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REGISTER FOR THE NEXT COHORT | 8-Month Deep Work Group Coaching Programme - £145pm .
All information is first processed through your brain’s amygdala - the brain’s fear & reactivity centre.
So most of the time, fear is actually running the show, even when it’s unconscious. If we leave this unchecked, we miss out on our potential by playing it safe in unnecessary ways.
So when you need to, you can take yourself through this fear-setting exercise to get motivated for change instead of being frozen in your comfort zone. Kinda like goal setting, but more authentic!
Step 1
Getting Logical
Define The Fear
What exactly are you afraid of?
Be specific, make as many bullet points as you can, and follow the fear all the way to the bottom (i.e. Try to focus on the imagined consequences of whatever you’re afraid of - because those are usually the fears running the show)
Preventative Action
What could you do to stop this fear from becoming a reality?
List every potential thing that you could do to mitigate the risk factors involved. This helps our prefrontal cortex to process that we do actually have some control.
It can also be helpful to include even bad ideas. This sounds counter intuitive, but actually allowing yourself to write down ideas you wouldn’t normally tolerate gets different parts of your brain working that we don’t often use, & can actually be a conduit for creative thinking.
Repair
Imagine the worst has happened & your fear becomes a reality. What do you do next to repair & move forward?
This part of the exercise forces us to think pragmatically.
Being afraid to have a conversation, for example, gets confused by the nervous system with a life-or-death situation. We often benefit from realising that a setback is not the end of the story.
Step 2
Harnessing the Power of Your Amygdala
List the potential costs of not taking action (emotionally, physically, financially) in 6 months, 1 year and 3 years.
This step is there to help create motivation. Harness the power of the amygdala to be on your side instead of working against you, you can find motivation by leaning into this exercise and imagining the worst case scenarios of NOT taking action, in a way that allows you to hack your neurobiology to work for you instead of against you.
If you’re a particularly anxious person, you could skip this step if you’re not sure it will help - however sometimes it can also help to get really clear on your anxious thoughts as this exercise can also work the opposite way, showing us how unreasonable our anxiety is and calming down the overactive mind. Writing out thoughts down is often beneficial. You know you best, so dive into this step if you think it could help you get clear, or move to the last step if you feel overly worried about this situation already.
Step 3
Changing Perspective
This steps gets your prefrontal cortex into brainstorming mode, which gives us a more reasonable, refreshing approach.
Brainstorm or mind-map all of the potential benefits of making an attempt, or having a partial success.
REGISTER FOR THE NEXT COHORT | 8-Month Deep Work Group Coaching Programme - £145pm .
REGISTER FOR THE NEXT COHORT | 8-Month Deep Work Group Coaching Programme - £145pm .
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