MVP: 3 Lies About Fear

Did you know that you can have unshakable self-confidence? I'm Sheri Brazier. I'm an advanced certified style coach, personal wardrobe stylist, and seasoned hairstylist. I'm on a mission to teach women everywhere to see their true value and create self-confidence on the inside and then help you dress that way on the outside. Women just like you are craving strategies to dress your body shape stylishly, tools you can use to help you love yourself and process disappointment and overwhelm, all while still looking put together when you leave the house. If you're ready to figure out your personal style and learn the tools to help you build and create more self-confidence, then you are in the right place. Let's get started. Well, hello, my friends. I'm so grateful that you're here. This week, today, I'm going to talk to you about something that came up for me in the last couple of weeks about fear. And if you're on my email list, this will be familiar to you because it's in my email. And the topic today is three lies about fear. And I wanted to bring this to the podcast because I've thought about it a lot. And I obviously put it in my email and I've had some discussions with people and I just think that fear, at least for me, has been something that I've dealt with a lot in my life. I used to be scared of everything. And so I feel like I've come a long way in letting fear guide me. And I've learned a lot about fear. And so I wanted to bring this to you today to the podcast because I think that fear holds us back from having the self-confidence that we really want and maybe that we have already. We just don't realize it because fear is in the way. So I have a little story to illustrate how this kind of came up and why. And a couple of weeks ago, I had to speak in our church congregation and I was asked to join as a guest speaker with someone who was on assignment to speak in our congregation. And he gave me a pretty broad topic to speak on. And when I. When I received it, I thought it wouldn't be too hard to come up with something to talk on because it was a broad topic and one that was very familiar to me. And as I prepared my talk, I got more and more nervous to deliver it. And if you know me, you know that I love to talk. So talking in front of people is not really very hard for me. And I was in trouble frequently as a child for talking too much. And there's a story there for another day that I'll tell you some other time. But speaking is not hard for me. It's not something that I have trouble with. I've spent my entire career as a hairstylist talking to people. And lots and lots of different people have come in to my salon. And I have been able to have conversations with all kinds of people from all different values, strengths. To lifestyle habits, to just lots of different various types of people. And so over the 20, almost 27 years of being a hairstylist, I feel like I've been able to craft a skill of being able to talk and to talk to different kinds of people. And I genuinely love people. I love all people. And I love to learn. And so being given a topic to learn more about and then talk about to people is kind of my jam. And so there's no problem there. But as the day came closer to me delivering this talk, I found myself getting really scared. And now I'm a life coach, right? So naturally, I noticed the emotion of fear come up. And I just got curious as I teach my clients to do. I practice what I preach. I just got curious about what I was feeling and why I was feeling fear. And I didn't spend too much time indulging in it. I just allowed it to be there. And I just did the talk anyway. And when I say that I got curious about it and that I didn't spend too much time indulging it and I just allowed it, what I mean by that is I noticed that I was afraid. And I was like, huh, I wonder what that's about. And I just kind of thought in my mind and kind of went into my body about where do I feel this fear? And why do I feel it? And immediately I went into, you know, all of the things about like, what if I'm not prepared enough? What if I don't speak long enough and I leave him too much time? What if the things I say don't resonate with people? All of those things start coming to my mind. And when I say I don't indulge in it, I just don't entertain those ideas. I just don't entertain those thoughts. I notice that they come and I immediately say, those aren't useful. Those kinds of thoughts aren't useful. Trying to figure out what if I'm not prepared enough, if I sit in that for a long time, then I'm not going to be prepared. That doesn't help me to prepare my talk. It helps me be afraid of preparing my talk. When I indulge in. And start going down the rabbit hole of what if I'm not prepared and all of the things that could happen if I'm not prepared, right? I know enough now that indulging in that story and massaging those thoughts and keeping them coming, it just generates more fear. And that fear gets stronger and stronger. And then I get more scared. More fear comes up. And I get. I get more stuck. And so over the years of feeling the emotion of fear, I have. I'm able to recognize that fear is coming. I'm able to recognize those thoughts that create more fear. And I'm able to just shut them down. I'm able to just say to myself, we're not going there. We're going to prepare our talk and it's going to be fine. We're going to deliver this talk and it's going to be fine. It's going to be great. Maybe it's not going to be perfect. Maybe there are people that it doesn't resonate with. Maybe I do. Maybe I do leave my companion speaker more time. Maybe all of that stuff happens and it will be fine. If that happens, I won't die. I won't die. And so when I say I don't indulge in it, I just don't go down the rabbit hole of those thoughts. I just don't allow them to consume my thoughts. Okay? So that's what I mean by I