One Simple Trick to Overcome Your Biggest Fear: Ruth Soukup (Transcript)

Full text of best-selling author Ruth Soukup’s talk: One simple trick to overcome your biggest fear at TEDxMileHigh conference.

Listen to the MP3 Audio here:

TRANSCRIPT:

So, at 23 years old, I was pretty sure I had ruined my life forever.

I remember, at rock bottom, I opened the phone book to the P section for psychologists. And I stared at that phone for what… felt like hours, just trying to work up the courage to make that call.

Because in that moment, I was a divorced, unemployed, bankrupt college dropout who had just moved back in with my dad after my last hospital stay, because I literally had no other place to go.

My arms and legs were covered in ugly scars from all the suicide attempts and self-harm. And most days I was still so depressed I couldn’t even get out of bed.

I was a mess. And I was completely terrified.

I finally did make that call and I said I’ve just spent the last two and a half years talking about every bad thing that’s ever happened to me. And it hasn’t helped, and now I just need to know how to live.

And so for the next two years, that’s what I did.

First, it was learning how to go to the grocery store without having a panic attack. Then it was getting a part-time job in my own apartment.

And fighting my way back from that depression, I learned that, sometimes, courage is just taking that first tiny step. And then the next tiny step after that.

But eventually I did finish college, and I got married and had a couple of kids, and became a fully functioning member of society. I even registered to vote.

And then… and then I started a business… oh!

And once again I remembered how it felt to be terrified every single day. I was so afraid of making a mistake, so sure that I was doing it wrong. I felt like everybody else had it figured out and I was a fraud. Every blog post felt like another opportunity to fail.

And while that fear never totally went away completely, it did over time get easier. And my business grew.

My blog started reaching millions of readers. I wrote best-selling books and created courses and products and resources to help people reach their goals. I even started a podcast.

But over and over and over, my students and readers and customers and podcast listeners kept telling me: they felt stuck.

One told me how she had bought a planner, and then just let it sit there for over a year, just because she was so afraid of messing it up.

Another told me how she had dreamed about starting a business for so long, her whole life. And every time she got close, she stopped because it felt like too big of a risk.

Another was in tears when she told me: I just want to want something.

And although the symptoms were all a little bit different, I could relate, because the underlying root cause was something I knew all too well. It was FEAR, not the phobia kind of fear, like the fear of snakes but this deeper, more internal kind of fear.

The kind of fear that keeps us from stepping outside of our comfort zone, the kind of fear that keeps us from taking risks and prevents us from wholeheartedly pursuing our biggest goals and dreams.

And it made me wonder: How does fear show up differently for all of us and how does that impact our ability to push past it?

And so I started asking questions, and those questions led to more questions. And ultimately it led me to survey more than 4,000 people on the role of fear in their lives.

We had so much data and so many responses that I had to hire an entire team of researchers and psychologists to help me sift through it and make sense of it all.

But through all this research, we discovered a couple of really important things.

First of all, not all fear is created equal. We all experience fear but we all experience it a little bit differently. We all have our own fear fingerprint that is completely unique to us.

And although fear shows up differently for everyone, it does tend to show up in seven very distinct patterns, which I call the SEVEN FEAR ARCHETYPES.

Now each of these seven archetypes have both positive qualities and negative qualities. There’s a piece that’s serving you, and there is a piece that’s holding you back. And understanding how your fear is serving you is actually just as important as knowing how it’s holding you back.

But regardless of how it shows up, almost all of this fear happens subconsciously, beneath the surface. We don’t actually know that’s what’s going on.

And so whether you call it fear or anxiety or worry or perfectionism or overwhelm or anything else, the end result is the same. We experience it as truth. And we think well that’s just the way that I’m wired.

But that is what makes identifying your fear archetype so powerful. It’s sort of like going to the doctor, because you have a stomachache. Before the doctor can help you, he needs to know: do you have a gas bubble or do you have cancer, because those are two very different things.

Your fear is the same way. Without a diagnosis, there can be no cure. But on the flip side, the simple act of identifying and understanding how your fear is showing up is the instant insight into your own behavior and thought patterns that allows you to start changing them.

So at this point, you’re probably wondering: Well what’s my fear archetype?

So listen closely as I go through them, see if you can identify yourself, or maybe just figure out what’s wrong with all your friends.

PROCRASTINATOR

First of all, the procrastinator, also known as the Perfectionist. You probably spend a lot of time doing research and getting organized. And you are always tweaking things right until the last minute.

