In Fear Is Part True, Part Distortion, I shared my understanding of how fear works.
In this post, you’ll find a structured framework that guides you through overcoming fear, step by step.
➡️ First, you’ll understand what the fear is, where it comes from, and how it affects your choices.
➡️ Then, you’ll separate truth from distortion and explore the risks and tradeoffs of both failure and success.
➡️ From there, you’ll use everything you discovered to make an informed decision about how you want to move forward.
➡️ The framework ends with an action plan to implement your decision.
Now I’ll walk you through the framework using my fear of public speaking as an example. You’ll find the downloadable version in PDF form at the end of this article.
1. What are you afraid of?
Speaking in public, doing Substack lives, and recording myself on video.
2. Where this fear comes from
When do you first remember feeling this fear?
What experiences strengthened this fear over time?
Who influenced the way you see this situation, and what did you learn from them?
As a child, I remember looking at videos of myself and judging myself.
I became extremely anxious during school exams in high school, but in elementary I was very confident → I don’t remember why that changed
My mother was very concerned about what other people thought of us.
My father became angry easily, so I learned to keep most of my thoughts private.
Note:
You don’t need to remember every detail from your childhood for this framework to help.
