Halloween is my favorite guys, you know this already. Instead of talking about everything else I enjoy about today, I’ll use this as an intro to a fundamental principle in coaching.
That is getting familiar with what you’re afraid of, whether it’s a monster under the bed or something that you’ve been avoiding in life.
“But the thing I’m afraid of is big and scary and nooo, I don’t want to do that!” Yeah, I hear you. AND we need to take a look anyway because that’s how we’re really going to transform ourselves, our habits, and make some progress towards our goals.
Where this gets tricky is when people take a look at that monster under the bed and say, “Oh man, that monster is terrifying!” Then they stop themselves from looking again.
The trap in stopping here is that we aren’t actually addressing the thing we’re afraid of. The monster might be scary, yes, but you’re likely more afraid of what that monster will do, what it means to you, or what could happen if you lingered too long near it.
To make this a real example, you might be afraid to ask for a promotion at work. So you don’t, you wait and hope someone will notice how awesome you are (which you are, by the way). Maybe you expect that it’ll just come to you when they say it’s time.
Is asking for the promotion the real thing you’re afraid of here, or is it that they’ll say no? That the rejection will mean that you’re bad at your job, don’t deserve it, shouldn’t be there at all? Or maybe you’re worried about what people will think if you talking yourself up. My guess it’s one of the latter.
We need to actually acknowledge that our underlying fears are keeping us from doing the things we want. If we don’t, then we’re limiting what we can do simply because it’s more comfortable for us.
Don’t do that. Get a little uncomfy, look under the bed, say hi and find out what it is that you’re actually afraid of so that you can work with it and create the life you want.