Sunday, 28 July 2013

Can I stop being afraid? or, How I overcome fear.

This is about the longest I’ve put off writing another post. Part of me thinks it’s because I’m sick of writing about fear. Another, more sensible part of me, thinks it’s because I’m scared of finally putting my thoughts on it into words.

I’m going to come right out and say it: I don’t like being afraid. It’s not a good feeling. I like security. I like consistency, loyalty, reliability. I like knowing what tomorrow will bring. I like going into most every situation knowing what to expect.

I’ve said it before that fear is a good thing because it shows you that you care about something enough to be afraid of not getting good results.

But being afraid sucks, you say. Can’t I just live not being afraid of anything?

Sure. It’s called living in your comfort zone, and it’s something we do pretty much every day. It’s what enables some of us to give a speech in front of 500 people and never flinch. It’s what allows some of us to score that game-winning goal, grill that steak with your eyes closed, or simply, to dance.

Here’s the kicker: you were not born great at those things. You became great. And becoming great is the exact same thing as expanding our comfort zone. 

So yes, if you don’t want to be afraid, go ahead and don’t try anything new. But if you want to be great, fear is part of the experience. How will you appreciate the satisfaction of being awesome if you’ve never known the uncertainty of being afraid?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to attempt a stir fry.
                                                                                                                                        

Editor’s note: This post is much shorter than the others by about half. This is because I’m a bit sick of writing about fear. Thinking about it for such long periods of time leaves me with a weird sense of dread.

Look, you’re going to get scared and it’s going to suck. Fear hates it when you start your work. Start it. Fear hates it when you keep doing your work. Do it. Fear hates it when you gather enough courage to publish that paper or serve those cookies. Publish it, and serve them. Fear hates it when we take feedback and strive to improve. Improve.

In short, fear hates action. Act.


This concludes the three-part series on Fear. Part one on the Fear of Failure can be found here. Part two on the Fear of Success can be found here. Next week, I’ll share my thoughts on self-motivation, a topic requested by a good friend. If there’s a topic you’d like me to cover, please let me know in the comments below, or on Twitter @JeremyDeMello.

Sunday, 21 July 2013

I actually did it? or, How we truly are our own worst enemies.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”

I first learned that quote in seventh grade while researching a speech on Nelson Mandela. At the time, I didn’t quite understand the meaning of the phrase, but I had a sense of its power and decided to end the speech with it.

At face value, fearing our own power makes very little sense. Short of being the Incredible Hulk, we have no reason to be afraid of how awesome we are or could be. And yet, many of us are.

Do something right now. Picture an amazing future for yourself. The kind where you’re doing what you’re passionate about, changing the world, making a mark that history will remember. We all have dreams. Whatever your dream is and whenever you’re dreaming it, have you ever heard a quiet little voice that says something like “Hey, maybe I could actually be that spectacular someday?”

In this world, you’ve put in the work to get that skill. You’ve practised long and hard to play that instrument, dance that dance, or public speak that speech.  Sure you feel happy to imagine it, but the more you imagine how good you are and how much better you’re becoming, another feeling emerges: pressure.

You’re great at this thing and all of a sudden, people start expecting things. “If I’ve become this great at something”, you say to yourself, “people will always expect me to be that great. People will always be waiting for me to slip up, waiting to criticize me. They’ll always expect more. I’ll always have to be this smart, this talented, I’ll always have to be ‘on’ because they’ll criticize anything less.”

And that quiet little voice? Well in my experience, it’s the harshest critic of all. The voice sees through the image that you project to others and cuts through the lies you tell yourself. The same voice that makes you believe your dreams are possible is the same one that rips you for not following them. The same voice that allows you to believe in a better version of you is the same one that tears you apart for not being him.

Overcoming the expectations of others and meeting your own personal standards are difficult to tackle at the same time. This is further complicated by the fact that what other people expect and what you want to be might be very different.

The solution that’s worked for me is to re-frame the problem. I want to be the best version of myself, I want to chase my dreams, and I don’t want to care nearly as much about what others might expect. Since the last of these is often very difficult, I find that keeping certain goals private allows me to bypass whatever others think because they simply don’t know what’s going on. This also allows you to settle up with your internal voice. You can’t criticize yourself for not being the best version of yourself when you are actively being that person.

After all this, if you’re still afraid of success, let me ask you to imagine one last thing. You’re about to die and your life flashes before your eyes. Do you want to see a rich, full life of success, failure, and meaningful experience? Or do you want to see a life where you lived in quiet mediocrity, constantly afraid of criticism and never doing anything worthwhile?

Choose, and choose well.



This is the second in a three-part series on Fear. Next week, I’ll talk about how I overcome Fear.

Sunday, 14 July 2013

I’m scared, or, Why there really is nothing to fear but fear itself.

Many people fear failure, so they’d rather not try at all. That way, if they do fail, they’ll at least have that excuse to hide behind. “Sure I didn’t do well, but if I’d bothered to try then I could have.” “Why didn’t you then?” The answer seems obvious: because while I might have succeeded, I also might have failed. It’s something we don’t like to confront.

