“How do I survive when the fear of fear is all I know?”
That’s a lyric from Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes.
And before we go any further, the song isn’t about joining a gym.
Not even fucking close.
It comes from a much darker place and from struggles a tad more serious than worrying whether you’ll look like a twat trying to do a goblet squat for the first time.
But that line really hits me every time I listen to it, there are plenty of other lines in various other songs of theirs that do the same and for a lot of different reasons.
Take it away from its original context and I think it describes something a lot of people live with every single day.
Fear of fear.
Not necessarily fear that something terrible is going to happen.
Fear of how something might feel.
Fear of failing.
Fear of being judged.
Fear of looking stupid.
Fear of discovering you’re not very good at something.
Fear of walking into a room where everyone else appears to know what they’re doing.
Fear of trying to change and ending up exactly where you started.
Sometimes that fear becomes so familiar that staying somewhere you’re unhappy starts to feel safer than finding out what’s on the other side of it.
The Familiar Can Feel Safe Even When It Makes You Miserable
Humans are a weird fucking species.
We can know something isn’t working and still cling to it because at least we know what it looks like.
You might hate how unfit you feel.
You might be frustrated that you’re losing strength.
You might want to lose some weight.
You might be worried about getting older.
You might desperately want to feel more confident.
And yet changing any of those things requires stepping into uncertainty.
So instead…
we wait and do fuck all.
I’ll start when I’m fitter.
I’ll join when I’ve lost some weight.
I’ll come when it’s quieter.
I’ll do it when work calms down.
I’ll start after Christmas.
I’ll start Monday.
I’ll start when I feel more confident.
That last one is particularly cruel.
Because confidence generally doesn’t arrive before you do the thing.
Confidence is usually what you get after doing the scary thing enough times that it stops being quite so scary.
If you’re waiting to feel completely comfortable before you start, you could be waiting a very long fucking time.
Fear Is Very Good At Writing Stories
Here’s what happens before someone walks into a gym for the first time.
Their brain starts writing the script.
Everyone will be fitter than me.
Everyone will know I’m new.
People will look at me.
I won’t know what to do.
I’ll be the oldest person there.
I’ll be the biggest.
I’ll be the weakest.
I’ll get something wrong.
Everyone else will know each other.
I’ll be standing there like Billy No Mates while everybody wonders what the fuck I’m doing there.
None of it has actually happened.
But your brain has already produced, directed and released the entire film.
And given it 0% on rotton tomatoes.
That’s the problem with fear.
It can make something that hasn’t happened yet feel like a memory.
“It’s All In Your Head” Doesn’t Mean It Isn’t Real
There is a distinction here.
People sometimes say:
“It’s just in your head.”
As if that means it doesn’t matter.
But where else would fear fucking be?
Of course it’s in your head.
That doesn’t make the feeling imaginary.
The racing heart is real.
The nerves are real.
The urge to turn the car around and go home is real.
But the story causing them isn’t necessarily true.
That’s what we can start challenging.
Not:
I shouldn’t feel nervous.
But:
I’m nervous, and in the immortal words of Barry from Eastenders, I’m going to do it anyway.”
Different thought process.
You Don’t Have To Stop Being Afraid
I think we’ve got this idea that successful people somehow conquer fear.
They become confident.
Then they’re sorted.
But, that isn’t how it works.
You can train for years and still walk into somewhere new and feel uncomfortable.
You can become incredibly strong and still doubt yourself before attempting something difficult.
You can lose weight and still occasionally see the person you used to be in the mirror.
You can become the person everybody else thinks is confident and still have that little voice whisper:
“What if I can’t do this?”
This happens to everyone, personally in the last month I was in a classroom questioning everything I knew and wondering if I actually should of even been there.
The goal isn’t necessarily to make that voice disappear, because it won’t it just needs to be put back behind the door and it’s learning that you don’t have to obey it.
Courage isn’t the absence of fear.
Sometimes courage is being absolutely fucking terrified and doing the thing anyway. We’ve seen this thousands of times over history, people being courageous but still being shit fucking scared.
This Is Where The Environment Matters
Now some gyms often get this badly wrong.
If somebody is frightened of exercise, embarrassed about their body or worried about being judged, telling them:
“Just get yourself through the door!”
isn’t enough.
What happens when they get through it?
That’s on us.
If they walk into a room full of egos, mirrors and people making them feel like they don’t belong, perhaps their fear wasn’t entirely misplaced.
But imagine walking into somewhere and someone knows your name.
