Have You Ever Actually Listed What You Are Afraid Of?

We live in anxious times.  But are you generally anxious & worried, or do you know exactly what you are afraid of?

I had lunch with a friend on Friday.  She is a writer, educator and gives excellent tactical advice at Smackdown Your Inner Critic. She has long made it a practice to review her list of fears annually, pick one, and tackle it head-on for that year.  Once, a student expressed utter shock and surprise that she had been able to come up with such a process.  The student said, How did you even think to do that? It never would have occurred to me to list what I am afraid of. How can you conquer a fear if you don’t know what your fears are?

I’m just as anxious as the next guy.  But about what? So here is my list:

(Big ticket) things I am afraid of:

1. Being assaulted by someone mentally unsound (whether due to insanity or developmental delay) who truly does not understand right from wrong and who cannot be reasoned with.
2. Being seriously embarrassed in public and unable to turn the crowd back to my favor with humor.
3. Ending up destitute and homeless when I am elderly. Apparently this is a very common fear among educated, financially secure women.
4. Not being in control of / able to control my self, my environment, my choices, or my actions.
5. Cops. Incidentally, I always have been.  When Officer Friendly came to my nursery school I was scared of him and terrified to climb all over/though the squad car like the other kids where doing.  When my car was stolen when I was 17, the officer had me sit in the back seat to give my statement, and I kept the door open and one foot on the pavement at all times.  When I was pulled over for speeding when I was 22, the cop got me out of the car and my knees were shaking so badly with fear that he breathalyzed me because he thought I was unsteady on my feet because I was drunk.
6. Being imprisoned — with specific, distinct flavor for this fear in domestic vs foreign scenarios.

None of these fears are currently stopping me from enjoying daily life.  However some of them may be stopping me from taking healthy risks or reaching out. (Reaching out is my lowest resilience score.)  I can think of all kinds of things to do in a year to combat each of these head-on.  Not necessarily gonna do any in 2009 — as the How to Become CEO book suggests, Let one new major thing into your life each year (in 2009 that’d be the babe, duh) not, Let several new major things into your life each year.  BUT, it’s good to see the list in black and white, get it into my conscious mind, and start stewing on ideas to confront & smack down that bitch!

Oh incidentally, I totally get that I have a power and control theme going on here. No need to point that out.

What’s on your list of major fears?

What are two things you could do, no matter how small, to help you face those fears and conquer them?

Now I Will Eat My Hat

No one has gotten promoted.

Contrary to my complete knee-jerk reaction, it was all a complete fabrication that I myself fabricated in my crazy old head.  Rather: titles were changed across several positions to bring title, pay grade and bonus status in my pyramid in line with title/pay grade/bonus combinations throughout the rest of the company. This is really good news, as now peer relationships with partners are more symbolically and factually even.

I have to eat my hat now, because I’m not an idiot, I’m not falling behind, I’m not on the slow track.  But because I let my icebergs take over I spent all weekend in a shame spiral, making all kinds of wild assumptions about what a non-promotable loser I was.  Icebergs suck.  They don’t serve me at all.  I am not a non-promotable loser, and there is objective proof to the contrary.  If I had just asked about it (neutrally, gracefully) when I first noticed the new titles, I would have gathered facts, and  facts are not a problem for me.  Crazy mangy headbees are my problem and without facts they swarm.

Please, please, the next time your icebergs pop up, or your hot buttons get pushed, or you receive news to which your first reaction is to be devastated, or your headbees buzz, please remember this incident.  I know I will.  Remember how crazy I went over nothing.  It’s no good for your mojo.  Remember to step back, stop making assumptions, and start gathering objective facts.  Remember that your icebergs don’t serve you.  Remember that your inner critic doesn’t have your best interest at heart.  Save yourself a lot of time and energy. You can mitigate your icebergs.  They don’t have to control how you feel or react. You can learn to be more optimistic.

Remembering this incident, and the fact that I did it publically on my blog, and how very delicious my hat tasted:  this is my new iceberg-melting heat lamp.

What to Do When You’re Totally Overwhelmed? Smackdown!

Team, I’m privileged to be a guest poster over at the excellent 101 Smackdowns For Your Inner Critic.  I wrote about a great technique for calming the whirlwind – and your Inner Critic’s negative voice – when you’re totally overwhelmed.  Here’s an excerpt:

I am prone to a) inserting myself into totally-out-of-the-comfort-zone situations and b) getting totally overwhelmed as a result.  Since part a) is what helps me grow the most, and generally pays the biggest dividends, I have had to find a smackdown to combat part b). I’d like to share it with you by way of my favorite example:

I graduated from a very small liberal arts college with a writing degree and then for the next six years worked exclusively in and with non-profits and lived a freewheeling lifestyle of clubbing, tattoos and underground commix.  Suddenly one day I decided to pursue an MBA and a life in corporate America. This decision was borne not from cool-headed thinking, but from the emotional aftermath from a political takeover of my agency and the firing of my mentor.

Talk about out of comfort zone.  Not only did I have no undergraduate education whatsoever in business or economics, I had no corporate experience at all.  Nor did I even own a suit. Nor do I really have a head for math. Or skill at golf.

But I had decided to join a top-30 ranked business school, study finance (math math math!), sell out into a corporate job, hold my own with the “golf playing assholes,” as I mistakenly thought all corporate types were, and wear a suit.  And because I’m both a perfectionist and competitive, I took it upon myself to kick ass at it all.

Talk about overwhelmed. Totally, utterly, unbelievably overwhelmed.

What did I do to combat this? Head over to 101 Smackdowns to find out.