For many students, this severely affects life in a slightly different way. Students theoretically value education, or at the very least understand the cost of tuition, so they don’t not try at their assignments. Often-times, they’ll just do them at the last possible minute. And if they do well, awesome. And if they do poorly?  Well, they did their best under the circumstances.

Under the circumstances. Under the time constraints that they created.

Procrastination is just another excuse for fearing failure.

Now, I’m a solutions kind of guy and I’ve looked into many articles on the subject. Be warned, many of these articles on how to stop procrastinating were found as a method of procrastinating. Fear is crafty.

There’s a few different ways around fear. The first is to think of it as a good thing. If you fear failure, it means that you consider whatever you are putting off to be important, that you care about it. And if you care about something so deeply, you owe it to yourself to put your best effort forward.

Now that’s the wisdom of about a dozen commencement speeches rolled into a paragraph. There come those times though when a particularly important task is coming up and it’s just so important, so critical, that you just get petrified at the prospect of actually working towards it. This is where the old adage “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” comes in.

See, you might fear failure. But I’ll bet you hate regret even more. Fear of failure might dog you during the day, but when it’s all said and done, it’s the what-ifs that’ll keep you up at night. So if caring about something isn’t enough to give it your all, how about the fear of a wasted opportunity? The idea that you could have gotten that scholarship or run in that election or asked out that beautiful girl? Failure won’t kill you, but the guilt of regret just might.

I know that last paragraph was rough, but I find it’s remembering the times I failed that gives me the courage to succeed. And if you haven’t learned anything from this post, if you’re still finding reasons to procrastinate on whatever it is you should be doing, please do one thing right now.

Start. Just start. Open the Word document or click the compose button and write that story or send that e-mail. Spend two (2) minutes and do it right now.  It gets easier from there.

This is the first in a three-part series on Fear. Next week, I’ll talk about the Fear of Success.



Saturday, 6 July 2013

Summer lovin', or, How I connect and re-connect with my network (Project GYST: Get Your Sh!t Together Topic Winner)

This post was written as a submission to Project GYST answering the question of how I "Get my Sh!t Together" on how I re-connect with old friends and make new connections in the summer 

The first thing that you should know about this post is that I write as a student. I live in London (Ontario) for eight months of the year, so distance keeps me from seeing my friends as often as I might like. The obstacle could just as easily be the daily routine of life, and even in four months of summer, I sometimes use this excuse as well.


The problem with these little defences is that they’re ultimately defending laziness. If we really wanted to re-connect with someone, we already would have. We would already have sent that Facebook message, fired off that e-mail, or dare I say it, made that phone call. The first necessity about re-connecting is that you have to want to do it. As Yoda, Jedi master, once said, “Do or do not. There is no try.”

Once you commit to re-connecting, it’s best to spend five or ten minutes composing a coherent life update, somewhat specific to the person you’re communicating with based on the interests you share and influenced by how close you are. Consider length and detail; you don’t want to message them a thesis on your life’s goings-on and you don’t want their answering machine to have to cut off your message. This all translates to not wanting to overwhelm them. It also ensures that you have a real conversation with them rather than an essay contest.

On the flip-side, a simple “How’s it going?” can be just as bad. This is because it’s automatically met with “Good, you?” This is how this exchange works in real life; “how are you?” is not intended to see how a person really is, but as a greeting. One of the problems with this as it relates to re-connecting is that it likely stops the conversation before it can begin. Even if the person is doing fine, all the nuances of re-connecting are thrown away, depriving both of you of a meaningful conversation as “good” glosses over details.

Everything I’ve discussed details online interactions with friends or casual acquaintances. In many ways, staying within your current circle of friends is much easier than trying to expand it. This compulsion to stay comfortable affects everyone, regardless of age. This being said, you can never have too many friends.

If you’re nervous about meeting new people, the best way to do so would be to meet them in an environment you’re comfortable in. For example, and I promise this is a completely voluntary plug that just happens to illustrate my point, I recently attended the Cool Connections BBQ & Beach Volleyball networking event. At this event, I knew perhaps two or three people out of more than two dozen.

Knowing people allows you to have a bit of security at the event, people you can speak to if you’re nervous or who can help warm you up to meeting new people. Even the best networkers benefit from a bit of small-talk before an event starts, so it’s definitely valuable for people more hesitant.

Another trick to overcome nerves when meeting new people is to set goals. The old standard is to make sure you possess at least one business card coming out of an event. Of course, you should be sure to send a follow-up e-mail afterwards to forge a meaningful relationship. Networking is just socializing if you don’t attempt to create a lasting connection.

In summary, decide consciously that you want to re-connect with old friends and/or make some new ones. Try not to overwhelm the old friends or be overwhelmed by nerves when trying to meet new friends. And, especially with new connections, be sure to follow-up. These bits of advice will go a long way towards helping you GYST.

Jeremy De Mello is President of Atlas Symposium, an annual conference held in downtown Toronto that provides high school delegates interested in business with straightforward, jargon-free answers to their questions about university. He loves meeting new people, so feel free to e-mail him at jeremy.demello@atlassymposium.org, or reach out to him on Twitter @JeremyDeMello.