Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - Overcome Fear And Get What You Want

Episode Date: June 11, 2020

Here is the simple truth about fear: the worst possible outcomes that hold us back almost never come to fruition. Our fears are manufactured stories, and just as they have come to be, they can be torn out at the roots. Similar to jumping into a cold pool, overcoming fear is about increased exposure to a stimulus, and in this episode I discuss a few ways to internalize and acclimate to discomfort so that it can work for us, not against us.  

Welcome to You World Within Daily. I'm Eddie Panero. In this episode, we're going to talk about overcoming fear and how by simply repositioning how we're looking at a stimulus, we can make the situation work for us. So imagine standing around a pool and ice cold water, right? And you're looking at it and you know that when you jump in, it's going to be uncomfortable. You don't want to jump in, right? You don't want the pins and needles. You don't want that feeling of just discomfort. And so you procrastinate, you procrastinate, you procrastinate. Ultimately, you summons the courage, you jump in and it is cold and it is uncomfortable when you get pins and needles and it's, you know, it's a rough 90 seconds. But then your body acclimates. And pretty soon you're moving throughout the water with any, without any discomfort at all, right? Because increased exposure to that stimulus has changed your reality. It's changed the way you think about it and it's changed the actual situation. And that's essentially applicable to everything we fear.

As I mentioned last week, the scariest thing is not the actual outcome, right? It's how our brain perceives it. And so almost like training a dog, right? Growth is tricking your mind into accepting a stimulus. And so there are a lot of ways to do this. I've been referencing Tim Ferriss a few times. You know, another cool trick from that four-hour work week that I loved was, you know, lying down on a crowded sidewalk. Same exact concept as the pool. He says you lie on your back on a crowded street. People walk by you. Think about how terrifying that is on the surface. To me, that's scarier than jumping in a pool.

100%. And so you're lying there and people are walking by you. They're looking at you. They're wondering what you're doing. And what happens is, after a while, as they go and they continue to move, the anxiety starts to dissipate little by little, by little. and suddenly you're indifferent. Suddenly your exposure to that stimulus has come to a point where it's the new norm,

where you've jumped in the metaphorical water, and it's no longer scary. It's no longer a thing. And that is essentially what we're looking to do. It's taking that concept and applying it to the things we're scared of. I found this was a while ago now, an activity called the avoidance ladder, where if you picture an actual ladder, right, from top to bottom, and on the very bottom rung, right, where you would step first,

you put something that scares you a little bit. And then, you know, you continue to go up, and the very top rung on this ladder would be, you know, the thing that maybe you really want or you're really intrigued by, but it's terrifying. And if you start at the bottom and every day you do that one little thing, right, and slowly increase every day, your relationship with fear changes gradually. And you become the person, at least in your head, that takes the difficult, takes discomfort, takes adversity, and makes it. the norm.

Because again, the key here is the outcome is never as scary as we think it is. Very, very, very rarely. Our worst fears never come to fruition. What happens is we can't convince our brain to acclimate to a stimulus. We can't convince ourselves to start stepping forward towards that thing. So we never jump in the water, right? We never lie on the sidewalk. It remains this, this, you know, terrifying thing.

But like teaching a dog to sit, if you can train your mind little by little that no adversity is not bad, adversity is what you need. And the difference between succeeding and not succeeding, the difference between, you know, actualization or wishing is small steps towards those things that are uncomfortable. And you can do it. It's not difficult to do on paper. It's the practice of, you know, climbing that avoidance ladder, little by little. So I'd be interested to see if anyone wants to try that, right? Today, as you're sitting there, draw it out, you know, maybe 10, 12, 20 rungs on a ladder. At the top, the thing you're scared most of, something that's, you know, not just for the sake of being scared, right?

Something that you want to do. You're interested in that's important. but scares you, and then work down the ladder. Every wrong, you know, a little less scary, a little less scary, a little less scary, until the bottom one, which you'll do today, will be a little bit uncomfortable. It'll start getting you in that mindset of, you know, doing one thing. That's it. So we talk about all the time on this podcast, right?

Big things are just a culmination of little things. that starts with an awareness and a willingness. So let's get it. Thank you guys for watching. I appreciate it. If you enjoy this, please subscribe, rate, and review. Helps me get it out to the world, and that means everything to me.

I will catch you guys tomorrow.