Feeling fear doesn’t mean you can’t do hard things.
Fear isn’t a flaw. It’s your brain trying to protect you, even when it’s wrong.
Here’s how to remind your brain that your goal won’t hurt you.
Welcome to Ask Coach Tony!
These are unfiltered field notes from the goal-crushing life: coaching wins, personal breakthroughs, and the failures that taught both me and my clients the most.
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What do you call a blind Chicken? A Hicken.
Because it can't C.
You’ve Got Big Goals. Your Brain Has Other Plans.
In last week’s Interview with a Goal-Crusher, I shared the story of how Lauren pushed through her fear because she decided her old life wasn’t an option anymore. She went so far as to have “Be Afraid, Do It Anyway” tattooed on her body.
In today’s Ask Coach Tony, I will explain why fear pops up and tries to stop you in your tracks. Then I will give you a quick tool to help prove the fear wrong.
Avoiding the Tiger
I want to start with a hard truth about how your brain:
Your brain doesn’t give a shit about your happiness; it just wants you to be safe.
When something is unfamiliar, your brain treats it as a threat and flips into protection mode. It can’t tell the difference between a challenging stretch goal and a life-or-death situation.
That’s why taking on change feels the same, at a gut level, as stepping out of a cave into a sabretooth tiger-infested forest. Your brain isn’t asking whether the move will help you grow. It’s asking whether you’ll survive it.
It’s nice of our brains to try so hard to keep us alive, right?
But, as Lauren’s interview proves, being safe and being happy are very different.
While you don’t necessarily know your brain is doing this, there are signs.
Like fear!
When your primitive caveman brain gets triggered, you feel afraid of change.
Lies, Lies, Damn Lies!
After the fear comes the self-talk.
And this is where most people actually get stuck.
You and I both know this self-talk is usually bullshit. It’s a bunch of lies your brain uses to avoid change.
It’s time to call your brain out.
Time to prove it wrong.
You’ve done hard things before, and you can do hard things again.
You’re not bad at change.
And you have a resume that proves it.
Your Change Resume
I’m not talking about your impressive professional resume. That’s not what helps here.
When you want your brain to be less afraid of doing hard things, you need a change resume.
What’s a change resume?
I’m glad you asked.
A change resume is a tool to remind you of the hard things you have successfully achieved in your life.
Here’s how to create your change resume:
- Spend a little time with a notebook and reflect on situations when you’ve experienced a difficult change in your life.
- In one sentence, summarize the challenge you were facing and the surrounding context.
- In a second sentence, summarize the successful outcome that you achieved.
- Finally, list three to five bullets detailing the strategies you employed to achieve your successful outcome.
The next time you start feeling fear, doubt, and negative self-talk when starting something challenging, pull out your change resume. Reread it. Remember how you have lived through one hundred percent of the hard things in your life.
Your change resume provides a factual resource to prove to yourself that you can do hard things.
You’ve done them before!
You can do it now. You’ve already proven that.
A Little Help From Your (Best) Friend
“I’m bad at change,” “I hate change,” and “change is scary” are all examples of the kinds of self-talk that hold you back from living the life of your dreams. And that’s just one small taste of the smorgasbord of shitty things we say to ourselves.
Are you ready to stop undermining yourself?
Do you want to turn that inner asshole into your inner BFF?
You can do it, and here’s how.
Join my next Goal Crusher Coffee Chat, where we will start to rewire your self-talk.
The theme of this session is:
You’ve Got a Friend in YOU! A BFF Pep Talk for Your Hard Days.
In this session, I will share one of my clients’ favorite tools: my BFF Exercise.
Then we will have an informal roundtable to answer this question:
What is one thing you wish your BFF would tell you on the days you’re hardest on yourself?
This question is the first step to becoming your best friend instead of your own worst enemy.
It’s also the beginning of the end for that asshole in your brain.
If you’ve been hard on yourself lately, this conversation is for you.
Click below to sign up for this free event.
Change doesn’t have to be so hard and scary that you stay stuck in your comfort zone. You just need to remind your brain that you’re the one in charge and that you know how to do hard things. This starts with creating a change resume and then rewiring that voice in your head to be your BFF instead of your worst enemy.
✨ I believe in you. Let me help YOU believe in you!
Meet Coach Tony
Tony Weaver is a master life coach, technologist, consultant, writer, and founder of Operation Melt.
He helps project managers and other left-brained high-achievers pursue their biggest goals.
Through free resources, personalized coaching, and his proven Project Manage Your Life system, Tony empowers clients to move their dreams from “someday” to success… one step at a time.
Learn more about Project Manage Your Life, the system my clients and I use to crush our goals, at OperationMelt.com/PMYL/
Meet Coach Tony