How to Do What You Want, Even If You’re Afraid
I.K. Randhawa
About You
Understanding Fear
Facing Fear, Finding You
The Fear Series
You’re not doing what you want to do, because you’re afraid. Of failure, rejection, judgement, and more. So, to start doing what you want to do, you can use three strategies to face your fears. You can: consciously choose the principles you live by; use conscious anger to snap yourself out of a fear response; and choose the conscious character traits you want to embody, like bravery.
TL;DR – What You’ll Learn in This Post:
In order to start doing what you want to do, you can use three strategies.
1 - Consciously choose the principles you live by.
2 - Use conscious anger to snap yourself out of a fear response.
3 - Choose the conscious character traits you want to embody.
There’s two general ways fear affects you: It makes you do things you don’t want to do; and it stops you from doing what you do want to do. Changing these two patterns of behaviour are what the goal of my book, Facing Fear, Finding You, are. Helping you to change the second pattern is what this blog post is for.
That feeling of being pulled to doing something, but struggling to break the freeze of fear you’re stuck in, is tough. Every minute you’re not doing what you want is agonising.
You feel like you’re letting yourself down. You want to try that new thing, or you want to experience something new, or you want to meet someone, but you can’t.
You’re scared—what can you do about it?
It feels like you can’t do anything. It feels like your fear of failure, or judgement, or rejection, is the most permanent part of your life.
The existence of those fears don’t make your desires go away though.
Deep down, you want to do the things you want to do. You want to move forward. You want to feel proud of yourself for doing something that earned your respect.
And you can do that. You can do what you want to do.
When you start to live your life without fear sabotaging you, you also start to enjoy your experience of life. You make decisions based on the reality before you, not the amplified danger (Black Cat) you believe exists. And as you make progress, your fear becomes less significant and you keep moving forwards in the direction you actually want to go in.
In this post, I’m going to share three strategies that will help snap you out of a fear response long enough to think clearly again. These are the final three chapters of my book, Facing Fear, Finding You, where I go deep into each one and show you how to actually use them in real life. Ready? Let’s go.
Strategy 1: Choose the Principles You Live By
“What is a principle of life? I define it as a belief I consciously use to shape my decisions, actions, and reactions to optimise my experience of life. To simplify this, it’s a belief that you live by. Something that guides your way through life, through all successes and challenges.” - Facing Fear, Finding You
If you’re living by principles of life that help you to live the life that you want to, then you are being supported by them. However, if you’re living by principles that are helping your fears to control you, then you are being sabotaged by them.
You’re sabotaging yourself through them.
Most people aren’t conscious of the principles that guide their path in life. But if you’re afraid to do the things you want to do, then you’re likely living by principles such as:
Don’t ever make a public mistake.
Don’t do anything that could make you be judged for.
Make sure you do everything perfectly.
If you’re unconsciously living by principles like these, you’re not going to do anything that could compromise them. Which means that you aren’t going to face your fears, and fulfill your desires.
So, to start doing what you want to do, you need to consciously choose principles that are going to help you conquer the fears standing in your way.
Throughout Facing Fear, Finding You, I help you identify the principles you’re currently living by and then, step by step, I guide you through choosing new ones that actually align with the life you want. This isn’t about positive thinking. It’s about building strong pillars to support your way forwards.
Strategy 2: Use Conscious Anger Against Your Fear
“Choose to hate your fear with every fibre of your being. Let the very thought of it fill you with an incredible sense of disgust. I likened your internal fears to rats for this very reason. I want you to be disgusted by them and the reality they’ve created for you.” - Facing Fear, Finding You
We often have a bad relationship with anger in general, but I think we can harness it. It’s essentially a powerhouse of emotional energy. Unconsciously used means it’s unconsciously directed, and thus underutilised.
Conscious anger, on the other hand, can be incredibly useful.
After all, your fears are actively keeping you from your happiness. They stop you from trying and growing and changing. If someone else did this to you, you’d feel angry at them. Rage even. Your fears deserve the same response.
So, the next time you realise you’re holding back from what you want because you’re afraid, consciously feel angry towards the fear causing it. Not anger towards yourself, but towards the thing that is actually sabotaging you. And let that anger move your forwards.
Inside my book, I spend a lot of time helping you safely and intentionally access this anger in a helpful way. Most people are taught to suppress anger, so it comes out in harmful ways instead sometimes. I show you how to harness it so it becomes fuel for action.
Strategy 3: Choose the Character Traits You Embody
“CCTs are the qualities that you consciously decide to embody, intentionally shaping the essence of who you are. Though often socially called values, I believe the term lacks the powerful intent needed for you to truly connect the traits with your identity.” - Facing Fear, Finding You.
If you’re going to live your life the way you want, by doing the things you want, you need to be the person you want to be. In order to do that, you need to decide on what conscious character traits you want to be.
Who do you want to be? What do you want to be known for?
If you want to be someone who doesn’t let fear sabotage them, then you will choose bravery as a conscious character trait. You will choose it when it’s easy, and when it’s hard.
You’ll choose it because this is how you earn respect for yourself—you be the person you’ve committed to being.
Each time you choose bravery, you reinforce your identity. And over time, your fears lose the power they’ve held over you.
“I’m Trying to Be Brave, and It’s Not Working”
You might be thinking, “I’ve tried this before. I tell myself to be brave, but I’m still afraid”.
Well, if you don’t understand exactly what you’re actually afraid of, bravery can feel hollow. It’s not the strong pillar you want it to rely on.
That’s why these three strategies come at the end of the process I outline in my book. Before you can snap yourself out of fear, you have to face it. You have to understand what it's made of.
In Facing Fear, Finding You, I walk you through the facing process in a grounded, safe way. Then, these strategies are much easier to utilise.
Bringing It All Together
To summarise this blog post:
In order to start doing what you want to do, you can use three strategies. The first is consciously choosing the principles you live by, so that they help you, and don’t hinder you.
The second thing you can do is you use conscious anger to snap yourself out of a fear response, realising that it deserves this emotional reaction from you because it’s been sabotaging you.
Finally, you can choose the conscious character traits you want to embody, like bravery, and practice living from them each day.
Your Next Step
If this resonated with you and you want to go deeper, your next step is simple.
Read chapter one of my book, Facing Fear, Finding You, and see if it’s for you. It will walk you through the four faces of fear, and help you to immediately feel empowered against them.
You deserve to live a life where you do the things you want to do. Let’s make that a reality for you together.
I.K. Randhawa (pronounced I.K. Ran-dha-wa) is on a mission to guide those suffering from internal chaos and emotional overwhelm through deep internal exploration, so they can find peace, purpose, and personal freedom. The British Punjabi Sikh author and Internal Explorer is committed to exploring humanity’s greatest internal challenges with an intuitive, soul-driven approach. From fear to trust, grief, integrity and much more, each book serves as a demonstration of inner exploration to empower her readers to become Internal Explorers themselves.
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FAQ'S
Answers
Find answers to common questions about the author, her books, the Internal Explorer Protocol, and her approach.
Q: Do I have to get rid of my fear before I can start doing what I want?
A: You don’t actually. The goal isn’t to become fearless, and then start living your life. The goal is to get to know what you’re afraid of, and then decide if it’s a fear you want to keep or not, by taking different actions to reduce its impact on you.
Q: What if I’m afraid of failure or being judged?
Q: What if I don’t like being angry?
Q: Do I need to use all three strategies at once?
Q: Can I really change the way fear affects my life?