Thank you very much for this sequence. I knew fear was a great influence (or impediment) over my actions, but I hadn’t given it such a concrete form, and especially a weapon (= excitement) to combat it, until now.
Following matto’s comment, I went through the Tunning Your Cognitive Strategies exercise, spotting microthoughts and extracting the cognitive strategies and deltas between such microthoughts. When evaluating a possible action, the (emotional as much as cognitive) delta “consider action X → tiny feeling in my chest or throat → meh, I’m not sure about X” seemed quite recurring. Thanks to your pointers on fear and to introspecting about it, I have added “-> are you feeling fear? → yes, I have this feeling in my chest → is this fear helpful? → Y, so no → can you replace fear with excitement?” (a delta about noticing deltas) as a cognitive strategy.
Why I (beware of other-optimizing) can throw away fear in most situations is that I have developed the mental techniques, awareness and strength to counter the negatives which fear wants to point at.
As many, I developed fear as a kid, in response to being criticised or rejected, at a time when I didn’t have the mental tools to deal with these situations. For example, I took things too personally, thought others’ reactions were about me and my identity, and failed to put myself in others’ shoes and understand that when other kids criticise it is often unfounded and just to have a laugh. To protect my identity I developed aversion, a bias towards inaction, and fear of failure and of being criticised. This propagated to also lead to demotivation, self-doubt, and underconfidence.
Now I can evaluate whether fear is an emotion worth having. Fear points at something real and valuable: the desire to do things well and be liked. But as I said, for me personally fear is something I can do away with in most situations because I have the tools to respond better to negative feedback. If I write an article and it gets downvoted, I won’t take it as a personal issue that hurts my intrinsic worth; I will use the feedback to improve and update my strategies. In several cases, excitement can be much more useful (and motivating, leading to action) than fear: excitement of commenting or writing on LessWrong over fear of saying the wrong thing; excitement of talking or being with a girl rather than fear of rejection.
Thank you very much for this sequence. I knew fear was a great influence (or impediment) over my actions, but I hadn’t given it such a concrete form, and especially a weapon (= excitement) to combat it, until now.
Following matto’s comment, I went through the Tunning Your Cognitive Strategies exercise, spotting microthoughts and extracting the cognitive strategies and deltas between such microthoughts. When evaluating a possible action, the (emotional as much as cognitive) delta “consider action X → tiny feeling in my chest or throat → meh, I’m not sure about X” seemed quite recurring. Thanks to your pointers on fear and to introspecting about it, I have added “-> are you feeling fear? → yes, I have this feeling in my chest → is this fear helpful? → Y, so no → can you replace fear with excitement?” (a delta about noticing deltas) as a cognitive strategy.
Why I (beware of other-optimizing) can throw away fear in most situations is that I have developed the mental techniques, awareness and strength to counter the negatives which fear wants to point at.
As many, I developed fear as a kid, in response to being criticised or rejected, at a time when I didn’t have the mental tools to deal with these situations. For example, I took things too personally, thought others’ reactions were about me and my identity, and failed to put myself in others’ shoes and understand that when other kids criticise it is often unfounded and just to have a laugh. To protect my identity I developed aversion, a bias towards inaction, and fear of failure and of being criticised. This propagated to also lead to demotivation, self-doubt, and underconfidence.
Now I can evaluate whether fear is an emotion worth having. Fear points at something real and valuable: the desire to do things well and be liked. But as I said, for me personally fear is something I can do away with in most situations because I have the tools to respond better to negative feedback. If I write an article and it gets downvoted, I won’t take it as a personal issue that hurts my intrinsic worth; I will use the feedback to improve and update my strategies. In several cases, excitement can be much more useful (and motivating, leading to action) than fear: excitement of commenting or writing on LessWrong over fear of saying the wrong thing; excitement of talking or being with a girl rather than fear of rejection.