Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway is the best book I’ve read in a while and one of the best I’ve ever read. The late Susan Jeffers packs a ton of great stuff into just over two hundred pages while making many big concepts easy to understand. My mindfulness buddy recommended I check it out and I’m so glad I did.
Rather than telling us to avoid fear, Jeffers makes it clear that feeling fear is part of being human. Her approach is to address fear when it appears and work through it so that it doesn’t prevent you from getting where you want to go. She includes many great techniques for this, my favorite being “Five Truths about Fear”. I repeat those truths out loud several times a day, especially when I’m feeling nervous or upset. It’s incredibly effective at replacing my fear with a sense of power that allows me to press through whatever’s going on.
I also like that Jeffers touches on a number of subjects that I’ve learned about through other self-improvement resources. It helps me to have regular reminders to make use of visualizations, affirmations, reframing, and breathing techniques as I can easily forget about this stuff. Additionally, it didn’t feel like she was borrowing from anyone or plagiarizing someone else’s work. She did occasionally reference another author’s work and always gave them the appropriate credit when she did so. However, most of the stuff in her book that seemed familiar to me was simply useful information that anyone can discover on their own if they’re really into self-improvement. And her book contained a good bit of stuff that I had never heard or considered before.
Since I started reading Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, I’ve noticed a major shift in how I approach any given situation. I’m much more confident that I’ll be ok regardless of what happens and, when I do feel fear, I’m able to center myself and push through it much more effectively than I normally do. This is similar to how I felt earlier this year when I read Boundaries and it’s nice to feel this way again. I’m hoping that if I keep up with the exercises in Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway that this will become my new normal and that I won’t lose this feeling like I did before. If you’ve also struggled with fear for much of your life, I highly recommend getting this book. I have a feeling I’ll be returning to it many times to help overcome adversity and make my dreams come true.