The F Word

Editor's Notes

1. Hi Everyone, My name is Rizwan Javaid I’m a User Experience Designer at Closed Loop in Roseville. Today I would like to talk about The F Word. You know that four letter word that makes you shudder and stops you in your tracks. The word that cripples you and keeps you from taking action. The word that crumbles your passions. The word that keeps you in your comfort zone. The word that keeps you from taking risks.
2. Yes you guessed it. The word I am talking about is FEAR. The different ways we experience fear are:
3. We Fear Starting Whether it is analysis paralysis or procrastination. We distract ourselves with other much more pleasing tasks just to avoid starting. New challenges push us out of our comfort zone which cause us to fear starting.
4. We Fear putting in the work. Do we really want to be spending all our free time, our early mornings and late nights, our weekends on top of our regular job on something new?
5. We Fear the unknown Going into the fog of uncertainty is scary. We are creatures of habit. We like the comfortable life we have built for ourselves. Why go do something that is risky? We scare ourselves because of new and unfamiliar territory.
6. We Fear Others We are too worried about how we will be perceived. We fear if we are not good in front of our peers, that will be the end of us. Especially as we start out as novices in a field and are guaranteed to make mistakes. This keeps us from taking the risks we need to. What will others say when we fail and even when we succeed?
7. We Fear success Raising the bar on our performance levels means we will need to live up to it and maintain it. How will we handle all the attention we will get? We are afraid success will change our personality, who we are so we fear it. We fear getting all the attention we will receive once we succeed.
8. What should we do about fear? Do we fight it? or run away from it? Do we ignore it? or Do we embrace it?
9. I recently came across Pema Chödrön, a Buddhist Nun and an author. I would recommend this book to everyone, it has great lessons for everyone. In the book, Pema shares a great story about how to deal with fear in her book When Things Fall Apart.
10. Once there was a young warrior. Her teacher told her that she had to do battle with fear. She didn’t want to do that. It seemed too aggressive; it was scary; it seemed unfriendly. But the teacher said she had to do it and gave instructions for the battle. The day arrived. The student warrior stood on one side, and fear stood on the other. The warrior was feeling very small, and fear was looking big and wrathful. The young warrior roused herself and went toward fear, prostrated three times, and asked, “May I have permission to go into battle with you?” Fear said, “Thank you for showing me so much respect that you ask permission.” Then the young warrior said, “How can I defeat you?” Fear replied, “My weapons are that I talk fast, and I get very close to your face. Then you get completely unnerved, and you do whatever I say. If you don’t do what I tell you, I have no power. You can listen to me, and you can have respect for me. You can even be convinced by me. But if you don’t do what I say, I have no power.” In that way, the student warrior learned how to defeat fear.
11. That story has a great lesson for us, instead of running from fear we can identify the moment when we experience fear and stop doing what fear tells us to do. We should understand our fears, respect our fears, embrace our fears, but then we have the choice of not listening to our fears. Is it going to be tough? Yes. Will fear disappear from your life? Definitely not. But one thing is for sure, when you stop listening to your fears you will be able to get started, move faster, and achieve any goal you set out for so yourself so you can become the amazing person you were destined to be. Thank you.