don't indulge in it. And just allowed it to be there is the same type of thing. I just was like, yeah, maybe. Maybe I get there and I didn't prepare as much as maybe I thought that I did. It doesn't take up as much time as I thought that it was going to take. And I leave him more time. That's okay. It's going to be all right. What's the worst that could happen? And maybe the worst is I will feel something. That's what the, that's the worst that will happen is that I will feel disappointed. I will feel shame. I will feel. Not good enough. I will feel self-doubt. I will feel these emotions. Right? Well, I'm feeling fear now. And so do I want to pile on self-doubt and shame and not good enough on top of feeling afraid? Because the thing hasn't even happened yet. And I'm now indulging in what if all of these things happen? What if I don't have enough content to take up as much time as I need to? Then I would feel embarrassed. Ultimately, that's what I would be running from is feeling embarrassed. Well, the only reason that I would feel embarrassed is because of what I was thinking. Because your thoughts create your feelings. So the only reason I would feel the feeling of embarrassment is because I would be telling myself that I made a fool of myself or whatever other things I would be telling myself that would make me feel embarrassed. And if you go down the rabbit. Hole of all of those things before you actually do the talk before I actually do the talk, I'm indulging in all of this stuff, then I feel embarrassment, the talk hasn't even happened yet. And I feel fear. So I've piled on embarrassment, shame, self-doubt, disappointment, whatever it is I'm that I think I might feel if something were to happen on top of fear, which is what I actually am feeling. So I gave the talk anyway, I felt all of these things and I gave the talk anyway. And when I was done, I had several people come up to me and send me messages after the meeting and telling me that I did a great job and that they really enjoyed listening to my thoughts, that they were thought provoking and they made them think and it was exactly what they needed. And it was very helpful and all of these things, right? And there was a couple of people that said, I would never be able to do that. I would never be able to speak in a meeting like that. in front of all of those people, and that they were just like, wow, I can't believe you did that kind of a thing. And that's what got me thinking. I was like, well, did you think that I wasn't scared the whole time? Did you think that I wasn't nervous? Did you think that, you know, this was just something that I just, that just comes easily to me that I just get to be, you know, in a situation like this without any emotions and it just got me thinking and I started to realize that what I used to do with fear in this situation and this is also what I see others doing and these are the three lies that fear tells us okay so number one is that we just shouldn't be afraid like there were a lot of people that came up to me that that told me that I did a great job that just assumed I wasn't afraid that I just didn't have that emotion and I think we think that we think that you we shouldn't be afraid I know I did that for years and years for lots of things and I still do I there's things that come up in my life and I think I just I shouldn't be afraid of this this is silly I should not have fear over this thing it this emotion doesn't warrant the situation I just shouldn't have it okay so that's the that's the first one is that we just shouldn't have the emotion and the second one is that if we're afraid that must mean that we should stop if there's fear there that must mean that we shouldn't do the thing that if it's that's a sign to stop that's a sign that we should stop whatever it is that we're doing and there was one particular person in in you know that I'm thinking of that said that she could never do something like that because she would just be too afraid and she just wouldn't she's like I don't do stuff like that because I get too scared and so that's I was like so if you're scared of something you just shouldn't do it that's that's the what she was telling me is that if I'm afraid that means I should stop that means I shouldn't do the thing okay um the third one is that you can't do it unless you're not afraid that I can't just do it afraid do it scared that you can't do something afraid you have to not be afraid anymore the fear has to be gone for you to go through with the thing that you want to do or that you've been asked to do or that you're expected to do whatever that you have to not be afraid anymore in order to do it and I just think these are really interesting because the first one we're talking about the scenario that I was talking about earlier and speaking in this congregation um I wasn't I I didn't wait for fear to go away before I delivered my talk and I was afraid to do that I was afraid of judgment I was afraid of not taking enough time I was afraid of all those things but I didn't make that stop me from doing it and I didn't tell myself that I shouldn't be afraid I just did it anyway you're afraid and you do it anyway and we allow fear to make decisions for us in our lives but fear isn't the emotion that we want to have when we're making decisions because naturally fear stops us fear is an emotion that we need to have it keeps us safe it is not a bad emotion that we need to get rid of it is here to serve us it's here to protect us it's here to let us know when there's danger right we don't want to be making decisions from that place we don't want to be making big decisions from that place we are in actual danger our life is in actual danger then of course we want to make decisions from fear but if it's some a goal that you're just afraid of for whatever reason because you know people might judge you or heaven forbid