The 8 Types of Fear we all Face

At the end of 2022, I have vowed to make more episodes, more shows provide more value this year than I have in the years past and regularly we host an interview show, we’re going to guess and we’ll give you the how-to, you need to build a stronger nonprofit. I was trying to figure out what was missing. What can I do more to provide you with the audience value? And I looked at a few things, a few different types of content, some how-to stuff, some mindset, some leadership, maybe reviews of past episodes, or the actionable steps that you need, the down, and dirty quick highlights. I’ve been sitting and thinking about what I’m going to produce or what I’m going to write. what I’m going to talk about, and for no reason, I don’t know where this fear starts sitting in. And I’m like, you know the expected interview show but it’s not going to be the interview show. 

Am I going to be good enough on my own? Keep in mind, I’ve already been, you know, at the top of the ranks, and several countries and they’ve been recognized for my podcasting and different things. And even though I’ve done so well, in the podcasting world, I still was getting hit by some of this uncertainty, some of those fears, and that parallelization. So in the first episode that I’m putting out as a solo effort, no intro no outro no production, I wanted to get in and talk about fear and talk penalization and what we can do to combat these things. 

When you look at fear, there are really eight dominant fears out there that we need to overcome, to train ourselves to be more proactive. Every time we get caught up in thinking about oh, what about this or what about that and how am I gonna do this and what are people gonna think and all these things? It gets overwhelming. So we’re gonna break down the eight different types of fear and what we can do about them. 

Fear of Setting Goals. 

It’s 2022. It’s the new year and if you’re listening to this right away in 2022 you’re like oh, really here we go. You know something about, new year new me, all that nonsense, but that’s not really it.

When we set goals for ourselves, no matter what they might look like, whether they’re calendar based on the year, waiting for the next holiday, or whatever the thing; whatever goal it is, if it’s personal achievement, whether it’s for work or anything else. It’s hard to set goals, but it’s really hard to reach what we desire if we don’t set them,

I’ve heard that the difference between a dream and a goal is a plan. In order to reach our dreams, we really have to set goals and create that plan. If we don’t set goals, or we set the wrong goals, we’re not going to get those results that we really desire. You’ve got to have clear objectives you’ve got to have targets to aim at and to achieve. And, you know, if we don’t have those goals, we’re kind of under the false impression that we can’t fail. 

Really what that means is that we just think that because we haven’t set goals that we can’t really achieve them, because there’s no real metric or measurement. If you don’t have a solid plan in place, if you don’t have that goal set down, you’re kind of stuck from the get-go. If you look at nature and think of an acorn, its goal is to grow into an oak tree. It is not complete in its own capacity as an acorn. It needs to be put on the ground, water, sunshine, all those fun things. But it is definitely going to turn itself into an oak tree and produce millions of other acorns. 

We need to do this with ourselves. And the way we can do that is by setting goals figuring out that maybe it’s a BHAG big, hairy, audacious goal or whatever your goal is, is to break it down into bite-size, little chunks that we actually can achieve. 

I remember being in the Navy and struggling with running and you have things like a mile and a half run the new physical fitness exam, or you might have a 5k goal or a half marathon goal or marathon, whatever it is, and we’ve got crazy ultra marathons like 100 miles and things. You don’t get to marathon status without setting goals, training goals throughout the week, and then showing up but when you’re just getting started when your body is not in a running shape, my body’s not running shape. You know, sometimes you just have to say I’m going to get to that next. Traffic Light. I’m going to get to that next telephone pole. I’m going to get to that next intersection. And just to keep us moving along. 

Goal after goal, step by step. Even if it’s a small goal, that momentum is going to help you get to those big ones. So fear of setting goals is kind of a bust you have to set goals. Not setting goals doesn’t mean anything. 

Fear of Failure. 

If we don’t believe we can succeed, we’ve lost the battle before it even begins. This is how I felt a lot throughout my military career, my college career even in podcasting that you almost get in this headspace where you can talk yourself out of doing what it is that you need to do. Because if you don’t, you know try then you can’t fail. You can do it, you can succeed. I don’t think that I’m anything special. I just show up week after week, month after month, year after year, and keep doing what needs to be done. Everything that I’ve done, everything that I’ve tried to do, and everyone else that I know that I’ve done anything worthwhile are full of all these little tiny failures and missteps and redirects and course corrections. 

You know you can’t sail from Virginia to Spain without turning the ship to the wheel. you have to be able to turn, you have to correct for current, you have to correct for land, you have to correct for wind, and just because you’ve set that course doesn’t mean you’re not going to have to course correct. Whether you want to call it a mistake or a failure or a bump in the road or everyone to call it. There’s no clear, unfettered clean path directly from A to B. Even working out in the gym, you tear the muscles apart. You have to give that rest day so your muscles can rebuild. Because the rest days are the days that you actually get bigger and stronger. 

I know Thomas Edison and his great edict says that I have not failed. I just found 10,000 ways that won’t work but he kept at it until we found a way that does work and now his name is submitted in history as the inventor of the lightbulb. There are so many chances for success out there so many opportunities for meaningful achievement, meaningful achievement, and accomplishments in our life. The fear of failure can be negligible, but you’ve wasted time and resources. You’re going to get bumps in the road you’re going to go backward. Be aware of your mistakes, but nothing can hold you back because persistence renders fear of failure, powerless. Persistence renders fear of failure, powerless.