why you should never fear the unknown

You are highly motivated, you collected all the necessary data, made all the preparations, yet when the decisive moment arrived, the moment when you start applying all the knowledge you accumulated, fear and doubt start taking over you, you’re now questioning the whole process, even the original idea itself, and an inner voice takes the chance and start murmuring some words that keep echoing inside your head.

This sudden fear can occur in different situations, whatever you want to start a project, go talk to your crush, switch up careers, start a new investment...etc

I suffered from this unfortunate moment and still do whenever I decide to start a new project in my life and realized that it’s an inevitable faith that we can’t escape, we can only endure until it passes, like taking the wave’s hit in the middle of the ocean.

Even so, I believe certain factors influence and emphasize those feelings of fear and could even boost their negative effect on you.

Comfort zone:

Comfort zone was one of my biggest nightmares in previous years, it held me from seeing the worms differently and kept me inside that inception of fake happiness and delight

This illusion is seizing so many individuals from exploring new aspects of their lives and trying to attain real authentic feelings of fulfillment and satisfaction,

And they never lie when they say, great things never happen from comfort.

Self-doubt:

Or what might be called ‘ imposter syndrome ‘

It represents that feeling when you start thinking that you’re not capable of achieving such a goal and start hearing some inner voices repeating inside your head:

You’re not good enough

Why do you think you’re capable of doing this thing

Maybe you won’t make it

It’s too difficult for you

You’re not qualified

You’re wasting your time

Maybe you should try different thing...etc

The truth is, every successful individual had and probably still has those thoughts, and it’s agreed upon that this self-doubt is a necessary phase in our self-development process, so we just can’t overpass it.

Mike-Cannon-Brook, CEO of Atlassian talked about this same syndrome and how he managed to use it to his benefit (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkwqZfvbdFw )

Being scared of the unknown:

This one sort of completes the previous element, and even if it sounds like a simple term, it’s one of the main reasons people fear making hard decisions.

It’s like standing blindfolded on the edge of a mountain with two choices in hand, either to have faith in your cause and jump or just give up and you’ll never know what would have happened, and this I think is the most self-torturing thought one can have, thinking, what if I jumped? This sort of regret could literally consume one’s soul.

If you look at every successful individual or entity, you’ll find that the common factor between them is making bold decisions without knowing what the result will look like.

Imagine if Mark Zuckerberg gave up on the idea of creating Facebook, thinking why people will leave my space( the dominant social platform before Facebook) and use his platform instead.

Imagine if Jeff Bezos thought, why people would like to buy books online instead of getting them from their local libraries.

They never knew what would happen after launching these businesses, but they did it anyway, why? Because they believed in their goals.

In the end, this word “the unknown” with all its ambiguity, mystery, and terror, seems to be the key to open the gates of success, it represents the reality test of every individual and separates between dreamers and visionaries.

Bad influence:

This one has a similar effect on you as the comfort zone does.

Getting used to hearing pessimist and negative thoughts about how life is difficult, how creating a new business from scratch is almost impossible...etc, will definitely crush the determination and desire you have, and you will lose gradually that urge to make a drastic change in your life.

Listening to losers and quitters will definitely make you a loser and quitter.

Listening to optimists and winners will definitely arouse in you the desire to also become a winner. These are unchanging facts.

Now, I won’t say there are some definitive and guaranteed steps to follow if you want to overcome this feeling, it mainly depends on every individual’s determination and motivation, but I could atleast suggest some advises and steps you can follow, ones that helped so many successful persons and helped me personally to conquer that fear several times.

Imagine how your life will look like if you make those hard decisions:

Yeh, I know this doesn’t sound like a helpful tip, but if you think it through, you’ll get the meaning.

it’s widely known that consistently visualizing your self in the future after making those tough decisions, helps you a lot in the process of convincing yourself why you should never give up.

The act of picturing yourself doing something you desire plays a psychological role that emphasizes the possibility of it actually happening, and I think this the main idea of the law of attraction.

Now imagine how your life will look like if you don’t make those decisions:

This step completes the first one, so it’s now the turn of visualizing your life and how it’ll be if you don’t make those frightening decisions.

If you’re okay with what you see and don’t feel terrified with that sight, then probably you won’t make any changes, but if you feel scared of what you envisioned, perhaps even more scared than your initial fear, then you’ll definitely receive a huge mental boost that will fuel your desire to achieve your goals by taking that intimidating first step.

Identify “why” you want to make those hard decisions:

This term (why) is highly underestimated by so many people, not because they don’t know the answer, but because they’re not honest about it to themselves.

So it’s highly recommended to always take a moment and ask yourself:

Why I’m doing this? What do I want to achieve by doing this?...

By defining and understanding honestly your motifs, you’ll definitely get much closer to taking the necessary risks and difficult decisions.

The bottom line is, don’t ever assume you’re not good enough or perhaps it’s not meant to you, just because you’re scared to make some hard decisions, we all had the same feelings and we all still have, but what matters at the end is the approach you take to try convincing yourself to make that scary jump.

I always like to compare this experience with a trial, in which you are the judge, the prosecutor, and the defense attorney, you’re trying to defend your idea and ambition against all of your inner self’s evidence of how your goal is guilty of being too difficult and not worth it, and we all know how the judges choose their verdict, based on which lawyer had given the most believable and logical arguments, and not necessarily who is actually right.