimes this is a subconscious fear that we aren’t even aware that we have because we haven’t even taken time to reflect on the WHY behind many of our actions and patterns.
Sometimes we are well aware of the fear and have decided that living in unhappiness is better than living in uncertainty.
Something that I have learned from Tim Ferris and Marie Forleo is the power of confronting your fears. Ask yourself what the worst case scenario is. If you leave that relationship where you are so unhappy, what is the worst thing that is possible? If you quit your job and pursue your dreams, or at least pursue your dream while at your job, what is the worst thing that could happen?
Write it out. Really think about it for a while.
Then, ask yourself how you would fix that. What could you do that could either prevent that from happening or reverse it?
This exercise usually has the effect of making us realize that the worst case scenario that we are so afraid of really isn’t all that bad and that we could, with a few measures in place, avoid it altogether.
The very thing that we are most fearful of doing is probably the thing we need to do the most. I speak a lot about following the leading of the Spirit. God will often tell me what I need to do but I’ll second guess it out of fear of the unknown or feelings of inadequacy. But we have to get out of that thinking and approach decisions from a different perspective. If God has given you a desire or talent for something, it’s ok to trust that he will also equip you to do it.
I’m a big believer in training your subconscious so that your automatic or knee-jerk reactions are made from a place of trust, abundance, and hope instead of fear and scarcity. God’s word, edifying affirmations, podcasts, books, blogs, friends, what you say to yourself each day and more all work to train this ability. Thinking through the worst case scenario also works. Confront your fears. Name them. Trust God. And then push through them.
