Do It Scared: Finding the Courage to Face Your Fears, Overcome Adversity, and Create a Life You Love

PART ONE

the fear archetypes

When it comes to facing the obstacles that hold us back or keep us from pursuing our goals and dreams, not all fear is created equal, nor does it always manifest itself in the same way. The seven fear archetypes represent the unique ways fear can show up in our lives.

The good news is, once we identify the type of fear that is negatively impacting our life, holding us back, or keeping us stuck, we can actually do something about it.

Of course, confronting the biggest fears that are keeping you stuck starts by taking the Do It Scared Fear Assessment, which will give you instant insight into your psyche. So buckle up and discover your own fear archetype at doitscared.com/assessment.

chapter one

the procrastinator

When you’re most afraid of making a mistake

Perfectionism is not as much the desire for excellence as it is the fear of failure couched in procrastination.

Dan Miller, 48 Days to the Work You Love

Alice has always liked things to be just so.

She’s incredibly particular about the way she dresses, how she does her hair, and the way she decorates her home. It’s important to her that these things be right, even if she can’t always explain what right is. In fact, she’ll sometimes spend hours tweaking the smallest things—changing her top or shoes or accessories, or moving a vase or photo frame around the room—just trying to get them right.

Preferring to get things right is a theme that comes up a lot for Alice. The truth is that the thought of making a mistake terrifies her, sometimes so much that she is afraid to begin at all. To compensate for this fear, she often starts working on a project early in order to give herself as much time as possible, because she knows she’ll probably be tweaking right up until the last minute, wanting to make sure everything is just the way it should be.

As a student, she often tried to get ahead on her schoolwork, sometimes starting before the teacher had even handed out the assignment. Even so, she never turned in an assignment until the very last minute, sometimes even pulling all-nighters just to check and double-check everything one more time and to tweak it until it was perfect. But when there was an assignment she really dreaded, she’d put it off almost indefinitely.

These days, Alice works as a graphic designer for a fast-growing, start-up coffee company. She likes the work (and the coffee), but she also finds it very stressful. Because the company is growing so quickly, things are constantly changing, and it feels like almost every project she’s asked to work on is needed ASAP, which doesn’t give Alice any time to get ahead. Her boss has no idea that she often stays up half the night endlessly tweaking her designs in order to get them done on time. The lack of sleep, the constant change, and the intense pressure she puts on herself to make sure everything is always perfect are starting to wear Alice down.

Change makes Alice extremely uncomfortable. She prefers to stick to a routine and to the things she knows really well. Her friends and her husband sometimes tease her about being rigid, but Alice prefers to think of herself as being consistent. Even so, that need for consistency can hold her back sometimes. She feels anxious about saying yes to anything that is too far outside of her comfort zone, even when there’s a part of her that would like to break free. When she was asked recently by her church to participate in a mission trip to Kenya, she was too afraid to commit. It just feels so far away, she said, and there are so many unknowns!

Because her job is so stressful, Alice has thought a lot about branching out on her own and becoming a freelance graphic designer. The thought of being able to work from home and set her own hours is appealing, but she is also terrified of making a mistake or misstep when it comes to starting her own business. In fact, she is so afraid of failing that she just can’t seem to take that step. Sometimes she feels paralyzed.

Alice has high expectations of herself and of everyone around her. When she and her husband fight, he accuses her of being a perfectionist. Alice doesn’t understand why that’s such a bad thing. What’s wrong with wanting things to be perfect? In her mind, it’s better to not do something at all than to do it and have it not be right.

Alice is a Procrastinator.

THE PROCRASTINATOR™ ARCHETYPE

Also known as the Perfectionist, the Procrastinator archetype struggles most with the fear of making a mistake, which often manifests itself as a fear of commitment, or a fear of getting started. Because she is terrified of making a wrong move, the Procrastinator looks for—and often finds—any number of perfectly legitimate reasons not to begin or not to try at all.

Ironically, on the surface, the Procrastinator often exhibits behavior that seems to be the opposite of procrastination, such as planning things far in advance or trying to work ahead. It’s important to realize that for the Procrastinator, procrastination doesn’t necessarily occur in the traditional sense of simply putting everything off until the last minute. Instead, the Procrastinator wants to avoid making any mistakes and will therefore try to give herself as much time as possible for a task.

As a general rule, when push comes to shove, the Procrastinator is afraid to act and can often find herself paralyzed by indecision, especially when decisive action must be taken quickly. The Procrastinator prefers to spend an inordinate amount of time researching, planning, or getting organized. While this high level of preparation can be advantageous, it can also stymie progress when the research, planning, and organization become a substitute for taking action.

At their core, Procrastinators are terrified of messing up or making a huge mistake, especially one that cannot be reversed, and this intense fear can prevent them from moving forward toward their goals and dreams. They often require an outside influence or deadline to compel them to act; left to their own devices, they will sometimes put things off indefinitely.