Someone explains what you’re doing.
Nobody gives a shit what weight you’re lifting.
You aren’t expected to already know everything.
The person next to you might be 25.
The other side might be 67.
Somebody’s lifting 100kg.
Somebody else is lifting 5kg.
And both are doing exactly what they need to be doing.
Slowly something changes.
Not necessarily your body at first.
Your perception of yourself.
You stop being:
“Someone who doesn’t belong in a gym.”
And become:
“Someone who trains here.”
Borrow Our Confidence For A While
This could be one of the most important jobs we have as coaches.
You don’t have to arrive believing you can do it.
We’ll believe it for you for a bit.
We’ll show you what to do.
We’ll adjust it when something doesn’t work.
We’ll celebrate the tiny victories you probably think aren’t worth mentioning.
We’ll remind you that nobody else is watching you because they’re too busy trying to remember how many fucking reps they’re on.
And eventually…
you start believing it yourself.
That’s when a good gym becomes much more than equipment.
It becomes somewhere safe to practise doing things you once thought you couldn’t do.
And every time you do that, you collect a little bit of evidence.
Maybe I’m more capable than I thought.
Then One Day You Forget You Were Ever Scared
This is one of my favourite things to see.
Someone walks through the door terrified.
Six months later they’re chatting shit before a session, grabbing their equipment and getting on with it.
Then somebody new walks through the door.
Nervous.
Quiet.
Standing slightly awkwardly at the edge of the room.
And the person who was terrified six months ago says:
“Hi.”
They’ve forgotten.
They’ve forgotten that used to be them.
Until you remind them.
“Do you remember what you were like when you first walked through that door?”
And suddenly they realise just how far they’ve travelled.
Not kilometres.
Not kilograms.
As a person.
Look Back Occasionally
We’re all fucking terrible at this.
We’re always told to keep looking forward.
The next weight.
The next PB.
The next goal.
The next dress size.
The next race.
The next thing we haven’t achieved yet.
Every now and then, turn around.
Look at where you started.
Remember the first session.
Remember the weight you struggled with.
Remember when you couldn’t get off the floor easily.
Remember when you’d never have walked into a gym alone.
Remember when signing up for an event sounded ridiculous.
Remember when you nearly didn’t come at all.
Because there will still be days when fear comes back.
There’ll still be days when you think:
I can’t do this.
And sometimes the best answer isn’t some motivational quote.
It’s evidence.
Look at what you’ve already fucking done.
Make The Scary Thing Smaller
If you’re reading this thinking “That’s lovely, Pete, but I’m still not walking through that bloody door”, don’t make the first step enormous.
You don’t have to commit to transforming your life.
Come and have a conversation.
Come and look around.
Meet someone.
Ask the stupid question.
There isn’t a stupid question, by the way.
Although I’ve been doing this long enough that I’m sure one of you will eventually prove me wrong, I can put money on who I think that would be here already.
Do one session.
Walk for ten minutes.
Pick up one weight.
Start ridiculously small if that’s what it takes.
Because you’re not trying to prove you’re fearless.
You’re simply collecting evidence that the thing you were afraid of might not be as frightening as the story you’d created around it.
Then do it again.
The Comfort Zone Isn’t Always Comfortable
Maybe we need to stop calling it a comfort zone.
Because sometimes there’s fuck all comfortable about it.
It’s just familiar.
You know what happens there.
There are no surprises.
Nobody can watch you fail because you’re not attempting anything.
Nobody can judge your ability because you’re not showing it to anyone.
Nobody can reject the person you’re trying to become because you never give them the opportunity.
That’s safe.
But safe and happy aren’t necessarily the same thing.
And eventually there might come a point where the discomfort of staying exactly where you are becomes greater than the fear of trying something different.
When that happens…
take the step.
And When The Fear Comes Back?
Because it will.
Don’t assume you’ve gone backwards.
Don’t think all that confidence has disappeared.
Stop.
Turn around.
Look behind you.
Look at the person who first walked through that door.
Look at what frightened them.
Then look at what you do now without even thinking about it.
That’s your evidence.
You don’t need to become somebody who never experiences fear.
You need to become somebody who recognises it when it arrives and can use it to push you on and you say:
“Yeah. I remember you. But you’ve been wrong before.”
And then keep fucking going.
Because perhaps surviving the fear of fear isn’t about finally becoming fearless.
Perhaps it’s realising that fear can come along for the ride…
but it doesn’t get to fucking drive or choose the playlist.
