When you are afraid, you start going into fight or flight mode. Your body starts prioritising what is needed for immediate survival - screw routine body functions, if you don't make it past the next few moments there won't be a routine to return to. You stop digesting food. Cell repair slows or stops. You stop producing saliva, which is why your mouth goes dry when you're nervous just before making a speech or going into a difficult conversation. Your heart rate and breathing increase to ensure better blood flow. A cocktail of hormones like epinephrine and oxytocin are cued up and produced, which amplifies your body's ability to act (and remarkably, in the case of oxytocin, reminds you to seek help).
Don't be mistaken about what happens when you feel fear. Your body is readying itself to help you face what you fear in the way it knows how.
What causes us to feel fear?
1) Fear occurs to us unconsciously. Do you pause to think, hey, very angry looking snake! Maybe I should be scared. Of course not, it would be too late! Fear becomes much clearer when we examine what happens inside your brain. When you are afraid, the fear/anger/aggression/anxiety centre of your brain - the amygdalas (get used to this name, it's gonna keep popping up) lights up. And we've covered all the changes that happen in your body: your blood pressure, your hormones, your heart-rate. But remember how amygdala is like a train interchange with direct routes to different parts of your brain? There is a direct neural link between our amygdala and your pre-frontal cortex, the rational thinking part of your brain. And if we look closely enough or we think things through, sometimes we realise, argh! it's not an angry snake, it's just a prank toy that your annoying friend had thrown at you. Or if you've handled angry snakes enough times, your amygdala does not light as much. Your blood pressure and your heart rate do not increase as much, you realise what you need to do is to stay calm and slowly back away.
Finally, notice how fear, anger, aggression, and anxiety are processed by the same part of the brain, the amygdala. This is no coincidence. These 4 emotions are closely tied to one another; aggression maybe triggered because one is nervous, angry, or fearful. Being fearful may cause one to react angrily, as a self-defense mechanism. Fear, like all our emotions, happens to us. Mostly, we can't control how it originates. But we can control how it develops by understanding what exactly is causing fear and by choosing the response that dispels it
2) We fear what we are unconfident or uncertain about. Think back on your ancestors doing something they weren't confident or certain off - hunting a massive animal without a weapon, or eating a berry they've never seen before. Doing so would mean a very high chance of seriously harming themselves. Today, after many cycles of evolution, we have been wired based on these experiences.
Think about it. Are you ever fearful of something you've done before, and are good? Brushing your teeth, putting on your clothes, indulging in your favourite hobby (whatever it is)? Of course not. You know you can perform these functions easily. You are confident.
But many of us would have felt fearful and anxious the first time we ventured into something new: using a pair of chopsticks, riding a bicycle, swimming, going on a first date. We were uncertain about these functions, and we were not confident about performing them. However, once we have demonstrated to ourselves that we are able to perform these tasks, we are no longer afraid. The same applies to more challenging tasks. Some of us struggle with: public speaking, starting a business, having a very difficult conversation with the CEO... You are uncertain and unconfident if you can succeed. But once you have proven to yourself you are able to do it, even for the more challenging tasks, you are no longer afraid. People might start off feeling scared about public speaking, but after speech 3797, you're pro The catch, of course, is that sometimes, we are too scared to start.
Even if we were certain of something OR confident about something, many of us will still feel some amount of fear. We might be theoretically certain how we should use a pair of chopsticks, but if we have never succeeded in using them properly, we remain unconfident and will still feel nervous if we had to use them, especially when others are observing. You might also be confident about
3) we fear what is painful. Boxer. climbing 100 flights of stairs or doing 100 burpees. But pain is not just physical but mental. Failure is painful. Being judged is painful.
This is why you procrastinate. You either fear what you have to do bevause you don't know how to do it (you don't fear brushing your teeth for example), or you fear doing something becaue you know it will be effortful
4) we fear what we cannot control
Learn more about your amygdala, the amygdala hijack, the thalamus, the pre-frontal cortex, and how your brain works here.
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Summary:
- Fear and anxiety (and anger + aggression) are always
Don't find time for your priorities. Make Time.
Sunday Night/Monday morning. You mentally think through all the tasks that you need to complete in the week ahead. It's going to be one hard slog, a super-busy week. Sounds familiar? Surely you won't have the time for anything else.
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But if something unexpected were to happen, even during this busy week? Say:
- A pipe broke and part of your house was flooded? Would you be able to fin the time to oversee the repairs and clean up the house?
- What if your spouse or family member had an emergency, and despite being so busy, you had to cover certain duties?
- What if your laptop was to crash before your work was fully saved, and you had to re-do an important piece of work?
- Ok or something a little more exciting: there is a new episode of our favourite series or something interesting surfaced on social media or there is a spontaneous dinner planned by your friends?
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We've all had such weeks before. If you are reading this, you have found a way to make it though. And even you might have realised that some items that you had on your to-do list didn't turn out to be that important after all - nothing significantly negative happened to you because you didn't compete them.
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These examples show that even when we thought we didn't have time, we found a way to make time as long as we saw something to be a priority. Note the language - "MAKE" time. Trying to "find" time is a losing strategy - if something is important to you, prioritise and make time for it.
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"If we focus on what matters, we can build the lives we want, in the time we got."
Laura Van Der Kam
Is there something you can do first, which will reduce or remove what you have to do later?
Newt Gingrich's metaphor of the chipmunks and the antelopes provide another insight into time management. Hunting antelopes and mice both take considerable effort, but one provides you with sufficient returns to carry on, while another leaves you with a negative ROI.
As you prioritise what you have to do, ask yourself also:
- Is there something I can do (an antelope) which will make other things easier or redundant? For example, do I really just need to speak to one person instead of having to go through 4 or 5 people?
- Is there something I can automate or delegate?
- Am I spending too much time hunting mice/chipmunks?
Develop a morning routine that helps you
So morning routines are all the rage at the moment. Every one, their pet dog, and their favourite pillow has a morning routine. Are they really that useful? Or just another fad that everyone is following?
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I do see some value in a waking up routine. It helps reduce decision fatigue and makes the start of each day more productive by introducing order and habit. It ensures that each day, no matter how bad it might seem, feels the same as the good ones (we learnt that your state affects your cognition). And as humans, we function better with momentum, momentum we get as we feel like we've completed the tasks we set out to do.
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One question though is what exactly goes into the waking routine. In the video above, Jim Kwik shares more about what his does when he wakes up.
There are many examples of waking routines, but I've chosen Jim's, because he had shown an uncanny ability and tremendous resolve to find what works in life. As a young child, Jim suffered a major fall and damaged his brain. He couldn't learn properly, and couldn't read even at age 5. School made me more conscious of his flaws, and made him withdrawn and less confident. He also suffers from major sleep apnea, something I also face in life. The result of this is constant sleep disruption - you struggle to get into deep sleep; your brain cannot shut down properly because it is constantly worried you might suffocate in your sleep.
Despite these challenges, in a remarkable twist of irony, the boy who couldn't read and learn is now a learning coach for the biggest companies in the world. Whether it was reading comics to learn how to read, or trialing unorthodox medicinal techniques to sleep better, Jim has always tried to find practical ways to improve his life. He did not copy his waking up routine from others, but developed one suited to himself, each step with a clearly thought-through reason.
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So if you decide to adopt a waking-up routine, pick something with reasons that suit you, rather than copying what others are doing.