Overcoming Fear?

We are often encouraged to overcome our fears. That encouragement often comes with the sage advice: Don’t let your fears stand in your way.

Are these complementary bits of advice telling us to overcome all of our fears? Or is the latter statement meant to guide us in deciding which fears to overcome?

Overcoming fear

My experience is the latter; we should only invest time and energy overcoming fears that stand in the way of us getting what we desire. Here are a couple of examples to illustrate my point.

I have a fear of both water and heights. I’m a terrible swimmer and, consequently, am afraid when I’m in water over my head. I also fear heights to the point that I won’t get on the roof of our single-story home.

Decades ago, when my wife and I were planning a trip to the Caribbean, she said that she wanted to see the fish in their natural habitat. I said: fine we can go snorkeling. She said: no, I want to lear to scuba dive. Gulp!

Because I wanted her to have the experience and I knew that she wanted us to share the experience, we took diving lessons and became certified divers. I’ve enjoyed our diving excursions immensely and, frankly, I’m more comfortable diving in 100 feet of water than swimming at the surface.

Conversely, I have done nothing to overcome my fear of heights since neither my wife nor I have any desire to do anything that requires me to overcome that fear. In other words, my fear of heights isn’t preventing me from accomplishing anything I want to accomplish so there’s no incentive for me to invest time and energy to overcome this fear.

Could I overcome my fear of heights? No question; I could if I needed to. I’d find a way to limit the risks associated with heights just as I learned to limit the risk of being in 100 feet of water. The question isn’t: Can I do it? The question is: Is it worth doing?

We can use the same approach in dealing with weaknesses.

Overcoming weaknesses

None of us comes with a complete package. We all have things that come naturally to us (strengths) and things we don’t do well (weaknesses). Again, the question isn’t whether we should overcome a weakness, but whether that weakness is standing in the way of what we want to accomplish.

When I began my fractional CFO business in 1989, I looked around and saw that the most successful consultants spoke as a way of marketing themselves. That realization was quickly followed by my memory of struggling to get a C- in speech class in college. Another gulp.

To help me overcome this weakness I became an instructor in the St. Louis Community College Continuing Education Program. My rationale was that the class sizes would typically be no more than 20 to 25 people so that if I bombed only a few people would know.

Fortunately, I picked up a new client from the first night of class which boosted my confidence immensely…so much so that I’m now a ham that loves having an audience.

On the flip side of the coin, my dad was an automotive mechanic for the Ford dealer in my home town. Unfortunately that part of the gene pool did not transfer. No one would ever describe me as “handy.”

There are a lot people who are handy and I’m in a position to hire them to effect whatever repairs I need. In other words, my lack of mechanical skills (a weakness) isn’t one that I need to overcome…so I don’t.

Takeaways

When faced with fears or weaknesses, don’t assume that you need to overcome them…until you’ve answered the question: Is it standing in the way of me accomplishing I desire?

If it’s standing in the way of you getting what you want, invest the time and energy necessary to overcome your fear or weakness. If it’s not standing in the way, don’t waste your time and energy in doing so when you could be putting that time and effort into more productive efforts.

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