Fear #
7
Fear Of A Bad Outcome
Fear Description
This fear feels like a generalized anxiety about life and is prone to worst-case-scenario thinking. You desire certainty in the outcome in order to feel safe in a dangerous world. This desire, distorted by fear, drives you to seek to control circumstances or outcomes through micromanaging all the variables. Alternately, it can cause you to crumble under the weight of the uncertainty of life or in business. This fear keeps you from boldly stepping into an unknown future. Preferring, rather, to remain in moments from the past where you felt safe and secure, effectively shutting your life down.
Leadership Style
Circus
You are going through the motions, failing to upgrade your systems or approach. Rather than being honest about reality and adjusting, you believe if you just stay persistent in the routines, something will change. But then nothing changes. The show doesn’t go on. Eventually, tumbleweeds blow through and the circus fades into irrelevance.
Core Value
What you value is an important element for any successful team or organization. However, in limbo moments when you feel stress, pressure, change or uncertainty, your values will become out-of-balance, causing you to build unbalanced teams and create an unbalanced culture.
The core value of those with this fear is Stability. Without awareness, in times of stress you will overvalue Safety and undervalue Adversity.
You Undervalue
Adversity
Your Core Value
Stability
You Overvalue
Safety
Core Doubt
Every leader pursuing an ambitious horizon experiences doubts. You will experience relational doubts ("Do they like me?") and you will experience mission doubts ("Am I doing a good job?"). At the root of it all is a mindset doubt.
If this is your top fear, your core doubt is "I doubt I am safe from danger". Here are also a few questions that may help you see and understand your doubt better.
Hiding Question
Is the chance something will go wrong causing me to miss opportunities?
Core Doubt
I doubt I am safe from danger
Proving Question
Am I attempting to control all the variables to create certainty?
Non-Supportive Habits
You can fool yourself into believing that perfecting details are essential to achieving short- and long-term goals.
The Limiting Beliefs
Any variables must be perfected. You need to have certainty and/or control.
3 Things to Apply
1. Learn To Interpret Your Energy
The anxiety you feel over what could go wrong won’t be settled by attempting more control. Channel the energetic impulse into fortifying your mind through routines and habits that strengthen your internal resolve even when you are externally threatened. As a tree interprets the changing seasons, channel the anxious winds into fortifying your mental roots.
2. Recognize That Safety Is In Movement
Don’t mistake stationary with secure. Entropy will erode the strength you offer the world. Pay attention to the concerns you have. If they arise from fear, move forward anyway. If they arise from conviction, seek the answers then take the risk. It’s like a tree, strengthening its roots by moving with the wind.
3. Practice Genuine Loyalty
Loyalty is your superpower and the way you protect others. Give it away as your gift. Show your fierceness through a commitment to them first, as you allow them to rise to the high standards you set. Nurture and protect others like the branches of a tree providing shelter.
3 Things to Avoid
1. Don’t Misread The Situation
Don’t give in to overwhelm by dedicating your mental energy to what can go wrong. When you’re only focused here, your energy spikes and you miss the opportunity the challenging situations provide for your development. It's like a tree concerned only about the incoming storm rather than seeing the nourishing rain it can bring.
2. Don’t Overload Your Nervous System
When you constantly vacillate between fight, flight, and freeze, you wire your brain and shape your nervous system’s response to conclude that growth is just switching back and forth. No matter the circumstance, you can find your flow. Allow your growth to flow steadily, like the branches adapting to the winds, finding strength in the rhythm of what happens.
3. Don’t Use Loyalty As A Test
It’s exhausting to continually stay on the lookout for the next person who will betray your trust. You will be let down by others but don’t keep attempting to prove people’s loyalty by testing them. That’s like a tree constantly shaking its branches to prove the faithfulness of its leaves.
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