When you have fears but they don’t have you

Standing on a glass floor high up overlooking a street

Fear can be distilled down to either fear in the moment or fear of not being enough.

Of the two, the latter is more common at work than we might like to admit.

We tend to be more comfortable talking about in the moment fear even when the likelihood of failure to execute is highly probable.

Both types of fear can be replaced but in very different ways.

In the moment, we can:

– reason with logic (e.g. I’ve done this before, it’ll be OK)
– distract ourselves (e.g. apply self-talk)
– model exemplars 
– befriend it 

Fear of not being enough is different. It is rooted in the moment of not having enough resources to support us when we experience fear or emotional pain.

It is healed through co-regulation when external resources are provided by others.

This promotes acceptance, self-trust and the integration of the experience, the entry ticket to our emotional and physical well being.

Fear of not being enough is a silent epidemic that leads many of us to be performative rather than to perform.

Our current zeitgeist of work and working practices reinforce this.

We know psychological safety promotes conditions in which high performing teams thrive.

So for this week, who within your sphere of influence will you encourage by letting them know that they are enough?

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