Fear and Learning

We all know good things happen when we step outside our comfort zone and do things we normally wouldn't do out of misplaced fear.
I'm not talking about extreme sports or putting your life in danger. I'm talking about daily things we use excuses for, procrastinate, or talk ourselves out of for no good reason.

So here are some questions for you:

When was the last time you tried something new?
Who or what is holding you back the most?

And a challenge:

Do one thing every day that scares you.
It doesn't have to be big and the fear doesn't have to be huge. Procrastination can be a lesser fear. Talking yourself out of something you know is good for yourself and/or others can also be a lesser fear.

I would love to hear your own thoughts, perhaps answers to the questions posed, and your own experiences of stepping outside your comfort zone and how it is beneficial for you to do so.

I suppose that is one way to do it ... It doesn't seem that one would have to be so pro-active about it though. Challenges arise daily on their own ; we don't really need to go looking for them.

In the course of everyday Life, there are several opportunities during the course of any given day to get the living-daylights scared out of you (though "the fear doesn't have to be huge") and to step outside of the 'comfort-zone' and learn something. An example of this could be as simple as striking up a conversation with a person I don't know in a café, "reminding" my superiors at work about something that seems stalled (which, in most cases, they are stalling about) or talking back to that "put down voice" that we all have in our heads ("no, I'm not a fat, ugly, old troll. Shut up !"). Making a new dish that I've never made before for a dinner party ...

A big one : telling someone a 'truth' whereby a little white lie would be oh so much more convenient. :whistle:

Crossing the comfort-zone frontier does not have to be quitting one's job, getting off the grid and moving to Ecuador-scale adventures. They can be, but for the vast majority of us, just getting between the corrugations of our conditioning presents some pretty rewarding challenges.

Great post, Li'l Sis !

Well this one is really minor but I don't like trying new restaurants. Food is expensive and if I get something that I don't like I just wasted money that I could have spent on other things and food that could have fed someone else. I don't think I've ever gone into a restaurant that I hadn't been to before alone. I always need someone with me, preferably someone who has been there before.

Last weekend my fiance wanted to eat at a restaurant that she really liked but I hadn't been to and kind of assumed I wouldn't like their food just from having seen her eat it.

I found that it was quite disconcerting waiting in line trying to pick out something to eat when I didn't know much about it. In the end I got a small steak sandwich and a small bowl of chili. It was good. I probably won't eat there of my own choosing again, but I know that I can if she decides to eat there.

I think what holds me back is a combination of fear of wasting food and money, as expressed above, and a fear of looking foolish while trying to order.

You said it better than I could. Thank you so much for that Alex.

Fear of something bad happening in the future is one of the things that make us human.

This fear, some might say, is necessary … it stops us from doing something stupid. But I’ve found most of these fears to be unnecessary, to be baseless, to be holding us back from achieving something. The most simple of things, yet the most complex of reasons as to why we fail and fear things is not being good enough — is actually at the root of all the others. We fear we’ll fail because we’re not good enough. We fear we’ll lose our relationships, that we’ll be abandoned, that we’ll be rejected … because we’re not good enough. We fear intimacy for the very same reason — we might get rejected because we’re not good enough. Even the fear of success is based on the worry that we’re not good enough.

In the words of Bertrand Russell " “To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.”

Any fear can be necessary if not for the benefit of reminding us about who we are as the "hero" in the story of our lives, no matter how trivial that fear may be... It is only an opportunity to develop your courage which confirms that hero inside.

Fear can consume apparently, so it would seem those irrational fears could be unhealthy when left unchecked. I view it in terms of a complex anxiety load which has valid function under many circumstances but can be an distraction and unnecessary load in others. So I agree it would be a vital action to test our understanding of rationality at its core, while also conveniently addressing the particular fear itself to learn more about losing that anxiety if safe to do so. So despite the educational bonus, its a chance to really define yourself. and move closer to worrying less what strangers think and giving yourself more freedom.

My biggest was doing real estate in the one of the premier locations in the country... I was a complete introvert bordering on Asperger traits so the unstructured role of real estate, the demand for personal interaction, and the pressures to work outside of moral/ethics boundaries were completely out of my field. It sucked in that regard (had its own perks though), but I did it for over a year. It really showed me how limiting irrational fears can be on the ocean of opportunities out there. At the end of the day our progression in life is probably just really how we view things.. oh and another lesson I learnt, loosing established fears is fearful in itself. Sometimes we grow accustomed to what we are used to and fear change - the very thing which can help becomes felt like an enemy!!! Now that might be the worst kind of irrational fear
:ohmy:

Adder wrote: Fear can consume apparently, so it would seem those irrational fears could be unhealthy when left unchecked. I view it in terms of a complex anxiety load which has valid function under many circumstances but can be an distraction and unnecessary load in others. So I agree it would be a vital action to test our understanding of rationality at its core, while also conveniently addressing the particular fear itself to learn more about losing that anxiety if safe to do so. So despite the educational bonus, its a chance to really define yourself. and move closer to worrying less what strangers think and giving yourself more freedom.

My biggest was doing real estate in the one of the premier locations in the country... I was a complete introvert bordering on Asperger traits so the unstructured role of real estate, the demand for personal interaction, and the pressures to work outside of moral/ethics boundaries were completely out of my field. It sucked in that regard (had its own perks though), but I did it for over a year. It really showed me how limiting irrational fears can be on the ocean of opportunities out there. At the end of the day our progression in life is probably just really how we view things.. oh and another lesson I learnt, loosing established fears is fearful in itself. Sometimes we grow accustomed to what we are used to and fear change - the very thing which can help becomes felt like an enemy!!! Now that might be the worst kind of irrational fear
:ohmy:

Thank you for sharing your personal experience, Adder!
I like how you said doing things like this gives us more freedom... because sometimes it feels like we're simply deciding not to when we are really being bound by it.