4 Strategies to Manage Fear and Go for What You Really Want
“You went on a 3 month road trip. Alone. With your dog. You must be fearless?!?”
The truth? Far from. But if this experience taught me one thing, it is this: taking action is not something that is reserved for the fearless. It is enough to understand how fear works and learn good strategies to manage it.
I spent the week before my road trip planning out every possible detail that occurred to me for the first leg of my trip. I researched the best sights between Sacramento and Portland, the dog-friendly campgrounds, the most recommended hikes... I needed to feel in control to soothe my nerves enough to coax myself past the driveway. 4-5 days of anticipated road-trip time took 7 to plan. My vision of an open ended roadtrip looked pretty finite - how could I possibly sustain this level of planning once I was on the road?
The closer my planned departure date came, the less I was sleeping. I felt tense and full of fear. Was this a sign not to go? Is there a reason why most people don’t think about open ended solo trips? Are other people simply that much wiser than me? Why can’t I just be normal and not have absurd ideas?
Like I said, far from fearless.
Here are the four strategies I used to get myself past the driveway.
Strategy 1: What are you afraid of? Get it out of your head and onto paper!
Two days before I left, I opened my journal and drew two columns. Fears on the left and reasonable counterpoints on the right. The left hand column had about fifty items along the lines of:
What if my car breaks down?
What if I have nowhere to sleep?
What if I get injured?
What if my dog gets injured?
What if 1-4 happen simultaneously?
What if I get lost and have no cell service and run out of gas and no one finds me…?
I have no idea what I am doing. I have never camped alone, I have never lit a fire, or, come to think of it - have I even pitched a tent alone before? I’m pretty sure my only contribution was holding the flashlight. I am not prepared. In fact, being this unprepared is irresponsible!
The left hand column saw items along the lines of:
If my car breaks down I’ll call for help
If I have nowhere to sleep I’ll sleep in the car
If I get injured someone will help
If my dog gets injured I’ll find the strength to carry her off the trail and take her to a vet
1-4 will not happen simultaneously. Statistically speaking that is so incredibly improbable. Problems happen one at a time and I am capable of solving problems, one at a time.
Worst case scenario thinking is not helpful. Something is guaranteed to go wrong. In fact, please expect it! But things will go wrong one at a time, and you’ll have resources available that you can’t even imagine yet to get you through them.
Write out your fears. All of them! In your head they sound reasonable and carry way too much power. As soon as you write them down you get a chance to see them more clearly and they start to lose their hold. As soon as you take it a step further and consider more reasonable counterpoints, they lose even more power.
Strategy 2: Break the scary thing down into small, not so scary steps.
The day before I left I started packing. Still unconvinced I would actually leave, I wanted to at least give myself the option. Then I moved to the next baby step - I loaded the car. Again, I didn’t need to make any decision yet. I was simply taking all the necessary steps to set myself up for the option to go the next morning.
Break the scary process into tangible pieces.
Strategy 3: Be kind toward yourself, value taking steps, not the outcome.
The night before the trip I journaled again. I wrote that even though my grand idea was to go on an open ended roadtrip, I’d be proud even if all I did was give it a try. If I made it to Portland in 4-5 days, and decided at that time that a longer road trips was not for me, I would consider the trip a success and drive home. If, however, I decided I liked it, I could keep going and check in with myself each week: “keep going or go home?”.
Strategy 4: Decisions like it
The morning of the trip came and my decision needed to be made.
There is a concept I once heard on a podcast about scaling out decisions to understand the full implications of your choice. The suggestion went something like: look at the broader category of your question, and ask yourself “ what will the quality of my life be like if I continue to make decisions like it?” In this case it meat: what will the quality of my life be like if over the course of my life, I continue to let fear talk me out of things I know are important to me?
My open ended road trip ended up lasting three months and took me through 9 states and two Canadian provinces. I stayed true to the promise I made myself before I left. At the end of each week I honestly reflected on whether or not I was still enjoying and growing from the way I was spending my time. It took twelve weeks for the answer to become “I am done”.
As for my fears?
Some of them did come true. I ended up without a place to sleep a couple of times. I was stuck without coverage during seriously inopportune moments. My car got stuck on the side of the road...
Were any of these situations as horrible and impossible to solve as I imagined? No. Problems were super infrequent, I was able to address each of them as they came up, and just the right resource was always available to move past the obstacle.
Final Note
These strategies will not make you fearless, but the fear that will remain will be a healthy amount, which is probably a good thing to have!
Remember, our natural tendency is already to give fear more credit than it deserves. Invest your energy in trusting in your capabilities and that the right resources will show up at the right time to help you move forward.