is taking action—doing the right thing, or the thing I want or need to do—even though I’m afraid to do so. Courage is staring fear in the face and moving forward, toward it, not away from it. Courage is walking through that wall of fear.
I’ve seen fear as a “wall” because a wall will stop, or at least slow, my progress toward a goal. And fear operates like that wall. Whatever the goal, it is insignificant as far as fear is concerned. Fear’s objective is to stop progress—to turn advance into retreat. The way it accomplishes this is by convincing me, through intimidation, threat, or coercion that I will fail to make the desired progress, and that I will make a fool of myself in some way. Because of this, I must seek out and get to know my fears. I must consciously decide to do things of which I am afraid. I must do this on a consistent basis. I must not allow success or failure to be too large a part of the equation, because if I attempt to do something I am afraid of, I usually succeed. Even if I do not attain the results I desire, the attempt is a success because I faced my fear. The truth is that the outcome is often not my decision anyway. I am required only to make the attempt and to do my best, and then let God take care of the results. I am in the action business and God is in the results business. If the outcome is not to my liking, I can try again. I must remember that failure is a teacher; failure is a beginning; failure is not the end. I am not a failure if God provides a result that is not of my choosing. That is His business, His job, and listening to my fear is one way of telling God what I think the results—His results—should be. I am not God, but I sometimes need a gentle reminder of that. One of the easiest ways I have found to face my fear is to take a good, hard look at what I really fear. Some may say, “That sounds simple,” but it really is more complicated than that, because fear is an insidious force. Fear wants me to think I am afraid of something large, something that I cannot overcome. The truth is that fear is smaller than it appears. Fear somehow has the ability to appear much larger than it really is.
I had a friend who was thinking of moving to South Carolina. Most of her family lived there and she wanted to be closer to them. However, she was afraid to make the move. She began telling me about her fears. She is legally blind, and for her, just getting around can be a challenge. She was used to her present, familiar surroundings, and was afraid that she might not be able to find a living situation where transportation would be as accessible as it was where she lived. She had a good job and was afraid she might not be able to find one to replace it. She was afraid of the actual move; she was afraid of how she would get everything packed and moved to South Carolina. Her list went on. If you use your imagination just a little, I am sure you can come up with a few fears you might have of moving five states away.
I suggested to her that she write her fears on a piece of paper. I suggested she put her fears in a tangible form she could evaluate objectively. I had never done this myself; in fact, the idea had never occurred to me, but it sounded like a good idea. I felt certain the idea had come from God, since it didn’t come from me, only through me, and I had never tried it myself; yet it sounded sensible. I told her I had never tried this myself, but that I thought it might just help her to see her fear for what it really was. She took this advice and wrote down all the things she was afraid of about her upcoming move. Six months later, she was living in South Carolina.
A few months after she successfully faced her fears and moved to South Carolina, I had the opportunity to put this method of facing fears to good use. A wonderful opportunity to organize a hotline in my town emerged. Yet I was paralyzed by the fear. I had run my mouth—as I sometimes do—about how we should provide a twenty-four-hour hotline manned by volunteers who were in recovery instead of paying a professional answering service whose employees had no experience in recovery. I suddenly had the job of making it happen. My first thought was that I had opened my mouth and inserted my foot. Then, when the fear set in ferociously and I wanted to back out, I remembered the suggestion I had given my friend regarding her fear about moving. I made a list of my fears.
I was afraid people would not sign up to do the work, or that the whole thing would be a flop; I would fail miserably, or people would sign up and then not show up to work their shift.
I wouldn’t have enough bright ideas to get the hotline going, and I wouldn’t get the help I needed.
I wrote down these fears and more. Then I took a good, hard look at them. The fears really boiled down to two types: fear of what other people might think of me (especially if I failed), and fear of not being in control. If I failed, I feared people would judge me negatively. Since I could not control the situation—it was beyond my ability—I had fears about all the things I could not control.
Seeing my fears for what they were, I did what I could do. For the most part that consisted of making a schedule, printing some flyers, and asking for help getting the word out that we needed volunteers. Then I started working phone shifts—pretty much all the shifts that were not covered by volunteers. Oh, and I prayed. I prayed for help and I prayed for courage.
Well, things worked out. We now have our phones manned twenty-four hours a day by people in recovery. I was able to face the fear by writing it down and taking a good look at what it was that I really feared. When I did that, my fears looked small, even silly, and as I look back on my part in the whole thing, I see that what I did was one person’s part. I did what I could. The key to success in this case was that eighty-plus other people did what they could too; they continue to do what they can to make the hotline the success it is today. I left my role as chairperson some time ago, and others have taken over the chairperson’s position. They have added new ideas, which have made things even better. However, the volunteers make the whole thing happen. They do the real work. I was happy to do my part, despite my fears, to get the ball rolling. Probably the greatest lesson I learned from the entire experience is the value of writing down my fears. Once I wrote them down, I could see them for their silliness. I continue this practice today, and I plan to do so for the rest of my days. When I find my fears holding me back, I write them down. Then I look at them until I see them for what they really are. Once I see the truth, my fear begins to dissolve and I am able to summon the courage to do my part. I am also willing to let other people do their part.
Today I see fear as an overinflated bully who needs only a good, hard look to be seen for who he really is. When I take the time to see through my fears—to see them for what they really are—I find it is not too difficult to summon the courage necessary to walk through the walls they represent. The more often I do the exercise, the easier it gets to repeat the process. As I practice overcoming fear, accomplishing the task gets a little bit easier. When I stop feeding fear, it begins to die a slow death. While it will most likely never die completely, it does weaken as I feed my courage and become even stronger.
Multiplying Fear
There are so many things to fear. It is no wonder fears multiply when I keep them bottled up in my head. The same fear can manifest itself in many ways: failure, success, not knowing how to do something, getting hurt, hurting someone else; the list is nearly endless. Yet I’ve been able to boil all my anxieties down to five root causes by taking a serious, critical look at them. My personal fears are these five:
• Fear of failing.
• Fear of what other people will think of me.
• Fear of losing control.
• Fear of not getting something I want.
• Fear of losing something I have.
With work, I can boil them down to just the last two—fear of not getting what I want and fear of losing something I have. Fear of failing includes my fear of success. While that may sound odd on the surface, it is true, because if I succeed at something I’ll be expected to follow that up with more success—even if I am the only one to have this unreasonable expectation. When I do something and succeed, or have what I consider a successful outcome, I automatically
