It had not occurred to me to think of fear as a GPS.
It’s actually a refreshing approach when facing your greatest challenges as a creative. The first time that I came across this idea was on Twitter through Marie Forleo, entrepreneur and philanthropist:
Whoa.
When it comes to fear, it’s easy to enter a cycle of thoughts that will prevent us from taking action. Endless “what ifs” flood our minds and great opportunities fade away.
A life filled with fear is not life.
“Follow your fear” is fantastic advice. Instead of running away, why not using it as a navigation tool to determine the next steps for you. Or in nicer and deeper words:
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
Eleanor roosevelt
Another key component is intuition. Author Gavin de Becker suggests to have greater respect for it, which is “honed by evolution and by a lifetime of experience.” That trust your gut phrase makes more sense than ever. We all have feelings that tell us we’re going in the right direction, but we tend to ignore them.
At the end of the day, paying attention becomes the ultimate tool to learn the causes behind our fears and turn them into something productive.
Where is your fear leading you these days?