Fear Inoculation: How to Overcome Self-Doubt

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 00:00

All right, so today this is part three in the series on understanding and overcoming limiting beliefs. So in the first part, we talked about what I call the four horsemen of fear, which are the four most common limiting beliefs that hold people back, which are fear of failure, fear of ridicule, fear of uncertainty, and fear of success. And then in the second part, we talked about how these horsemen hide in our self-sabotaging behaviors. Things like imposter syndrome, perfectionism, procrastination, shining object syndrome, things like that. So if you haven't watched those yet,

pause this, go watch those and come back. So at this point you understand the most common living beliefs and you understand the most common self-sabotaging behaviors. So the next question is, okay, what do I actually do about these fears I have, these limiting beliefs I have, so that my fears don't stop me anymore from putting myself and my ideas out into the world? So that I don't need to engage in these self-sabotaging behaviors which serve the function

to help me avoid the thing that I'm afraid of. So how do I actually do that? So the simplest strategy I've come up with to help you overcome your own fears and things is what I call fear inoculation. And fear inoculation works similarly to any other type of inoculation or vaccine. Now I'm not that kind of doctor, right? I'm a psychologist, I'm not a physician. So my very elementary understanding of how vaccines or inoculations work is you introduce a little bit of the bad thing in a safe, controlled environment.

so that then you can build up a tolerance or an immunity in case you ever run across the real bad thing out in the world. Well, fear inoculation works under the same principles. So here's how it works. So the first part is thinking about what your worst fear is. Then assume your worst fear comes true. Now with that assumption in place, what is your plan? Meaning what are you going to do if your worst case scenario, your worst fear actually comes true?

And again, this is a thought exercise, right? Like it hasn't actually happened yet. So this is a safe environment for you to kind of plan out, okay, well, how might I respond? How could I recover? What would I do next? So here's some examples. Let's say fear of failure is your biggest issue. Okay, well then you're typically already asking yourself, well, what if I fail? What if this doesn't work out? Well, instead of treating it as a rhetorical question, where it's just circled like what if, what if, what if, actually answer that. What if you do fail? What if this thing doesn't work out?

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 02:26

What then? Right, so let's assume you fail. So if you failed, what can you potentially learn from it in hindsight? Were there risks you reasonably could have taken that you didn't and then that caused the failure? Were there things where maybe you were too reckless and then those led to failure? Okay, well then how can you kind of mitigate some of that? Did you overcomplicate it? Did you try to take on too much yourself and then you became the bottleneck in your business? Were there resources that you...

could have taken advantage of but didn't. Were there ways you could have potentially outsourced some of those responsibilities, but you didn't? Well, now that you have a better idea of the things that could likely lead to that failure, you can then begin to deconstruct them and reverse engineer so that you avoid failure from happening altogether. And the other thing is, even if you do fail, think about how many times you've already, quote unquote, failed before. But every time you've failed, you've always learned something. You've always come out the other side.

more knowledgeable, stronger, more tenacious, whatever. So even if you do fail in this thing, chances are you're resilient enough to bounce back, to adapt, and to move forward. So let's say fear of ridicule is your biggest issue. Okay, assume if you do something, your friends and family are gonna judge you. Assume if you make this decision, people are gonna criticize it. With that assumption in place, what are you gonna do? What is your plan?

Well, a really simple question to ask is, these opinions worth caring about in the first place? Right? Because like ridicule isn't the same as like constructive feedback, right? Like outright criticism of just complaining and just trying to tear you down isn't constructive feedback, right? So the people who are actively criticizing, who are actively ridiculing you aren't in your corner because people who are in your corner aren't going to try to tear you down. So if these people you're thinking about are trying to tear you down, they're not in your corner.

So then why do you care really about their opinion in the first place? They're not in your corner. They're not your ideal customer. They're not in your quote unquote audience. What does it matter if they do or don't like you? If they do or don't criticize you? Their opinions largely are irrelevant. Right, like you're never gonna be able to please everybody, period. Somebody is always going to ridicule you. No matter how generous, no matter how benevolent, no matter how selfless you are, somebody's always gonna bitch about you. That's just a fact of life. But the trick is to figure out,

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 04:44

Whose opinions matter? Am I doing the work that resonates with me, regardless of if it doesn't please everybody? Another question is like, the source of your criticism, right? The people who are criticizing you. Do you want to be like them? Most of the time, you don't, right? Most of the time, these people criticize you don't have a life you actually want to have. So then whatever feedback they give, whatever criticism they give, isn't really relevant.

And this reminds me of Theodore Roosevelt's man in the arena speech. I'm not gonna say the whole thing, but basically the gist is it isn't the critic who counts, right? Like the person who sits in the stands and points their finger at everybody else. That's all, well, you should have done this. You should have done that. I would have done this differently. Okay, but when you're in the stands, when you're a critic in the stands, you are not the person in the arena who is putting themselves and their ideas out into the world.

