Do You Mask Your Fear
250 words/min = 4.4 min read
It is autumn, so people will soon be heading out to see scary movies, haunted houses, and trick-or-treating. I do not do scary movies, personally. I already get weird dreams at night and don’t need Freddy Krueger’s help getting a good night’s sleep.
Still, many people like a good scare. What happens, however, when we live in perpetual haunted houses inside of our own heads? We all have thoughts we seem unable to shake, making us anxious. We might not even know that we are scared; we have been thinking about them for so long they are embedded in our subconscious. Fear of rejection, fear of failing, or the fear of missing out may dominate our internal thoughts.
Fear is a thief. It steals things from your life like joy, peace, time with your family, relationships with your friends, and the ability to make rational decisions. When a thief robs a bank, he wears a mask. In the same way, when we act out of fear, we sometimes put on a mask to cover our fear. It takes vulnerability to say we are afraid, and we intuitively know that fear will ruin us, so we just put on a pretend mask of some other emotion while fear steals everything around us.
I recently was speaking on battling burnout at a leadership summit. One of the common themes the audience referred to was needing help with their inner voice or inner thoughts. They were driven by “you haven’t done enough.” or “you’re not good enough.” Many high-achievers in the room shared the common trait of the inner voice and the fear that came with it. The problem is that we experience the inner voice and fear without even realizing it is happening. Then instead of dealing with it, we push it away or try to mask our fear with some other emotion.
So the question is… How do we hide our fear?
Do we explode in anger over small things? Why? Is our anger justified or hiding some other deeper emotion we are unwilling to confront? Are we afraid of being exposed as a fraud? Are we afraid of admitting we have made some mistakes? Fear forces us to confront the scariest dragon of all… ourselves.
Do we withdraw? Why? Is our self-pity a defense mechanism we cultivate because we fear losing respect?
Do we try to control every little detail? Do we micromanage our team because they are incapable or because we are afraid of losing control or afraid of not being needed? Trying to control everything in life is a way people mask their fears. So instead of managing our fear effectively, we are masking it by trying to control everything.
There is no single answer to masking fear because every person deals with fear in different ways. Some may try to mask their fears by putting on a brave face, whereas others might try to avoid what they are afraid of entirely. As we become more aware of how fears are camouflaged inside our attempts to mask them, we may feel more empowered to conquer them. We can start writing a new narrative when we acknowledge how fears are creating havoc in our lives.
When I was in my mid-thirties, I started feeling terrible. I had all kinds of different strange symptoms. Finally, one day I told my wife I felt like I was dying and needed to go to the doctor. I told her that when she found me laying on the floor in a room by myself in the fetal position to try and get some relief. The doctor was a friend of ours and saw us as the last patient late in the day. He suggested it might be appendicitis and sent us off to have a CAT scan. The following morning we got the scan, and the results were not good. My appendix had ruptured and was spilling dangerous infection into my body.
It’s never a good thing when the surgeon says he will “meet you in the waiting room” because you don’t have time to sign into the hospital. After surgery, I spent weeks with a tube attached to my stomach used to suck out excess fluid in my body from the infection. Why was it so bad? The biggest reason is that I had knowingly masked the symptoms of a real problem. I kept putting off treating it. I kept telling myself that my health would improve. I did not want to know what was under the surface because I was afraid of what I would find.
Leadership is exposing. We have to come face to face with some hideous dragons in our life. Why? Because if we don’t, the ugly dragons come out and hurt other people under our leadership. We have to confront our fears and cultivate self-awareness. Great leaders pour themselves out into their team members. However, plenty of bad leaders with the best intentions pour toxins into their team members. If we are going to coach others THROUGH fear or lead others THROUGH fear, we have to be willing to start by looking at the scary things under the surface in our own lives and minds.
So leaders pay attention to our fears, so we can move through them instead of masking them. We can’t allow fear to keep infiltrating our lives, masquerading as anxiety, anger, frustration, and doubt. If we allow it, fear keeps us locked into the prison of comfort and predictability, preventing us from reaching our true potential.
Here are a few coaching tips:
- Be open to face what is under the surface. List your fears. Own them. Expose them to the light.
- Meditate; begin to train your brain on how to take control and dismiss it’s less-than-productive thoughts.
- Identify areas of your life that need improvement and define how your fear could affect them.
- Talk about your fear with someone trusted. Be vulnerable.
- Face your fears! If you can’t face them, practice visualization.
- Reflect deeply on how your fears are being masked in your life.
- You can do it! As a leader-coach, your team depends on you to keep trying until you find something that works.
Don’t let fear rob you. Identify it, own it, and move through it. If you are coaching someone masking fears using our 1on1 Coaching App, take time to ask them their greatest fears and how they might affect their performance. If they desire to grow in this area, help them commit to practicing one or more coaching tips over the next month.
If you feel like you struggle with fear and anxiety, don’t keep continue keep waiting to find freedom from it. What changes do you need to make to move through your fear? Need a little help? Download our FREE 10-Min Mindfulness Meditation Guide. It is a simple mindfulness meditation we produced that works for people who have never tried meditation. You can download it by CLICKING HERE.