According to our survey, the Procrastinator is the most common of all the fear archetypes, with 41 percent of people showing this as their top archetype, and 74 percent having this archetype in their top three.

POSITIVE ATTRIBUTES

The Procrastinator’s desire for perfection fuels a drive for high achievement. She values excellence and holds herself to a very high standard, which generally results in a high quality of work. The Procrastinator is very good at tasks that require a fanatical attention to detail or extreme diligence in preparation. Moreover, the Procrastinator’s thoroughness in research and preparation results in fewer errors and a better end result.

Procrastinators prefer order and organization and tend to be good at creating systems. They are often focused, driven, and diligent, and they possess a strong work ethic. They are task and results oriented. The Procrastinator is often drawn to and excels at occupations that require a fanatical attention to detail, such as scientific research, engineering, writing and editing, interior design, graphic design, teaching, and administration.

HABITS AND BEHAVIORS

•Likes to plan ahead in order to allow as much time as possible

•Often plans vacations and major projects months or even years in advance

•Tends to be detail oriented

•Postpones or avoids things they don’t feel competent in

•Is naturally drawn to order and organization

•Often checks and double-checks to make sure things are perfect

•Never feels like things are ready

•Loves research and feels like there is always more to learn about a topic

•Can be extremely self-critical

•Gets depressed or extremely upset at mistakes

•Is schedule oriented and acutely aware of deadlines

AT A GLANCE

The Procrastinator

Is a perfectionist who likes things to be right

Fears making a mistake and has trouble pulling the trigger

Can spend too much time researching and planning

Typically produces high-quality work

Tends to be well organized

Gives great attention to detail

THE VOICE OF THE PROCRASTINATOR

One of the most powerful parts of the survey was the comments people made to describe their fears. Each archetype has its own voice, its own unique way of expressing what fear looks and feels like. All the statements below are quotes from respondents who received a high Procrastinator score.

•I feel so embarrassed about not achieving perfection that it prevents me from even getting started.

•I’m always worried that I don’t have all the correct information I need to move forward.

•I hate the feeling of being uncomfortable in a situation that is unknown. I get nervous about change, and I’m always afraid of failure when it comes to doing new things.

•I’m just afraid of failing. I don’t know how I would handle failing at my ‘big goal,’ and that is what holds me back from starting. I don’t want to let my husband and son down if I fail, and I don’t want others to look at me for my failure and not see what I accomplish every day in my current work situation.

•I’m afraid of failing and sometimes of achieving. Basically, I think I’m afraid of change, so my inner mind holds me back because what I know now is ‘safe.’

•I am afraid that I will fail. I am also afraid to put myself out there in case I do fail. I find it really uncomfortable to be put in new situations.

HOW THIS FEAR ARCHETYPE CAN HOLD YOU BACK

While there is a lot to admire about the Procrastinator’s attention to detail and almost fanatical commitment to excellence, the overriding fear of making a mistake or of committing to an irreversible course of action can hinder her willingness to take risks, try new things, or commit to big, scary goals.

Here are some ways that being a Procrastinator can adversely affect you and hold you back:

•You worry so much about planning far in advance that you neglect to take advantage of the immediate opportunities right in front of you.

•You say no too often.

•You feel paralyzed by the thought of making a mistake—so much so that it prevents you from taking even a first step.

•You never feel quite ready to begin, and so you don’t.

•You spend so much time researching, planning, and organizing that you never actually get started.

•You have trouble committing to deadlines.

•You struggle to meet your own high expectations and rarely feel completely satisfied with your work.

•You have trouble finishing important projects because you feel like there is always more tweaking and perfecting that could be done.

•You struggle with giving yourself grace or giving yourself the freedom to try new things and make mistakes.

•You experience anxiety and fear when you don’t have enough time for research and planning.

STRATEGIES TO OVERCOME THIS FEAR

If you’re a Procrastinator, here are a few strategies you can use to overcome your fear of making a mistake.

Reframe

When you can start looking at life as a series of lessons rather than mistakes, it will give you more freedom to experiment rather than always striving to achieve perfection. For the Procrastinator, the fear of making a mistake or a misstep is so paralyzing that it can prevent them from taking any action at all. Of course, without taking action, you’ll never be able to accomplish any of those big goals and dreams that percolate in your head, which is why it’s so important to learn how to reframe the way you view mistakes or the way you look at all imperfections and things that go wrong.

Take Action

One simple but incredibly effective change you can make immediately is to start inserting more hard deadlines into your calendar—deadlines that have consequences when you don’t meet them. It could be a self-inflicted penalty, or you could call in reinforcements from outside sources—perhaps ask your spouse or a trusted friend or even your boss to set the date and determine the penalty. Just keep in mind that the more real you can make the deadlines, the more likely you will be to stick to them.

As a Procrastinator, your natural tendency can often be to put as much time between you and the deadline as possible. Sometimes that means planning too far in advance; sometimes it means waiting until the last minute. Either way, it means that more than anything else, you need a finish