Well, when you enter the arena, naturally people are gonna judge you. Naturally people are gonna ridicule you and criticize you. But critics don't count. Critics don't make the world a better place. It's the people who put themselves and their ideas out there into the world, who live in the arena, who matter. So if that is you, recognize if you're in the arena, it's natural for people to point their finger and criticize you. But if you don't wanna be like those people,

If those people aren't in your corner, if those people aren't doing anything meaningful with their lives, why are you getting so wrapped up in what their opinions may or may not be about you? Or let's say fear of uncertainty is a huge issue for you. Okay, so you're basically saying, I am so afraid of making the wrong decision, I just endlessly research and plan and theory craft and I end up doing nothing. Well, let's assume your worst fear comes true. Let's assume you were so paralyzed with indecision

You ended up making no decision and you just kind of stagnated. Okay. What can you learn from that? How will you recover from it? Maybe you learn that, okay, I needed instead of trying to find the quote unquote perfect solution, I needed to go for what I call a minimum viable solution or the minimum viable amount of information. So rather than saying, I need to learn everything, taking the perspective of I need to learn just enough to move forward, right? There's this idea of just in time versus just in case learning.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 07:10

Just in case learning is like if you're trying to be on jeopardy. Well, I'm just gonna like collect all of this trivial information just in case I ever need it. Just in time learning is the opposite. Just in time learning is where you say, what is the minimum amount that I need to learn right now to take a single step forward? And then once I take that single step forward and I hit another roadblock, what is the minimum amount of information I need to learn just in time?

to move forward. This approach helps you avoid all the overwhelm and all of the analysis, paralysis and indecision that tends to come with fear of uncertainty. Basically asking yourself, what is the minimum amount I need to know or understand to just take one deliberate step forward? Once I get there, then I will see, now I need to know this one more thing. Now I need to learn this one more thing. I take action. I learn one more thing. I take one more action. That keeps you focused and moving

deliberately forward rather than endlessly researching and planning and theory crafting. Or let's say fear of success is a huge issue. Okay, well let's assume you succeeded. Congratulations. What's on the other side of success? Do you lose your ambition? Do you become corrupted by power and influence? Does it mean you've peaked in life? What does it actually mean for you to succeed? Well, if you've lost your ambition, okay, what can you do to regain it?

Right? Can you surround yourself with other people who are accomplished, but who have also maintained a healthy level of ambition to move forward? If you become corrupted by power and influence, how can you maybe study philosophy to regain a sense of humility? How can you maybe network and make friends with other people who are successful, but who have also maintained their humility? And if you've maybe peaked in life, how can you learn to see it less as I've scaled the mountain, I've reached the peak and see it more as

I've scaled the first mountain and I'm only at the beginning of the mountain range. Because what most people who achieve major success end up realizing is that once you hit this first major success, you can now see how much more potential you have and how much more impact you can have that you couldn't see before you achieve this first major success. Because you didn't have the vantage point or the track record to show, I can actually do way bigger shit than I ever gave myself permission to believe.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 09:36

because if you can scale the first mountain, you can probably scale the next. But until you scale any mountain, then scaling any mountain seems impossible. But a big thing with the Four Horsemen of Fear, and fear in general, is ultimately we fear the unknown. People fear death, for example, because they don't know what death represents, what is on the other side of death. People who are super religious or have some strong spiritual belief, they tend to not be nearly as afraid of death.

because in their mind they quote unquote know what happens after death. Well, if you don't know what happens after death, it's terrifying, right? Or people who are afraid of the dark. You're not afraid of being alone in the dark. You're afraid of not being alone in the dark, right? But if you turn the light on and then you can see what is there, you're not afraid anymore. Fundamentally, we fear the unknown. So by making the unknown known, or at least knowable through fear and oculation, we rob fear. We rob the forhorusmen of fear.

of their power over us. Because now we say, even if my worst case scenario happens, even if my worst fear comes true, I feel prepared to deal with it. If I fail, I know how I'll recover. If people ridicule me, I know how I'll deal with it. If uncertainty paralyzes me, I know how to move forward. If success changes me for the negative, I know what I need to do to get on the other side of

And when these fears are no longer so massive and preventing us from moving forward, when they don't terrify us anymore, we have no need to avoid them, which means a lot of our self-sabotaging behaviors no longer serve a function, right? Because remember, with the second video on self-sabotaging behaviors, we don't do anything for no reason. Everything we do serves a function. Every behavior we engage in serves a function. Well, if I'm not really afraid of this thing anymore, I have no need

to engage in procrastination to avoid it. Or perfectionism, shiny object syndrome, any, whatever the thing is, it doesn't serve a function anymore. Because I don't have the need to avoid the thing I'm afraid of because I'm not afraid of it anymore. That is how a lot of your self-sabotaging behaviors can slowly go away, or at least significantly reduce. That's the power of fear inoculation, where you assume your worst fear comes true, and then with that assumption in place, you say, okay, what will I do next?

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (: 11:59

Feeling prepared developing this immunity or this tolerance to fear is how you move forward. But what if the Four Horsemen of Fear weren't actually trying to hold us back? What if we could learn to use fear as a guide toward fulfillment? That is what we're going to be talking about in this next video. So if you want to learn how you can use the Four Horsemen of Fear and fear in general to guide you toward fulfillment, check out this next video. I'll see you there.