Listen to “What Are Your Habits Around Fear? And What To Do About It!” on Spreaker.

Read an Edited Transcript of the Show:

What I want to talk about today is the habits around fear. How is fear manifesting itself in your life? We all know we’re afraid. We’re afraid of being alone. We’re afraid of being abandoned. We’re afraid of not being good enough. We’re afraid of failure. We’re afraid of success. This is a core driver that has a massive influence on our actions.

Now, let me just speak to the role that fear plays in my life. I do podcasts. People listen to my podcasts. People like my podcast. We work together because of this podcast. There are so many amazing reasons for me to do it and I’ve found myself preparing. I would find the article I want to talk about, I would take some notes, I’d sit down, but you know what, I’d find myself thinking that I don’t have enough science on this subject. I need to do more research. This isn’t good enough. Let me develop this. Maybe I should use cut-ins from other videos to illustrate my point … like a million reasons to not get it done and here’s what I noticed.

I was ready to press record, right where I am right now, I gotta hit this record button and that gets the party started. But as soon as I was ready to hit record, guess what? I had like 10 things that I needed to do. I forgot to do this, I forgot to do that. So, I scheduled time on my calendar again, then get ready to do the podcast and by now its March. Then it’s April and, and here we are in May. I haven’t done a podcast since February. Why? Because I’m afraid. I’m afraid of not being liked. I’m afraid of this podcast not being good enough. I’m afraid of someone hearing this and saying, “Who the fuck is this guy? He doesn’t know shit. This is bad. This is poor.” And I have chosen not to let fear control my life, but you can’t make that promise to yourself until you understand that role that fear plays in your life.

In this short podcast, notice I gotta say it’s short, I’m not going to talk for an hour. This isn’t going to be good enough. No one wants a short podcast. These voices in our heads… you’ve gotta really, really pay attention to them, listen to them, and over the course of the next few days, and then the exercise for you is to examine your fear habits.

So when does that negative self-deprecating voice pop up? Under what circumstances? Me, I learned as soon as I grabbed the mouse, ready to hit record, there’s this rappel. Not good enough. You should do it this way. You should do it that way. This isn’t going to be the right thing. Go do that other thing first. And I kept putting it off and kept putting it off and kept putting it off. I’d like to give a shout out to Chris, in the Mindful Habit Group Coaching Program. He was doing an exercise on his trigger response plan. And for those of you who’ve listened to some of my other podcasts, the trigger response plan is your ‘break a habit, make a habit’ in-the-moment response to your negative triggers, as well as your thoughts. He wrote down, “Yeah, this really isn’t targeting my sexual triggers. It’s really targeting my fear response.” And I went ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding. This guy gets it. And then, with a client the next day, we were talking about fear. Last night on our group coaching call we’re talking about fear> Then it hit me and I’m like, oh my god. I’ve got to talk about fear.

Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to pay attention to your triggers and your thoughts to the extent that they are creating a fear-based reaction. Because if you are going to counterbalance fear, you have to learn where it’s showing up your life, so you can barrel through it and counterbalance that biological fear that sits on top and underneath the environmental programming. And that environmental programming goes back to our most formative years. We are afraid and it is holding you back. How is it holding you back? Be very, very specific and answer that question. Fear is holding me back in the following very specific examples. That’s assignment number 1.

Number 2 is for those of you watching the video, I’m holding up a book by Dr. Robert Maurer, One Small Step Can Change Your Life by Dr. Robert Maurer, The Kaizen Way to Success. I highly recommend the audible version of that book because it has some additional lectures without a written copy, but both are phenomenal. It is possibly my highest recommended books. People always ask me what they should read, and this is it because this is going to change you personally and it’s going to change you professionally. It’s going to change the way you approach goal setting and this technique, this Kaizen technique is one of my favorite things to teach.

Kaizen is Japanese for continuous improvement. There has been a groundswell of focus on people setting ridiculously attainable goals. So instead of how you’ve possibly done in the past, where you hit rock bottom and you’re never going to do it again. You tell yourself, “I’ve gotta do these 10, 15 things.” Perhaps you do those things for a few days… but then they fade, right? You’re not able to sustain it and the reason for that is because the goals weren’t attainable. Kaizen goal setting is one of the most powerful and effective ways to counterbalance fear. And the art of setting a Kaizen goal is it has to be ridiculously small. The whole journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Focus on that single step.

