How to shut up your fears, practically

… Silence the noise,

when it begins to come…

The above is an excerpt from an amateur song I composed about three years ago. I’m no expert singer, but I had to do this as a reminder that I shouldn’t listen to the stray voices in my head that have been hindering my ability to work well and believe in the authenticity and value that my work provides to people around me.

For a while now, I have been battling with intense negative thoughts. The way they cloud my head sometimes is insanely scary, and it seems so hard to just stop them from intruding. Sometimes, they come as the subtle but objective criticism which most of us think is normal to have. But over time, they get so big and begin to cloud our rational judgment. Biases from previous failures begin to set in, and suddenly the work you were doing with so much zeal and energy, you just don’t feel like it anymore.

It’s very important to recognize when our brains switch from objective critique to absolute negativity, because mixing up the two always ends in emotional disasters where you end up not feeling good enough because of your last failed project, or because the work just looks so daunting and you have no idea how you’ll get through it.

So recently, I’ve not had many “wins”. My business was stuck in a rut for a few months, I hadn’t finished one book in 5 months, I was so stressed out and felt like every single outcome of mine could have been better. Now there was an article I had been putting off writing for over a year and a half! (Yes, you read right) and just because every time I reopened the document, this cloud of fear kept creeping into my mind and telling me “you can’t finish this, you don’t have the skills to. The last article you did was just a wind of luck and nothing more”

For 18 months. I kept believing this.

Then after a while, that fear tried to conquer other activities in my life.

The book I was reading: “Oh no, you won’t finish it, you’ll get bored before you know it”

My exercise routine: “but deep inside you hate exercise, so do you think it will work?”

My job: “You keep being late for those deadlines. You’ll never be prompt”

My business: “You’re no CEO material, leave that for the people who can handle it perfectly and stick to your day job”

Now here is the thing about fear: it lies to you. It takes up a very small fragment of your reality and turns it into something fearful and daunting that seems like the truth, but isn’t.

For instance, I never hated exercise. It was just difficult on my muscles to start again after a long period of rest. This is a fact. But because I’m scared I will never have toned legs, my mind tricks me into not trying at all. I love reading, my job, and even making shoes for my business. Fear just has a way of making everything seem terrible when it’s not.

Now one thing I have learned from fear, what I call “the noise” in my song, is that you never really get to “silence it”. You just ignore it long enough that it becomes irrelevant, technically shutting it up. So when I face a difficult task and I begin to feel scared that I can’t do it well, I remind myself how good I can be and how I have done nothing but improve over time. Remind yourself of your setbacks, but focus more on how you overcame them.

And no, it was not a wave of “luck”. You deserved that win, and you got it, and this new project you’re working on will eventually lead to an even bigger win.

How do I know?

Because people who always strive to improve themselves the right way always win.
I did. And so will you.

Because your ability to believe in yourself and work tirelessly towards being better at what you do is the best way to silence the noise.

Thanks for reading!