Whether you are an artist or an entrepreneur, a teacher or a scientist, this topic might sound familiar! We all deal with fears at times. In this article, I´ll quickly discuss the power of fear, where it stem from and how to overcome it, so you can start to unlock your creative forces, to help you build the stepping stones towards your dreams!

Why Fear is the main inhibitor of success

Some say fear is a bitch! I find that a bit drastic. Let´s take a closer look:

Fear undeniably may block your motivation, may keep you from pushing forward and it definitely keeps you from unfolding your full potential! Fear always causes restrictions! And while sometimes that might come in handy, the downside is, that you are never truly free, when in fear!

But let´s go back one step. What is fear and why does it captivate so many of us?

Looking back into history and evolution, fear was originally designed to keep us save. Fear is a crucial instinct, that in older days (and sometimes still in our modern days) secured our survival. It´s the panic that rises in your body, if you stand in front of a tiger, or if you stand at the border of a cliff. Fear sets free adrenaline, which makes you super focused and awake! That very adrenaline (and cortisol) prepares your muscles for action, so you can run or punsh or do whatever is necessary to get you out of the dangerous situation you may be in.

Fear in that way resembles excitement, as excitement causes the same chemical and physical reactions within your body! However, unlike fear, excitement comes with a positive feel.

What´s interesting though is, that by telling ourselves that we are excited instead of scared, our body starts to ease into these reactions and tells the brain to enjoy the ride!

Bottom line: Fear arises, when you feel your saftely and securities fade away.

Now what?

In our modern day life, we rarely have to deal with such kind of near death situations anymore…We do however face multiple psychological traps. Our fear often stems from our ego! The ego is a very fearful product of self! Our ego likes to be “in charge”, “in control” and therefore pushes fear aside…But fear is smart! Fear remains! The more we try to be “in control”, and the more we neglect anything that´s “uncertain”, the more we actually feed into our fears!

The only way out is letting the ego die a little and killing fear likewise. The more we “dare” to play outside the rules to explore lands that aren´t logical, or safe or purposeful, the less fear we will ultimately have.The more we allow for new discoveries and learning from others, the more our ego will suffer also. The ego wants to be on top of things…and that´s the trap!

The key to beating our fear lies in building trust. You build trust by letting go of your ego a tad bit! Please mind: I am not saying you need to fire your ego! But put it back into its place!!

I want to give you an actual example of a recent songwriting process that took me from fear to unlocking my true creativity. Watch the video below:

Lesson learned: Once you stop chasing perfection, recognition and control, you may gain the freedom to actually produce amazing art! Intuition and subconscious stimulations don´t count a lot anymore in the western world! I consider it a lost treasure! It´s up to us whether or not we´ll go dig it back up!

Sidenote: Please be aware that I actually love dramatic, “whiney” songs. It may come across like I condemn those! I don´t! That day though, I didn´t want a whiney outcome!