you might make it and then what then what will you do um one of the things that I think a lot of that I have that I'm afraid of a lot of is if I reach that goal then I'm gonna have to keep on doing that thing and that's what I'm gonna have to do that thing sounds hard to me right now because I haven't accomplished it yet and so that sounds really backwards and I I realize that but that is a real thing for me I have a goal that I wanted that I want to achieve and sometimes what comes up is but when I achieve that goal that means I'm gonna have to keep doing it and it's gonna it's hard to get there right now I'm trying to get there I haven't made it yet and it's really hard so somewhere in my mind I think that when I when I achieve that goal because it's going to be hard to get there that that means it's going to be hard to maintain it and I don't know that that's true and I don't know that it's not true I don't know I haven't got there yet do you see what I'm saying fear is making the decision to keep me safe here to hold me back here and instead of making decisions from fear we can easily access the situation that we're in and decide if we're actually in danger most of the time we aren't contrary to popular belief speaking in that meeting in front of the all those people will not kill me it didn't kill me it might be scary and I might want to do a thousand other things instead but that act alone is not life-threatening but in my mind if we indulge the fear if we indulge those thoughts that's what it can feel like it really does feel life-threatening and over the years I've had a healthy amount of fear that shows up in my life on a fairly regular basis I've had lots and lots of practice doing things scared I used to be afraid of everything everything I haven't mastered not being afraid and I don't think that that's the goal I think that fear is here to serve us it is here for us to protect us being afraid protects us from danger from actual life-threatening danger and the goal is to know when fear is protecting us from actual life-threatening things and when fear is just getting in our way of accomplishing our highest goals so that is the the question when you feel afraid just take a second assess the situation are you actually in danger in actual life-threatening danger if you are you should get out and you should follow the fear because it will lead you out but if you're not in actual danger you're just afraid of putting yourself out there you're afraid of ridicule you're afraid of standing for something that you really feel passionate about but you know that your peers don't and that might be afraid to stand out for something that you believe in in front of people that you're not really sure how they're going to receive that right unless they have weapons they're going to kill you if you were to say the things you're not actually in life-threatening danger but your brain thinks you are your brain is trying to protect you that's what our brains do that's what our brains do it's our job i just wanted to offer you these three lies that fear tells us to see where in your life are you living smaller because you're afraid where in your life are there things you would love to do love to accomplish love to contribute to love to be a part of but you're afraid of ridicule you're afraid of embarrassment you're afraid you'll disappoint yourself or someone else what are you afraid of that's always going to be some emotion that you're protecting yourself from that's okay nothing wrong with that at all but it's really helpful to notice that that's what's happening because then you can decide what you want to do with it maybe you decide that's too scary it's actually life-threatening to me or it's going to create things that i don't want to in my life so i'm not going to do that thing totally fine but make a conscious decision don't make a decision just because you're afraid look at what you're afraid of see what the worst case scenario would be allow that emotion to be there don't indulge down the rabbit hole of all of the things figure out what fear is actually telling you and then decide if you're going to do it scared anyway this next year i i've been picking a word for the year for the last couple of years and the word for for next year for me is brave and i'm gonna do a lot of things scared next year i've got a list of things that are on my to-do list of things that i need to do and they're scary to me all of them are scary to me and i'm gonna do them all all and I'm going to be scared and I'm not going to tell myself I shouldn't be and I'm not going to let fear stop me and I'm not going to have to wait until I'm not scared in order to do it. I'm just going to do it scared and I'm going to be brave. And I want to challenge you to find those things in your life that fear is stopping you from getting what you want, from accomplishing the thing that you want to accomplish and see where you can do it scared. Be brave, have courage and do it scared. All right you guys, that's it for this week. If you would like some help with this, if you've got something that's scary and you just want to talk it out, go to my website and click on the work with me tab and there is a place where you can sign up for a consultation call and you can jump on my calendar. And we can have a conversation and we can decide if working together would be a good fit and if I can help you through your goals and doing it scared. All right, that's it for this week you guys. We'll talk to you later. Bye. If you're ready to create a life and wardrobe you love and feel confident every day, I want to invite you to join my program Style Mastery where you're going to learn how to make it even easier to love your life and the way you look. With me right by your side, you deserve that. Just head over to www.sherrybrazier.com forward slash join style mastery. I'll see you there.