Now you are the person that takes six months to pick out a car, because you are so afraid of making the wrong choice. You hate making mistakes, and that can also sometimes show up as a fear of commitment or a fear of getting started.

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On the plus side, though, you tend to do very good work and have a high attention to detail, which is something you probably take a lot of pride in.

PEOPLE PLEASER

Or maybe you’re the People Pleaser. If so, the fear that holds you back is a fear of being judged and a fear of letting people down, because you care a lot about what other people think. In fact, probably too much, and as a result, you can struggle with setting boundaries or saying no.

For you, situations like sitting in a meeting can feel like torture, because you will sit there and not say a word even when you disagree just because you don’t want to be the one to cause waves or to make anyone mad.

But as a people pleaser, you do tend to do a really good job of getting along with almost everyone and you tend to be popular and well-liked.

RULE FOLLOWER

And then there’s the Rule Follower. Now you know that there is always a right way to do things and a proven path that should be followed, right? You don’t like straying from that path; you don’t even like it when other people stray away from that path.

And you are the person who always reads the instruction manual, and if you are following a recipe, you’re probably following it to the letter.

But this is not always a bad thing either, because as a rule follower, you actually tend to excel when you are given a set of guidelines or a proven framework to follow.

OUTCAST

Of course, you could be the Outcast like me. Now we outcasts can be pretty deceptive, because on the surface it might actually appear that we don’t care what anybody thinks, but really that’s just our way of protecting ourselves.

Because what we fear most is rejection. And so we will push people away and reject everyone around us before they can reject us first. After all, it’s way easier to say that party is going to be lame. I think I’ll skip it than to show up and risk having no one talked to us.

But we outcasts also tend to be very independent and driven to prove ourselves which can result in a lot of success and accomplishments.

SELF DOUBTER

And then there’s the Self Doubter. Now you struggle with a lot of insecurities, because deep down you are so afraid of not being capable and not being enough. There’s that self-talk inside you that tells you this all day long.

You’re the person who will spend hours crafting the most amazing presentation and then never actually present it because you’re so afraid it’s not good enough. You can be very critical both of yourself and of other people which sometimes can have a negative impact on your relationships.

But you also tend to be very sensitive and very empathetic which can be a huge asset.

EXCUSE MAKER

Now if you are the Excuse Maker, you are probably very very smart and an astute observer of other people. But you struggle sharing your own opinion because you’re always afraid of being blamed or held accountable, if something goes wrong.

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You like being the person behind the decision-maker but you get a little nervous when you feel like you’re being pinned down. Basically you’re the friend that never wants to pick the restaurant, because you’re always afraid you’ll get blamed if no one likes it.

PESSIMIST

And then finally and especially if you’ve experienced a lot of pain or trauma or adversity, you could be the Pessimist. And the fear that holds you back right now is a fear of experiencing more pain or trauma or adversity.

For you right now, every opportunity feels like too big of a risk, and you’re afraid of getting hurt again. So you’ve closed down and almost given up as a way of protecting yourself.

Of all the seven fear archetypes, this can be the hardest one to work through. But it’s also the one that is most likely to be just a temporary season.

So there you have it: the seven fear archetypes across more than 60,000 test-takers so far. The procrastinator; the people pleaser, the rule follower, the outcast, the self-doubter, the excuse maker, and the pessimist.

And if more than one of those resonated with you, you should know that that is actually completely normal. No one is all procrastinator or all self-doubter. Instead all of these seven fear archetypes operate on a sliding scale. And all of those sliding scales sort of fit together to form your unique fear fingerprint.

You could have one that’s completely dominant for you, or you could have several that score high for you, in which case fear is probably having a pretty big impact in your life.

But the important thing to understand is that you can actually do something about it.

Your fear doesn’t have to control you, because remember, all this fear that I just talked about, it’s all happening subconsciously, beneath the surface. We don’t actually know that’s what’s going on. We’re experiencing this as truth.

But the minute that you can start to identify and understand how your fear is showing up, that is the minute that you can start to do something about it.

Because what was subconscious becomes conscious, and suddenly you realize that you have the ability to choose something else. Because when you shine a light on your fear, it’s not so scary anymore.

Thank you.

Resources for Further Reading:

Standing-up to Fear: David Nihill at TEDxManchester (Transcript)

Have Courage, Be Fearless: Les Brown (Full Transcript)

Beautiful Minds are Free from fear: Robert Grant at TEDxOrangeCoast (Transcript)

Tim Ferriss: Why You Should Define Your Fears Instead of Your Goals (Transcript)

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