Besides my passion for women writers and helping them share their truth, I have a special place in my heart for fearful flyers.  In the four years I’ve been working with people afraid to fly, I’ve learned a lot about fear. We teach them that “FEAR” stands for False Evidence Appearing Real.  The whole fear process is far more complicated than those simple four words, involving intricate brain wiring and physiological response, but  simplifying fear to four words helps people understand their fear of flying and the false evidence it’s based on.

I’m not a fearful flyer, but I know that I have a lot of fear about my writing life.  I’m afraid to get my work out there.  I’m afraid to complete my book proposal for Wise Women Write the book.  I’m afraid to commit time and energy to writing projects.  I’m afraid to write down what I really think because then maybe you, dear reader, won’t like me.

I’ve just found a new acronym for fear that I like because it’s so action oriented:  Face Everything And Rechoose.  I think it speaks to me because I’ve discovered that whenever I’m afraid of something I stop dead in my tracks, stuck and paralyzed to move forward.  I cope with fear by avoiding it—the same way fearful flyers refuse to get on a plane.  Is it possible to turn refuse into rechoose? Now that’s a worthy goal for us fearful people!

How many times have you refused to try something new in your writing?  Have you ever been so paralyzed you couldn’t hit the send button?  How often have you been stuck in the rut of doing the same thing over and over, hating the results but refusing to try something different?  Maybe your refusal to move past your fear has manifested in a writer’s tried-and-true, handy excuse, “I just don’t have time to write.”

Well, I’m here to tell you that 2010 can be your year to banish FEAR!  Let this be the year that you face your fear and rechoose something different from what you did last year.  Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated: Expanded and Updated, With Over 100 New Pages of Cutting-Edge Content, says “lack of time is actually lack of priorities.” When you allow this idea to sink in, it can totally change the way you go about your day.  According to Ferriss, in our attempt to be productive and appear busy, we waste a lot of time doing things that really aren’t important.  For instance, just how busy can you keep yourself checking email?  And how productive is it?

If you don’t know your priorities, writing or otherwise, then now is a great time to determine what’s important to you and then write your priorities as goals or commitments or intentions or mission–or whatever word you want to call these guides.  Once your priority list is written, choose and rechoose your actions accordingly. And Ferriss offers some words of wisdom about those daily actions:  “There should never be more than two mission-critical items to complete each day.  Never.”  In other words, keep it simple!

You can choose to take a baby step or even a giant step toward finishing that novel or half-done manuscript. You can dig through your computer and find work that needs to get out there, and if you can’t do that by yourself, hire Wise Woman Windy Lynn Harris to coach you.  You can sign up for a class, join a writing group like Wise Women Write, attend a writing conference, submit to a contest, develop a blog, or learn some new technology.  This can be your year to shine.

But first, you must rechoose to be different from who you were last year.

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in this post are “affiliate links.”  If you click on the link and buy the item, I will receive a few pennies from Amazon. However, I only recommend books I believe will benefit my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Related posts:

1. My Biggest Fear Marianne Williamson has been a hero of mine when I...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

3 Responses to “Fear Be Gone!”