How to overcome fear and anxiety in 3 SIMPLE STEPS
Summary
- Substituting short-term discomfort for long-term dysfunction hampers business growth and personal development.
- I noticed a leader on my team avoiding tough conversations, leading to team dysfunction.
- Despite being skilled on paper, the leader's inability to address issues led to a loss of respect and ultimately, their termination.
- Growth from seven to eight figures in revenue requires embracing discomfort and facing difficult situations head-on.
- Comfort and confidence are not prerequisites for achievement; often, the greatest achievements come amidst fear and anxiety.
- Avoiding short-term discomfort can manifest in different ways, including substance use, which does not solve the actual problem.
- To get past the avoidance of discomfort, there are three steps I recommend:
- First, identify what you're avoiding.
- Second, acknowledge how you're perpetuating the problem.
- Finally, consider what you would do if you were not afraid or anxious.
- Engaging in difficult actions, despite fear, builds confidence and proficiency in managing such scenarios over time.
- True leaders earn respect through resilience and by facing discomfort rather than resorting to crutches.
- Personal growth and success come from training oneself to address discomfort head-on and learning to be a more resilient, unshakeable individual.
Video
How To Take Action
I would suggest implementing a few steps to overcome short-term discomfort for long-term growth. First, sit down and make a list of what you're afraid of, like hard conversations or new challenges. Be honest with yourself about what you're avoiding.
Once you have that list, think about how you're making the problem worse. Maybe you're putting off an important talk or not trying something new because you're scared. Ask yourself, "Am I doing anything to stay away from these things?"
Then, try to imagine what you would do if you weren't scared. This helps you see how to act boldly and start making changes.
For example, if you're nervous about talking to someone at work, you might decide to do it anyway. It'll be tough at first, but the more you face these fears, the easier it gets.
Remember, avoiding short-term pain can lead to bigger problems later. It's okay to feel anxious or scared, but don't let that stop you. When you start facing discomfort, you'll get better at dealing with tough situations, and you'll grow as a person and in your business.
You don't need to feel confident to achieve something. Most of the time, achievements happen when we're scared. It's about doing it anyway.
If you're working with a team, encourage them to do the same. Facing discomfort is how true leaders earn respect and help their teams succeed.
To grow from making seven figures to eight in business, embrace these tough moments. They're signs you're moving forward. And remember, it's not about fancy skills or tricks, it's about choosing to be brave, even when it's hard. That's how you become a strong and unshakable person and leader.
Quotes by Leila Hormozi
"Substituting short-term discomfort for long-term dysfunction"
– Leila Hormozi
"If you are not [in discomfort], then you are probably not achieving what you could be"
– Leila Hormozi
"Consistently put yourself at risk… to get to the next level"
– Leila Hormozi
"Most people look up to people with values and resilience"
– Leila Hormozi
"You become the version of yourself that can achieve the things that you want to achieve"
– Leila Hormozi
Full Transcript
what is up in this video what i want to talk about is substituting short-term discomfort for long-term dysfunction this comes from um an experience that i had with a leader and it kind of seeps into understanding why some people are able to continue to grow in business versus some people stunt themselves when i say stunt themselves notice that i say stunt yourself because nobody does it to you you do it to yourself essentially what happened was like we had this leader and he was super smart really disciplined technically very uh adapt right like he had a lot of skills um on paper was a fantastic employee however he couldn't seem to choose long-term function over short-term discomfort and so what i mean by that was this is every time i talked to him i was like okay you know he had teams underneath him i would say how are your direct reports doing how's this person doing these metrics over here look weird like what's going on and i would coach him on the conversations to have with those people below him and every time that he would come back to me i could tell he was really nervous and didn't really want to report back on what was going on with those people and so eventually what i ended up doing is meeting with those direct reports of his and saying hey what's going on like how's the relationship with your superior et cetera et cetera i'm essentially investigating and time and time again it happened with everyone's direct reports like i would ask if they had gotten any feedback from them recently how they feel they're doing where there's you know accountability all this stuff and they would have no idea what i was talking about and it was very clear to me that the conversations that he was claiming to have with that team were not happening what he was doing was he was trying to avoid the short-term pain of the uncomfortable conversation right but what he created for himself was long-term dysfunction in his role because he avoided doing a part of the job that was essential to succeeding in the business and unfortunately it ended up being that time and time again after months of coaching i had to let this person go and the reason was was because it was exactly that the team lost respect for this person the team saw and knew that they should have been held accountable to a higher standard and they weren't being and so they thought they looked at this person and felt like they weren't a fit for the team their peers started to notice and say all the teams are below you are dysfunctional and you're not doing anything about it and so in an attempt to keep himself comfortable he actually created himself a bigger problem this is something that i see all the time with people who are specifically doing seven figures a year and trying to get to eight and if you're