Is This “F--- Monster” Sabotaging Your Success?

Your journal is full of game-changing business ideas, but you haven’t taken the first step on any. 

You have this insatiable desire to make a career shift, but you haven’t moved. 

You own a pair of fancy gym shoes, but they’re collecting dust in the closet. 

You and your partner have drifted down different paths, but you can’t bring yourself to break it off.

You can feel it: the life of your dreams is within reach. You just have to put the idea into action, make the big change, throw the shoes on, or initiate the breakup. 

But you can’t do it. You continue to find comfort in the realm of indecision, commute to the job you hate, pick the couch over the gym, and stay in the relationship that isn’t serving you. 

Why? 

The answer is obvious: The "FEAR Monster".

What’s your favorite brand of fear?

For a long time, I was paralyzed by what I thought success might bring and take with it. I thought I’d have to steal time from the most important people in my life—my family—and that I’d become the dad that wasn’t present for any of the big moments.

Are you like me—afraid of what success might mean? Or perhaps you are more terrified of failure or judgment or simply not being good enough? 

Whichever it is—you’re likely stuck in an infinite loop of Doubt, Delay, and Distractions as a result of it. 

Because you doubt that you can make the big move, you delay taking action by finding something new to distract you. In this infinite loop, you end up doubling down on what isn’t fulfilling you or serving you over and over again.

And you wake up 5-10 years down the road with disappointment and regret, wondering how you ended up here.

But there’s a way out…

Breaking this infinite loop starts with identifying and empathizing with your fears—fears that are simple, standard, and predictable:

#1: YOU THINK ‘SETTLING’ IS BETTER THAN THE SPECTRE OF CHANGE

Fear makes you believe that if you change, you’ll lose what you already have—the things you’ve worked a lifetime to accumulate.

Maybe you like the stability, comfort, and certainty that come with your current situation (more than you’re willing to admit). While you may not be particularly passionate or excited about your current career or relationship, at least it’s predictably unfulfilling and has some ancillary benefits. 

You have the job title, corporate benefits, health insurance, comfortable home, predictable commute, and set work/life balance. Why lose it?

And plus…

#2: YOU BELIEVE HUSTLE HURTS

Fear runs you through every step in the process and makes you entertain all the possible negative outcomes of the change you’re about to make—like the hours and effort you’ll have to put in and the potential for shame, embarrassment, and failure on the path. 

Take going to the gym for example. It’s cognitively exhausting. You see it as an arduous multi-step process: you have to pack your gym clothes, drive to the gym after work, find a parking spot, change, and then, just then, you have to find something to sweat over. 

You think: What are these weird looking contraptions? How do you use these dumbbell things? And oh, what if I see someone I know? That’ll be embarrassing. I can’t possibly put myself through that.

Fear holds you from even packing your gym bag.

Likewise, you may be petrified of the process you have to go through to start that new business—setting up a website, learning marketing, stepping in front of the camera to make that sales video, hiring your first employee…

Fear of the process leads to inaction.

#3: YOU ARE TERRIFIED OF THE DEVIL YOU DON’T KNOW.

Right now you’re projecting that taking a new step will make your life better. You’ll be happier, healthier and more fulfilled. Your relationships will be stronger. 

However, fear holds onto this suspicion in the back of your mind that if you do what you want, acquire what you want, and become whom you want that it may not be as good as you think it will be. 

And then what? What if the grass really isn’t greener on the other side? You’re stuck with this new life that’s worse than the one you had before?

Fear of the outcome causes paralysis.

How can you outmaneuver the "Fear Monster”?

Once you’ve identified the fears you’re experiencing, you can get out of that infinite loop of Doubt, Delay, and Distraction. You can beat the three core fears at their own game. 

But how?

Begin refocusing and think differently about your circumstances:

#1 SPOTLIGHT YOUR POTENTIAL GAINS.

It’s easy to focus on what you might lose if you make a change. But the only way to get yourself to jump, to make the change you’ve been dying to make, is to focus on what you may get out of the deal. 

If you pursue some business idea you’re driven by, you are bound to be met by the creative freedom, ownership over your schedule, and the opportunity to wake up excited every morning. 

By leaving your unfulfilling relationship, you will open up opportunities building greater independence, rediscovering yourself anew, and meeting someone else with whom you can be better aligned. 

Visualize and feel the gains as though you’re already experiencing them. Do this frequently and make it your predominant thought. 

#2 MAKE FEAR YOUR PLAYGROUND. 

As adults, we believe there isn’t much left to explore. When left to our own devices, we don’t build sandcastles or play with our imaginary friends. 

But fear—that’s uncharted territory. And like a kid in a sandbox, you can make exploring it fun.

While keeping the success picture vivid in your mind, think about how you can bring fun into building that new website, how and where you can make learning marketing tactics fun, how you can be playful while making that sales video…

If none of the above works for you, you can do like the Navy Seals say and, “Embrace the Suck.” 

#3 SEE IT. FEEL IT. TRUST IT.

It may sound silly, but to some extent, to overcome the fear of failing or falling short of creating your desired outcome, you just have to have faith—in yourself and in fate, God, the universe, or whatever higher spiritual order you believe in. 

Focus on cultivating a deep sense of certainty that you can come up with the solution, take care of your needs, and create the life you want. Then, release yourself from the result and trust in your ability to figure things out. Because guess what? You can’t know how it’s going to turn out. 

But that isn’t a good enough reason not to start.

What’s your endgame?

As you start to reframe your fears and focus on the more empowering aspects of your future experiences, you will open up opportunities for the two core antidotes to fear:

(1) Building confidence

(2) Taking action

Building confidence is a matter of doubling down on what you feel under-confident in (funny, I know). Commit to learning, skill building, and asking questions like an amateur again.

Taking action is a matter of acknowledging the fear and doing it anyway. You commit yourself to taking consistent and effective steps towards what you want from life. 

In doing so, you break the infinite loop of Doubt, Delay, and Distraction and create a new continuum of Confidence, Action, and Congruence. 

And together, they fuel progress. 

It sounds simple, and it is. It’s the process I’ve followed: act, act, and act some more. (Check out this 5-Step process to help activate this new continuum) 

I want you to do something real quick:

Fast forward your life 10 years from now. Picture two divergent lives. In one, you’ve made the change you want to. In the other, you’ve stuck with the status quo.

What will life look like in the first? And the second? 

• Where will your health, energy levels, and vibrancy be? 

• What will you be doing? 

• Whom will you be and will you be proud to be that person? 

• How will the people in your life be affected by your decisions?

• Are you wallowing in regret or reveling in celebration?

Now, which life would you rather live? 

Choose that one.

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About the Author

Andrew Srinarayan is a Certified High Performance Coach & Business Growth Strategist who helps executives, professionals, and entrepreneurs get to their next level by enabling them to define, design, and deploy against the fears holding them back from experiencing their own inner greatness. He believes fear can help us to (rather than inhibit us from) shifting our mindsets, adopting new habits, and breaking through to the next level in our lives. He brings humor, compassion, and a healthy dose of challenge to every interaction. Click here to learn more about Andrew.