The purpose of fear is to help you protect yourself in a dangerous situation. While this makes sense, what’s more dangerous is that fear can be a paralyser and affect your ability to perform personally and professionally.
As creatives, artists, athletes and entrepreneurs we need to get good at dealing with a lot of uncertain circumstances so if we look at neuroscience, we can better understand what’s really happening to us when fear creeps in.
1. You body goes into Fight or Flight Response – often resulting in your heart rate rising, your cortisol (the stress hormone) levels rising, and your body limiting several other of its functions in order to make sure as much energy as possible is flowing to your muscles so you are prepared to defend yourself from danger.
2. Because your stress levels are now high and your body is diverting so much of your energy to your limbs, it’s almost impossible to make rational decisions. I’m sure most of us can all think of a time we were caught ‘off guard’ and unable to think rationally .
3. Everything becomes negative, For many of us, fear results from the uncertainty we experience when we try new things so taking action against it and not letting a wall of fear and resistance build up, can help bring us more control over the situation.
