The one thing you SHOULD be scared of…

Unfortunately, I’ve spent a large part of my adult life being controlled by fear.

I remember in high school being so afraid of moving on to college. I was afraid of applying to schools and getting rejected, I was afraid of committing to a school, and I was afraid of the challenges that college would offer.

Once I was in college it was the same thing. I was scared to pick a major. Scared of committing myself to a hard path. I was also scared of the difficult majors. What if I were exposed as not being one of the best and brightest?

When I graduated, the fear was there, as always, waiting for me. I was afraid to apply for jobs. Afraid of locking myself into a dead-end career. Afraid of applying, and getting rejected.

The result was that I wasn’t nearly as aggressive in applying for jobs as I should have been. When I couldn’t find a job, I started setting my sights lower and lower until I took the first full-time job that I was offered: a manufacturing technician at a biotech company.

Eventually I worked my way up to a entry-level salaried position as an analyst, but I spent years of inaction paralyzed by fear.

In fact, during the time between graduating and finding a full-time job, fear held me back from more than just finding a good job.

A friend and mentor repeatedly told me during this time that I needed to start a blog. He told me that my thoughts were worth sharing with the world and he even pointed out that lots of people were making enormous money blogging.

You can guess where his advice went: nowhere — because I was too scared to act on it.

That was in 2009–2010. Looking at some of my favorite blogs and online influencers now, many of them started in 2011 and are CRUSHING IT now. I would have had a year’s head start on them.

Is it a guarantee that I would be incredibly successful right now if I had listened to my friend’s advice? No, but I could have grown much faster if I had stepped out of my comfort zone earlier.

What was I so afraid of anyway?

Actually, I remember many specific fears:

• I was afraid of the technical aspects involved in starting a blog
• I was afraid of not being able to come up with content consistently
• I was afraid of my writing being judged.
• I was afraid of my opinions being judged.
• I was afraid of the design being judged.
• I was afraid of losing money.
• I was afraid of failing. Of being “that guy” who’s always optimistically starting things but never finding success.
• I was afraid of people thinking I was a fraud.
• I was afraid of people judging me for trying to make money online.
• I was afraid of success, that’s right, I said success, which means you need to figure additional things out like how to handle your taxes, how to invest back into the business, etc.

That’s quite the laundry list of fears. At the time, I didn’t even label it as fear. I thought this was my logical evaluation of the blogging option. Fear looks like logic, even though it’s deeply emotional.

The hard truth is that if you look for reasons not to do something, you will find them.

So here I am, nearly a decade later having to confront the thing that I should have been scared of in the first place: regret.

Now, let’s get one thing straight: this isn’t a pity party. In my confrontation with regret, I have two basic options: get bitter or get better. I’ve chosen the latter.

No, it’s not a pity party — it’s a warning.

Barring a catastrophic accident, I still have a lot of time left. I can’t do anything about my regret for the past, but I can choose to make sure it isn’t part of my future.

But I won’t have that luxury forever. Last time I checked, the fatality rate of mortality was still 100%.

Regret at 31 is a humbling lesson. Regret at 80 would be devastating.

As far as we know, human beings are the only creatures that have discovered the future. The wisest among us are making full use of this ability.

In order to leverage your ability to consider the future, the primary question you should be asking yourself is “what actions would I regret not taking?”

There are mistakes of ambition and mistakes of sloth. Most of us are actively avoiding mistakes of ambition — because the consequences are usually immediate — but it’s the mistakes of sloth that hit harder in the long run.

Mistakes of sloth pave the quiet path to mediocrity.

From Average to Awesome

As far as I can tell, the journey from average to awesome has two critical steps at the beginning: commitment and courage.

These aren’t the only two things you need to be successful, but it’s almost impossible to launch without them.

Commitment

Commitment means that you need a plan. You need to proactively decide what you want, and resolve to get it. I like having a plan in writing, which adds a level of commitment.

You should have a compelling vision of a better future — your “why” — pulling you forward.

Coming up with a plan is scary. As soon as you commit to something, there’s a chance that you’ll fail. And you don’t want to fail.

There will also be the need for change, and change is uncomfortable.

Courage

When you’re looking at someone else, it can be easy to get courage confused with confidence. There’s one key difference however and it is the hidden secret of courage: courage feels like garbage.

We have a tendency to romanticize courage. Courage is a noble virtue. People who practice courage are heroic.

All of that is true, but it can give you the false sense that courage means that you aren’t scared in the face of adversity. That isn’t true. You’re scared out of your mind. It just doesn’t stop you from acting.

Any time you embark on any creative endeavor (such as for me, even publishing this post), you get a voice in your head screaming “DON’T DO THIS, IT MIGHT NOT WORK!”

You can call that voice “the resistance,” “the lizard brain,” the amygdala, or whatever you want, but it’s important that you recognize that it is waiting to ream you the second you attempt to do something different.

The important thing to realize is that in order to move forward, you’re going to need to try things that might not work. You’re going to need to step out of your comfort zone and do things that are scary.

Your lizard brain can protest all he wants, but he needs to come along for the ride.

The Fear of Losing vs. The Excitement of Winning

I want to share what is probably the most haunting quote from the all-time bestselling personal finance classic, Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki:

“Deep down you were terrified of taking risks. You really wanted to win, but the fear of losing was greater than the excitement of winning. Deep inside, you and only you will know you didn’t go for it. You chose to play it safe.”

“Deep inside, you and only you will know you didn’t go for it.” Those words cut right through me.

Look, the reality is that you might fail. But that’s not the scary part. The scary part is looking back years later with the painful awareness that you wish you had taken action.

I want to be a writer. I want to be self-employed. I want to travel with my wife and kids. I know that these things might not happen. I know that by declaring them publicly, I might add embarrassment to failure. I know the future has the potential for disappointment and discouragement.

But I’m willing to persevere through any amount of disappointment and discouragement to know that I took my shot.

The thing we should all be scared of is regret.

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