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
We fear what we are not good at
Do you fear being judged? Let's go through this:
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Are you worried about being judged on your ability to shop? To drink a beverage? To go for a walk? To brush your teeth?
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Let me guess - for almost all of us, the answer is obvious: NO.
When we first start to learn to swim, most of us were not very good. But which is scarier? Learning to swim as a child or learning to swm as an adult?
Again most of us would pick the same answer: we are more fearful of being judged learning to swim as an adult.
Now let's imagine you're a 30-year-old male going to a really exclusive beach party. (if you are female, please indulge me with some simply imagination). Would you feel more worried about being judged if everyone was like Homer Simpson or Arnold Schwarzenegger?
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This brings us to the crux of the matter.
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If other people's judgement is what worries us, why does no one fear being judged by how well you drink from a straw or how well you brush your teeth?
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Why is it scarier to learn how to swim or cycle when we are adults, than when we are kids?
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Why would anyone join a singing contest, a bodybuilding contest, or take part in the Olympics?
If we are truly worried about being judged, why are reality shows so popular everywhere around the world, where the whole point of reality shows is about judging people?
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If we are really worried about being judged, why do so many people post up photos and information about themselves on social media sites? Why has there been an explosion of vloggers sharing details of their lives? Every post shared invites judgment on themselves.
Well, the answer is simple.
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We do not fear judgement itself.
In fact, when we think we are good at an area, we welcome judgement.
What we fear is not being good enough when we are judged.
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In fact, did you know that even cockroaches share our fears of not being good enough when judged?
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What's really important to note is that our fear of not being good enough is highly restrictive.
First, like with all other fears, we might misjudge. When we worry whether we are judged to not be good enough, we actually spin a complicated web for ourselves, based on what we think other people think of us.
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Take a look at this picture below:
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This painting is called the "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" by Dutch painter Pieter Bruegel.
Take a look at the red box at the bottom right of the painting. In Greek mythology, Icarus and his father Daedalus were imprisoned in the labyrinth on the island Crete. They escaped wearing a pair of wings Daedalus fashioned from feathers glued together by beeswax. Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too close to the sun, because the sun would melt the bee wax, causing the wings to malfunction. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened, and we can see Icarus falling into the sea (and as legend has it, he drowned. You can read more about this Greek Myth in our cool stories page.
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Now as the painting depicts, even though something quite as dramatic as a "flying human" falling from into the sea had just happened, life pretty much goes on as per normal. Look at the farmer ploughing in the foreground. The shepherd tending to his flock in the middle of the picture. And the angler fishing at the bottom right-hand corner of the painting - none of them.
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A popular interpretation of the painting, is simply that most people are far too obsessed with their own lives to really worry about our failures. At times, our fears might cause us to overestimate the actual costs of making a mistake. I don't completely agree with this interpretation, but there is certainly some truth to it. History is filled with examples of people who came back from massive failures to accomplish great things in life.
This brings us to our second point. Does anyone have the experience of or know someone who had a question or some ideas at a meeting, but kept mum for fear that it would make you/them look stupid in front of others? If we succumb to our fear of being judged as not good enough, and avoided doing anything except in areas where we are very confident in, we deny ourselves really honest feedback and inhibit our own learning opportunities in areas that we are not good at. Moreover, such a mentality would restrict us from trying many things in life, because there are very few things we are likely to be very confident in.
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Finally, succumbing to our fear of not being good enough causes us to perform worse than we actually would. Fear causes us to lose further confidence, and to devote some of our energy worrying about what others are thinking of us, rather than focussing on the task at hand.
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Check out the "how to overcome our fears" page, for tools and suggestions to prevent us from succumbing to our fears.
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You may also be interested in the examples of Isaac Lidsky and Ray Dalio, who detail how they fought against their fears and pressed on in their lives.
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