~ Coach D
Do You Mask Your Fear
250 words/min = 4.4 min read
It is autumn, so people will soon be heading out to see scary movies, haunted houses, and trick-or-treating. I do not do scary movies, personally. I already get weird dreams at night and don’t need Freddy Krueger’s help getting a good night’s sleep.
Still, many people like a good scare. What happens, however, when we live in perpetual haunted houses inside of our own heads? We all have thoughts we seem unable to shake, making us anxious. We might not even know that we are scared; we have been thinking about them for so long they are embedded in our subconscious. Fear of rejection, fear of failing, or the fear of missing out may dominate our internal thoughts.
Fear is a thief. It steals things from your life like joy, peace, time with your family, relationships with your friends, and the ability to make rational decisions. When a thief robs a bank, he wears a mask. In the same way, when we act out of fear, we sometimes put on a mask to cover our fear. It takes vulnerability to say we are afraid, and we intuitively know that fear will ruin us, so we just put on a pretend mask of some other emotion while fear steals everything around us.
I recently was speaking on battling burnout at a leadership summit. One of the common themes the audience referred to was needing help with their inner voice or inner thoughts. They were driven by “you haven’t done enough.” or “you’re not good enough.” Many high-achievers in the room shared the common trait of the inner voice and the fear that came with it. The problem is that we experience the inner voice and fear without even realizing it is happening. Then instead of dealing with it, we push it away or try to mask our fear with some other emotion.
So the question is… How do we hide our fear?
Do we explode in anger over small things? Why? Is our anger justified or hiding some other deeper emotion we are unwilling to confront? Are we afraid of being exposed as a fraud? Are we afraid of admitting we have made some mistakes? Fear forces us to confront the scariest dragon of all… ourselves.
Do we withdraw? Why? Is our self-pity a defense mechanism we cultivate because we fear losing respect?
Do we try to control every little detail? Do we micromanage our team because they are incapable or because we are afraid of losing control or afraid of not being needed? Trying to control everything in life is a way people mask their fears. So instead of managing our fear effectively, we are masking it by trying to control everything.
There is no single answer to masking fear because every person deals with fear in different ways. Some may try to mask their fears by putting on a brave face, whereas others might try to avoid what they are afraid of entirely. As we become more aware of how fears are camouflaged inside our attempts to mask them, we may feel more empowered to conquer them. We can start writing a new narrative when we acknowledge how fears are creating havoc in our lives.
When I was in my mid-thirties, I started feeling terrible. I had all kinds of different strange symptoms. Finally, one day I told my wife I felt like I was dying and needed to go to the doctor. I told her that when she found me laying on the floor in a room by myself in the fetal position to try and get some relief. The doctor was a friend of ours and saw us as the last patient late in the day. He suggested it might be appendicitis and sent us off to have a CAT scan. The following morning we got the scan, and the results were not good. My appendix had ruptured and was spilling dangerous infection into my body.
It’s never a good thing when the surgeon says he will “meet you in the waiting room” because you don’t have time to sign into the hospital. After surgery, I spent weeks with a tube attached to my stomach used to suck out excess fluid in my body from the infection. Why was it so bad? The biggest reason is that I had knowingly masked the symptoms of a real problem. I kept putting off treating it. I kept telling myself that my health would improve. I did not want to know what was under the surface because I was afraid of what I would find.
Leadership is exposing. We have to come face to face with some hideous dragons in our life. Why? Because if we don’t, the ugly dragons come out and hurt other people under our leadership. We have to confront our fears and cultivate self-awareness. Great leaders pour themselves out into their team members. However, plenty of bad leaders with the best intentions pour toxins into their team members. If we are going to coach others THROUGH fear or lead others THROUGH fear, we have to be willing to start by looking at the scary things under the surface in our own lives and minds.
So leaders pay attention to our fears, so we can move through them instead of masking them. We can’t allow fear to keep infiltrating our lives, masquerading as anxiety, anger, frustration, and doubt. If we allow it, fear keeps us locked into the prison of comfort and predictability, preventing us from reaching our true potential.
Here are a few coaching tips:
- Be open to face what is under the surface. List your fears. Own them. Expose them to the light.
- Meditate; begin to train your brain on how to take control and dismiss it’s less-than-productive thoughts.
- Identify areas of your life that need improvement and define how your fear could affect them.
- Talk about your fear with someone trusted. Be vulnerable.
- Face your fears! If you can’t face them, practice visualization.
- Reflect deeply on how your fears are being masked in your life.
- You can do it! As a leader-coach, your team depends on you to keep trying until you find something that works.
Don’t let fear rob you. Identify it, own it, and move through it. If you are coaching someone masking fears using our 1on1 Coaching App, take time to ask them their greatest fears and how they might affect their performance. If they desire to grow in this area, help them commit to practicing one or more coaching tips over the next month.
If you feel like you struggle with fear and anxiety, don’t keep continue keep waiting to find freedom from it. What changes do you need to make to move through your fear? Need a little help? Download our FREE 10-Min Mindfulness Meditation Guide. It is a simple mindfulness meditation we produced that works for people who have never tried meditation. You can download it by CLICKING HERE.
~ Coach D
