How to Overcome FEAR and Get Out of Your Comfort Zone

Overcome fear and get out of your comfort zone for breakthrough success.

I tell my potential business coaching clients that they have to have 4 key behaviors to succeed as an entrepreneur.  If they don’t want to do these things, I won’t let them hire me.  It’s simply no fun to coach someone and not have them achieve breakthrough results and positive shifts in their business and life.  Are you curious as to what these key behaviors or characteristics are?

In order to make huge success easy and fast, here are the secrets:

1.  Have an open mind.
2. Be willing to get out of your comfort zone.
3. Take action.
4. Be personally responsible.

OK, huge success may not always be easy, but it’s simple, faster and easier if you follow the above guidelines.  Secret #2 is the one that holds most of us back.  This article is designed to make it easier for you to overcome fear and get out of  your comfort zone.  By doing this, you will accelerate achieving all the wonderful things you want in this lifetime.  You will also be happier, more proud of yourself and more confident.

Some of my clients know exactly what to do to succeed, but they are simply not doing it.  Have you ever wanted to lose weight and knew you needed to eat less sweets and more vegetables and exercise more, but didn’t do it?  It’s an awful feeling to know what to do and not do it.  That’s my definition of suffering.

In business, often we know exactly what to do to increase profits or revenue, and it usually involves some sort of personal outreach and sales.  Most of the time, FEAR is involved.  FEAR rears its ugly head whenever we try something new, set new goals or commit to getting to the next level in business, relationships or any area of life.  Why did I capitalize FEAR?  It is an acronym that stands for False Evidence Appearing Real.  Most of the time, it is horrible made up stuff in our mind that never comes true!

What is fear and where did it come from?  Fear signals come from the primitive portion of our brain called the amygdala.  This part of our brain evolved in our early development as a signal for flight or fight.  If a saber-tooth tiger was attacking you, this was a handy mechanism to initiate increased heart rate, adrenaline and running away to safety.  In modern times, we have very few actual dangers.  This portion of our brain kicks in and makes up very convincing negative things that could happen if we take a new action or even think about getting out of our comfort zone.  99 percent of the time, these made-up horror stories never come true, but we’re easily convinced not to take the required action so these fictitious figments of our imagination don’t come true.

Great, now you understand where it comes from and how it stops you.  This information is really not helpful.  How do we overcome fear and being stuck in this cycle?

The first step in any growth is awareness.  Realize that the voice in your head representing FEAR is loud, convincing and scary.  In coaching language, the terms monkey-brain, gremlin, and saboteur have been used to represent this internal voice of ours.  The other important fact is that it will never go away.  It will evolve and grow with you, since it is a portion of your own brain.  You cannot fight it.  In fact, if you do fight it, you have played into it’s game.  You are spinning in your head rather than taking action.  The best thing to do is simply observe your voice of fear.  Some people characterize it and embrace it.  Simply being aware is enough.  Then, ask yourself the powerful question: “Is this thought supporting me in taking the action I need to do to get where I want to go?”   If the answer is no, then it is most likely the voice of fear and you should courageously venture forth.

Once you have awareness of irrational fear, the easiest thing to do is to simply take action.  Like Nike says, “Just Do It.”  At least 9 times out of 10, your fears will not come true, and if they do, they will not be as bad as you imagined.  Everything works out for the best in the end.  Have faith in your dreams, and do what it takes to get there.  Go for it!

In contrast, the voice of your highest self, wisdom, God or intuition from the universe is quiet and calm.  Pay extra attention to this voice and take action as soon as possible.  To allow this voice to guide you, I recommend doing what it takes to create peaceful spaces of time in your day.  Even five minutes of mindful breathing can give powerful answers to your questions or insightful ideas for action.  Exercising and meditation are powerful tools to access your intuition as well.

It takes practice to distinguish these two voices.  Think of your life and business as an experiment.  Sally forth with actions in the face of FEAR.  Try new things, even if they don’t make sense, if the idea comes to you in a time of peace and when you are heart-based in your thinking.  I promise you will get better and better and fear will no longer control you.  Your dreams and goals will show up faster.

If you’d like to learn more about this topic, I’d recommend reading “Taming Your Gremlin” or “The Secret“.

Once you have tried the above suggestions on how to overcome fear and get out of your comfort zone, please come back and share your success stories.