One of the most significant belief systems, one of the significant changes that I had when I embraced this principle, is that something is better than nothing. Because what would always happen? I’d set the goal, I’d do it for a few days, I’d fail in that goal and then the fuck-it guy pops up saying, “fuck it, fuck it, don’t do it, you can’t do that so do nothing.” Well, if I can’t run 2 miles, I can walk around the block, I can do 10 push-ups, I can do 25 jumping jacks.

Kaizen goal setting is turning the attainability component of smart goal setting on its head. And just as a refresher, a smart goal is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound. We’re focused on the third one,  number 3… attainability. Kaizen goal-setting exploits that attainability piece by saying, “Hey, I know you want to go 10 steps. I know you want to go 10 miles, but you know what let’s do right now? Let’s focus on that single step. Let’s focus on that one teeny tiny tiny thing.” I’ll share with you a quick story and then I will leave you to set some of your own ridiculously small attainable goals that will move you towards. Maybe not as quick as you would like, but it will move you towards the life that you want to create for yourself. Set a ridiculously attainable goal.

So I’ve had three clients that have lost 100 pounds. One hundred pounds. And two of those clients had done everything. They were on the brink of surgery. Being that they had tried everything, I said, “All right, let me come at this from a Kaizen perspective.” Both of these guys were morbidly obese, the other one wasn’t. I said, “Put on your running shoes and your running shorts and go stand outside in front of your house for 60 seconds.” I mean, can you imagine what a ridiculous assignment? Like, like like my credibility went whoop, like what the fuck is this guy telling me to do?

Well, one guy couldn’t find his sneakers. The other guy hadn’t put on a pair of shorts in months, if not longer than that, and didn’t know where his athletic socks were. See… that standing outside for 60 seconds was overcoming that resistance to a pattern of failure that has existed over and over and over again. Obviously I’m sharing this story for a reason. Standing outside for a minute turned into some light stretching. Turned into a walk down the end of the driveway. Turned around, a walk around the block. Turned into, and literally, this guy just completed a half marathon and lost 100 pounds.

But there’s nothing sexy about this. There are no TV adds on LOSE ALL WEIGHT and BE YOUR BEST SELF. Kaizen goal setting works because each step is a brick of sustainability. Each step is building that habit loop one little itty bitty step at a time, and as you do one itty little bitty step at a time, you are laying a foundation for sustainability.

So your assignment regarding Kaizen goals, I want you to think of something that you’ve been trying to accomplish, an area in your life where you need to make progress and I want you to set goals that are so ridiculous, so silly, if you told somebody, they’d laugh. That’s how you know it’s an attainable goal. That’s how you know it’s a Kaizen goal. It is so easy to obtain. Ridiculously easy to obtain. And I teach mindfulness this way sometimes too. Sitting there and breathing like give me a break, that’s hard. Just you and that A.D.D. mind is bouncing all over the place. I have guys start with 60 seconds. Start with 60 seconds. Can you sit for 60 seconds? Yes, I can. Is there ever a no? You can’t sit for 60 seconds? Well, then there are other conversations that we need to be having. But if you can, sit for 60 seconds, and if you can’t do 60, then you do 30. And you go down to 15 seconds, then you go 5 and you take 3 breaths.

Start building sustainability, the habits that are going to carry you long term. Set three mini-habits and micro-goals, three Kaizen goals to move you towards the life that you want to create for yourself.

Feel free to come visit me on my website www.themindfulhabit.com. I’ve got a free porn addition quiz there. I also have some training for you around the four transformational shifts that you must make to end your compulsive sexual behavior, so check those out and obviously if you need help and you are ready for action, go to the website, get my phone number and call me. I look forward to talking to you if you are ready to take massive action. And if you’re not and you’re still getting value from this podcast, great. Keep doing whatever you need to do to be your life’s, to be your best self because life is too short to suck.