How fear of change and limiting beliefs sabotage personal growth

Dilemma

Why don’t we go after the things we truly want to pursue?

Why do we stay at jobs, which don’t fulfill us?

Why do we live in flats, which don’t feel like home?

Why do we try to maintain friendships, which are not good for us anymore?

Why do we dedicate our time, efforts, and feelings to toxic relationships, which make us miserable?

I believe that each one of us has asked themselves one of these questions at some point in their lives.

Depending on our emotional maturity and self-reflection ability, we might have been able to answer the question, or we have just tried to avoid it for as long as possible until change happens naturally. The truth is, nothing changes unless you do.

But what prevents you from changing, growing, and creating a life you are proud of and enjoy living?

Fear of change. Fear of letting go. Fear of newness.

As Lisa Fritscher writes in her article What is fear: “Fear is a natural, powerful, and primitive human emotion.  Sometimes fear stems from real threats, but it can also originate from imagined dangers.”

We tend to live so much in our heads, overthink things, and create all possible scenarios of how the result of our action might look. We imagine all horrible ways of how our potential action might not yield the desired outcome, how something wouldn’t work out for us, how things might go wrong. On the other hand, since fear involves some of the same chemical reactions in our brains that positive emotions like happiness and excitement do, these positive opportunities, adventures, and changes, might be seen as terrifying and dangerous.

But no matter whether you decline it or embrace it and try to navigate it, change is inevitable. If you don’t take the risk to make a change, you are at a greater risk to stay where you are, be left behind, and not continue growing. Here are some suggestions on how to navigate fear from the unknown:

• Clarity over uncertainty. In his book, The Four Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss states that “most people choose to be unhappy rather than uncertain.” While this might be true, I challenge you next time when experiencing fear associated with the unknown to try to rewire your brain to think of clarity, not of certainty. The concept of clarity over uncertainty was proposed by Dr. David Rock, Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer NeuroLeadership Institute, in an interview with Eleonore Voisard for BBC.  The change that is before you might not yield a specific, certain outcome, but it will surely give you clarity and perspective. And this is something to look forward to, and not fear. Remember how our brains might mix fear with excitement? Trick it to think of the latter.

• Embrace what you can’t control and find meaning in the chaos. Try to live in the real world and don’t paint any situation as better or worse than it is. If something is out of your control, let it go and focus on the things that you do have power over – your response to your thoughts and feelings, your decisions, your actions.

• Take your own advice and follow it. A very simple yet powerful technique for battling fear is providing an outer perspective to your inner worries. Ask yourself: “What would I say to a friend who came to me with this challenge?” You cannot be completely unbiased, but in most cases, you will still give loving, helpful advice. Try to follow it and apply it to your life.

Limiting beliefs about yourself, the world, or life

Another reason for not going after the life you want for yourself is the limiting belief that you cannot do a specific thing, that the world is unfair, or you are a victim of life. These beliefs might be based on life experience or education, but they can also be a product of faulty logic.

This state of mind is especially detrimental because once you are in it, you tend to believe that the limiting thoughts you have are facts. Here are some suggestions on how to recognize and defeat your limiting beliefs:

• Isolate & question the belief. A limiting belief is fairly easy to spot if it’s not yours. Next time you are convinced that you cannot or should not do something, or will not succeed in something, ask yourself why do you think this is true. You will see that you start making up facts, scenarios, and circumstances in which this belief is true. These imaginary setups, however, are just that – imaginary. These imaginary setups, however, are just that – imaginary. As soon as you notice yourself creating and starting to live in potential situations, question your beliefs about them. As Mark Manson writes in his article How to overcome limiting beliefs, “generally, limiting beliefs will lose their power as soon as we consider they might not be true.”

• Cultivate alternative beliefs by creating evidence of success. Once you have recognized and questioned the limiting beliefs, try to replace them with empowering beliefs. Try surrounding yourself with evidence-based positive influences. Think of a situation when you felt successful and fulfilled – how did you achieve that, how did that make you feel? Think of success stories of people you know or your role-models – how did they deal with change and uncertainty in life? Think of the best-case scenario in the current situation – what do you want to achieve, how can you overcome this challenge, how will you benefit from this success?

• Take action. After having eliminated the limiting beliefs and having created empowering thoughts, it’s time to take action. Remember, you can gain everything, and you have nothing to lose. Best case scenario? Yep, you guessed right. You can get whatever it is that you wanted. Worst case scenario? You’ll fail. But even then, you win. You gain experience, knowledge, wisdom. Making a mistake, failing, or being rejected is learning and growing. Failing is the key to what moves us forward. So trying and falling is always going to be one step further from doing nothing.

Doing the “right” thing

Maybe the most dangerous reason for staying too long where we longer belong is our inherent desire to do right by the people we love, to consider their opinions, to listen to their advice. We don’t want to disappoint, to feel guilt, to be selfish or reckless. We like to be likeable, to live up to certain expectations, and to comply with the societal norms of “normal,” “proper,” and “correct.” Unfortunately, when it comes to personal preferences and life decisions, the concept of the “right thing” is not universal.

So you need to be a little selfish. You might face people questioning your actions. You might disappoint someone.  But at the end of the day, you and you alone will have to live with your choices, decisions, and the consequences of your actions. Here’s just one suggestion on how to do the “right thing” for everyone: you don’t. You do have to do the right thing, but just the right thing for you.

Takeaways

We can outgrow places, feelings, and unfortunately people.

It’s not like our emotions or attachments have an expiration date, but we do know when things start to feel off, and a certain thing is no longer good for us. The more we fight this feeling, the more detrimental it is for us to force ourselves to stay in situations or places that no longer suit us. We are entitled to change our feelings, opinions, views, and the environment we live in. We don’t have to justify taking time for ourselves, setting boundaries, ending a relationship, or making a major change in our lives that is in our best interest.

It’s okay to feel scared of the unknown, doubtful or uncomfortable, and there are ways for you to deal with these feelings.

It’s okay not to know what you want, as long as you’re trying to find whatever it is.

And it’s okay to let go of things that no longer serve you, so there is space in your life for you to develop the one thing that matters, or for new things to come.

At last, I want to leave you with a quote from one of my favorite books, The perks of being a wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky:

It’s much easier to not know things sometimes. Things change and friends leave. And life doesn’t stop for anybody. I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we’ll never know most of them. But even if we don’t have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. And maybe it’s good to put things in perspective, but sometimes, I think that the only perspective is to really be there.