Every New Year’s, we vow to ourselves that this year will be different from last—that we’ll break away from our habitual reluctance to ask for a promotion, set firm boundaries on the things (and people) sucking our energy, stand up to an intimidating boss, or reset our sails on a whole new endeavor.
The problem is that inside our heads, a persistent voice chimes in: “I could do that, but what if (insert outcome we do NOT want) happens? What if it all goes pear-shaped? What if I’m marginalized? What if I’m just not good enough?”
Whenever we want to make a change, even one we intellectually know is important for us to make, it always activates a primal instinct: fear. Yet rarely does that fear show up as knee-shaking trepidation. More often it operates in less conspicuous ways—rationalizing our caution, distracting ourselves in a hive of activity, or legitimizing the status quo. And so we abandon those resolutions, convincing ourselves that next year will be a better time And on it goes . . . and goes.
It’s 2025, the year to break the cycle.
It’s time to ask, what does your deepest self want? What future state ignites a spark in you, making you feel more alive, even as your fears waste no time filling the gap between that future and where you currently stand? The bolder your vision, the more likely they will.
Your longing to live a deeply rewarding life will often be at odds with your desire to live a secure one. This is why so many sacrifice their passion and potential on the illusive altar of security. It’s also why pursuing your highest good will never be wholly comfortable. More often, that pursuit will call on you to do the very things that your insecure, comfort-loving, cautious self would prefer you didn’t. Surrendering control. Risking exposure. Stepping into uncertainty. True security against the risks and ravages of life cannot be found in material form.
Be careful not to sacrifice your most rewarding life on the altar of false security.
There’s no arguing that fear’s directive spares you stress . . . in the short term. No risking rejection. No ruffling of feathers. No rocking of boats. No extra balls to juggle and drop. Yet just because something is hard doesn’t mean it’s bad. Your greatest source of stress will never come from hard work or courageous action, but from the lack of it:
- From the conversations you did not have
- From the boundary you did not firmly set
- From the request that you did not clearly make
- From the feedback you did not give and accountability you did not manage
- From the tension you did not address
- From the change you did not make . . . or not make soon enough
The brave thing you most need to do is often far more mundane than changing careers or launching a startup. More often it’s something far simpler. Making a phone call instead of texting. Saying no to an invitation knowing you will likely disappoint. Asking for help or delegating a task rather than doing it all yourself. Admitting “I don’t” when feeling pressured to pretend that you do. Saying sorry. Saying “Enough!” Saying “I do.” To quote psychologist Carl Jung: “Where your fear is, there is your task.”
The smarter we think we are, the more cunningly our fears work in the background. Working with my share of insecure overachievers has taught me that fear often hides behind intellectualized emotions, a false sense of urgency, being hyper-controlling, or constant posturing and perfectionism. Or, on the other side of the behavioral spectrum, being overly accommodating, excessively humble, or too nice for our own good or anyone else’s.
Fear is at the wheel anytime our desire to prove, please, or impress matters more than serving the higher good over the longer haul. Whenever we bifurcate our public and private personas, when we procrastinate on addressing tension in a relationship or relentlessly pursue “success” or avoid situations where we risk being exposed as “less than” on some measure, fear is at play. If you haven’t spent time identifying what makes you feel vulnerable, your decisions will be governed by avoiding it.
Neuroimaging technology has enabled a deeper understanding of how fear is embedded in the neural operating system of our psyche. By identifying which parts of the brain light up when making decisions, we know that the reward centers of our brain are twice as sensitive to potential loss—of approval, status, money, reputation, power, pride—as they are to potential gain.
Our default programming is to protect against what we don’t want rather than pursuing what we do want. To say this another way, we put more value on not losing $100 than on gaining $100. One study asked people to walk seven thousand steps a day for six months. Some were paid $1.40 for each day they achieved the goal; others lost $1.40 each day they failed to walk. The second group hit their target 50% more often. As Daniel Kahneman wrote in Thinking, Fast and Slow, “We hate to lose more than we love to win.”
Through facing your deepest fears you reclaim your greatest power.
Our brains are extraordinarily complex and some very “brainy” people like Kahneman have written much to help us understand them better. Kahneman refers to the two parallel neural circuits driving the operating system enabling you to read this article as our fast and our slow brain. Our fast brain engages one of the more primitive parts of our brain, known as the amygdala—sometimes labeled as the “monkey brain.” Automatic, impulsive, intuitive, and error-prone, the amygdala governs much of how we think and what we do in our everyday lives. If you’ve ever jumped out of the way as an electric scooter sped toward you on a sidewalk, you have your fast brain to thank. Likewise, anytime you’ve overreacted or been impulsive—saying or doing something before your rational “slow” brain kicked into gear—you can point to your fast brain, which generates emotions without the participation of consciousness, spurring you to react to perceived threat before you’re even fully conscious of exactly what is happening. To be clear, your slow brain isn’t actually slow. Rather, it requires mental exertion to deliberately reason and make more complex decisions.
Clearly, we wouldn’t enjoy the lives we have today if not for the brilliant gray matter between our ears. The problem is that unlike the technology which scans that matter and runs our lives, our Stone Age brains haven’t evolved much in sixty thousand years. This makes our fast brain prone to assess a situation as life-or-death even when our life is not remotely at risk. As neuroscientists have found, our emotional responses to psychological injury—such as feeling humiliated in a meeting, socially excluded, professionally marginalized—use the same neural circuits as a physical injury. The sources of our anxiety are rarely legitimate threats to our life but more often threats to our sense of significance. Only occasionally are they wholly rational.
Be led by your values, not your emotions. When your values are clear, courage becomes easier.
Let 2025 be the year you rewrite your story, not by avoiding what scares you, but by stepping into it with boldness. The start of a new year holds the promise of a fresh chapter, a chance to push past the old patterns that have held you back. Fear will always be there, lurking in the shadows, but so too will your potential and the deeply fulfilling life that awaits you on the other side of courage.
This article has been excerpted from The Courage Gap: 5 Steps to Braver Action and is reprinted with permission.
