Fear shows up in 3 ways and we are going to face those fears now. The first one is outright panic. So when something is scary, a situation that we are not familiar with you just panic – what do I do, oh my god, that sort of flight or fight feeling of you need to get out or you are going to run off and hide. So outright panic. Number 2 is excuse making. So when you want to go into start something and reasons came out, they were probably excuses and it’s probably because you are a little bit scared about what you are going to do. Not necessarily scary as in it’s a scary situation but probably scared of what will come of doing that thing, so change most likely. A fear of change. We don’t like change really as human beings, we like staying in our comfort zone which is what we are going to talk about in a bit. Actually when we make excuses we are just a bit scared and fearful of what the unknown is and stepping out of our comfort zone into a new world with new possibilities and things like that. Finally resistance to change which is what we were just saying, making those excuses and not wanting to change. All 3 result in staying the person that you don’t want to be and holding yourself back. It is you that is holding yourself back. There are very few things other than yourself; there are very few times that someone actually stops you from doing something. There is always a way round if you are determined enough. It’s not like someone is going to stop you every time. They might say that won’t work but you say ok I will do this then and you go round it. So the barriers that came along, I am so focused right now I will just get around that, it’s you that makes that choice, you are the one holding yourself back or it is you pushing yourself forward. So every excuse is a choice to stay where you are because it feels quite nice to stay in our comfort zones often.
Fear is an emotion we produce to try and avoid future perceived pain. It is a protective mechanism to stop us from dying and only based on what we think might happen in the future. So we are going to do the next exercise on the worksheet. Where based on those things you wrote down in the table before talking about the reasons or the excuses, whichever you think they are. What is it that you were scared of, why were you making those excuses? Face those fear, what is it you think you are scared of when it comes to starting achieving your goals. For example what we talked about last night. We talked about giving up alcohol last night, so not going out as much. We talked about if you gave up alcohol and stopped going out we were scared of being left out, not having that social interaction, not being able to go out and be part of the group. Something like that. It could be if you gave up your favourite foods, so you wouldn’t be scared, it’s not like ‘oh I am really scared’ it’s not that as you won’t realise it’s like that, it’s that the fear is still the same but you are just making excuses. If you are fearful of going to the gym, what is it about going to the gym that you are scared about. What is the worst that is going to happen in your mind when you go to the gym, what is the worst thing that is going to happen when you make that move and you take action? Does that make sense? Just write some things down on that chart on your sheet of paper what you think you are fearful of.