not able to push yourself out of that zone then you essentially trap yourself in that you know whatever revenue level right and the reason for that is it's because we cannot delay gratification uh i see this manifest a lot in different ways and i've seen it in leaders in my team luckily unfortunately i don't think a lot of people in my team do this uh at this point in time but a lot of people would rather fix the problem in their immediate and actually create themselves a bigger problem later down the road and so i'll give you a couple of examples something i noticed i was talking to alex about this actually it was just a pattern that i noticed and it kind of led to me thinking about this incident with this person on our team is the manifestation of anxiety in people who are doing seven figures and what that looks like which is in order to get to eight figures in order to get to nine figures from eight figures you have to consistently put yourself at risk okay and so what i mean by that is you have to consistently do things that are uncomfortable it doesn't stop once you start the business you have to constantly be putting yourself in discomfort in fact most the time if you're running a business you should be in discomfort at most points and times because if you are not then you are probably not achieving what you could be and i think a lot of times people think that in order to achieve i have to feel comfortable and confident myself in order to achieve i have never [ __ ] achieved anything worthwhile while feeling confident most time i was scared shitless i was super anxious i was super worked up and i was super not about it you know if you look at this leader he avoided all these conversations the first i don't know 10 to 15 times i had to have conversations like that with teammates and tell them that their jobs were on the line tell them that they were really at risk tell them they weren't doing a good job i was insanely anxious and so nervous like it wakes me up at night gets me up in the morning like i can't relax like i was super worked up over it here's the thing if you don't put yourself in the situation and you don't do that thing you don't show yourself what you're capable of and you certainly don't make it to the next level and this is why a lot of leaders say stuck it's not because of a lack of technical skill and that's where a lot of people look because it's really easy to point there it's like oh i just need to learn marketing oh i just need to learn how to run this funnel oh i just need to learn this thing those are easy as hell what's not easy is being able to look at yourself in the mirror and say i am constantly choosing to be comfortable in the short term and creating long-term dysfunction for myself i am capping myself and a lot of people do this through different means you see it in business in manifestations of you know a lot of times i'll talk to people and they're like oh yeah i'm totally good etcetera and then they drink a bottle of bourbon every night or they smoke weed every day i see this all the time and it's something that i actually talked to alex about because i'm like i feel like there's almost something wrong with me i have feelings of anxiety and stress and things like that all the time and i want to avoid these feelings but i don't and the reason i don't is because i know that i'm just going to create more problems for myself down the road and that's what this guy did he kept saying oh i don't want to feel these feelings i don't have this discomfort of letting these people go of telling them they're not doing a good job of having these conversations so instead he got himself fired and people do this in one way shape or form in their business all the time and specifically that jump from seven to eight figures if i look at the behaviors uh that i had before we got to eight figures right a lot of it was trying to avoid these things and the reality is that in order to get to a level a higher level in business you have to accept the discomfort that comes with it and you have to not try and run from it right and so think about it like this right somebody goes on a diet and they're like i want to lose weight i want to get in shape but i just can't feel super hungry all the time well then what the [ __ ] like how are you going to be in a calorie deficit and not feel hungry please tell me it's going to be a very very hard struggle like what are you going to do eat lettuce all the time all day every day to feel some sort of comfort or are you going to get used to feeling hungry and that's the same thing that goes for business are you going to take stimulants to stay awake and get your work done take stuff to go to bed and not think about your anxiety or are you going to face it let yourself feel those things tell yourself it's okay it's normal and then move on and get to the next level of business and it's something that i see time and time and time again and i think it is what prevents most people from becoming true leaders in companies right because who's going to actually look up to somebody who has crutches like that who's going to look up to somebody who avoids discomfort not many people most people look up to people with values and resilience if you're looking at yourself or you're looking at people on your team and you're trying to figure out how to break past this right how to get out of constantly choosing short-term comfort and then sacrificing your long-term functionality as a human right by limiting yourself by creating these limits on yourself by constantly choosing comfort there's three things that i do right one is i will make a list of things that i am avoiding because i think most of the time the things that we get scared of the things that we constantly seek to you know not do anything about are the things that we're avoiding and so if you just sit down and you brain dump and you go what am i avoiding right now that's the first thing you want to do and if you're coaching someone on this you want to say i want you to write down everything you're avoiding right now in your role so in your role maybe if you're talking to them about their life in general their life in general but in general i would say you're talking about their job and so it's like what are you avoiding right now the second