Feeling the fear, and doing it anyway

I got a book a while ago entitled "Feel the fear and do it anyway" by Susan Jeffers.

Susan has written many other books (Dare to Connect, the Little book of confidence, end the struggle and dance with life, etc, etc,) - none of which I've read.

Like many of my non-fiction library I read a bit and put it down, but recently packed it again on one of my trips abroad for in-flight entertainment.

The reason I packed it is that I have had lots of in-depth conversations over the last year with my sports psychologist and more recently with a business coach. Many or most of these discussions have revolved around my self confidence (or lack thereof), my trust in myself (or lack thereof) and most recently my desire to flee from difficult interpersonal situations (mainly people issues).

You see, life is made up of a jumble of fear and desire (see Maslow's hierarchy of needs), and the ensuing battle of one over the other. This battle, and the connection between innate and learned behaviours and beliefs fascinates me. Armchair psychologists spend many a happy hour discussing whether certain behaviours are innate or learned, but the bottom line is that for many people, it is fear which predicts the bulk of their negative actions.

"Feel the fear and do it anyway" encourages the reader to do just that, by a series of non-psychology-babble common sense statements and interjections, punctuated by examples which seem all-too convenient to be entirely real! However, what the book does do is offer an insight into an alternative way of responding to the feelings we inevitably have to face, and an alternative way of viewing the options available to us.

A very interesting read, if a little light... more psychoabble to follow once I've finished it!