thing that you want to write down is what are you doing to perpetuate the problem so most people don't just have a problem and i myself am included in this i am coaching myself all the time on this stuff you have a problem but then you perpetuate that problem by acting like you're scared of the problem so think about like this right you're scared of elevators somebody's scared of elevators and i you can use it like when i'm saying this i'm just giving you the analogy a lot of times it's scared of hard conversations scared of going live scared of making social media posts scared of whatever right talking social events etc um say you're scared of elevators and so instead of just being like wow i'm scared of elevators every time i go on a freaking elevator it sucks um you say i'm going to avoid elevators at all cost and i will not go to a building with elevators and i will not ride uh on an elevator and i will not live in a building with elevators i won't go anywhere with elevators because i cannot do elevators okay i actually know somebody who had this fear and because of that they couldn't live in certain buildings because they were so damn scared of elevators but what if instead that person said i am scared of elevators second course of action what am i doing to perpetuate this problem i continue to avoid elevators okay i am no longer going to avoid elevators i'm going to commit to feeling the short-term discomfort of going in the elevator and then long term knowing that i will be able to be a normal functioning person who this does not affect their life because yes i get nervous in elevators but eventually the nervousness goes away and it goes away faster if i confront the elevator that is the second thing you want to do you want to ask yourself what you're doing to perpetuate the problem what behaviors have you created around that problem to make it exist even more you know a lot of the times you look at like substances people drink and they smoke to avoid something and because of that you're teaching yourself literally that you cannot deal with that emotion that in order to calm yourself down in order to relax in order to get some respite you must drink you must smoke you must take a pill that's not true but you don't give your chance yourself the chance to see that it's not true because you continue to do those behaviors okay so the first thing is what am i avoiding the second thing is how am i perpetuating this behavior feeling etc situation and then the last thing you want to do is say if i was not afraid of this thing if i was not avoiding this thing what would i do because you can come at it from two angles there's the behavior angle and then there's a thinking angle i find for myself when i have these situations i have to ask myself what would someone who's not uncomfortable not afraid etc etc what would they do and eventually if i do that thing enough if i act unafraid enough i will my brain will catch up and be like there is nothing to be afraid of there is nothing to avoid that's the third piece you have to ask yourself what someone would do who was not anxious scared nervous about this situation okay so in the case of the guy that i was telling you about who i had to unfortunately let go if he had asked himself that question he would have said i should show up to the conversation i should be okay with the fact that i might lose some sleep over it that i might be nervous over it that i might be shaking when i'm having the conversation but i'm gonna do it anyways because long term if i have more of these conversations i'll get better at them and eventually they won't make me nervous at all and that is what if you look at the actual things that prevent people from getting to the next level it is this [ __ ] it's not the skills it's not the marketing it's not the sales yes there are those things and people who are already not avoiding anything and not trading any short-term pleasure for long-term discomfort but most people do because we're humans and we're programmed that way and there's nothing wrong with you in fact you are good at being a human because humans are built to learn they're built to assimilate patterns and they're built to protect themselves it's not useful though when it comes to success so it's like you know we can either use that as an excuse or we can say i have to unfortunately train myself differently because my brain is a million years old it doesn't serve me anymore and so that's what's been on my mind today i hope that it's of use to you because it's something that i remind myself of all the time i have to catch myself and say am i doing something to avoid uh that is going to create long-term dysfunction because it doesn't feel good in the moment and then i have to ask myself what am i avoiding what behaviors am i perpetuating around this emotion or around this situation that are making it worse and then what would i do if i wasn't afraid and then i can logically walk myself into a situation and say because of these three reasons i need to do this which means i will be uncomfortable in the short term but in the long term i will be a stronger more resilient person and ultimately guys that is how you grow a business you become a stronger person you become a more resilient person you become the version of yourself that can achieve those things because the version of yourself that can achieve the things that you want to achieve often is unshakable they are not easily manipulated they they're not easily subdued and they are a fighter and so that is how you continue to rise in the ranks of business and i know this was kind of a rant um but i just felt called to do it because i've had so many conversations lately with people who are keeping themselves stuck because they just continue to choose they continue to choose to avoid the conversation they continue to choose to not have the uncomfortable situations with people they continue to say that they have anxiety and they have to go to medication or alcohol and it makes me sad because you know what i've had so many times and i'm tempted to do the same damn thing and i do not let myself because i know that it will just create worse for me in the long run and so i hope that was of use to you if it was go ahead hit subscribe i will see you on the next one