“The scariest moment is always just before you start.” – Stephen King

It’s curious that Stephen King would talk about fear this way. We all know him as the man who wrote The Shining, Carrie, and many other scary stories. Surely someone who writes stories about being scared doesn’t get scared himself.

And yet, he does.

The scariest moment is when you think about doing something. You have dreams of success, but there’s the fear of failure as well. That fear swells up the more you think about doing something rather than actually doing it. If you let it go long enough you’ll scare yourself into not doing the thing you once really wanted to to.

Right before you start is when your mind has had the most time to think about what you’re about to do. And it doesn’t get better by waiting longer. Yet, once you start doing, the fear goes down. When you’re taking action instead of thinking about it, your brain realizes that whatever it was so scared about didn’t actually happen. It calms down.

To me it means that right before you start some task or project is when you have the most fear and doubt. You don’t know if you’re going to fail or succeed or if whatever you do will even be worthwhile. That’s where fear starts to take over.

Fear, or more accurately, anxiety, holds you back because you expect the worst when you think about things. You’re thinking about all that can go wrong. People are far more likely to respond to fear than to positive thinking. There’s a reason people say “paralyzed by fear”. And it’s not just super scary things like someone pointing a gun at you. The anxiety of thinking about doing something and not knowing how it will turn out is often worse than having to deal with a real in-your-face situation. Yet not everything you want to start scares you.

The more familiar something is, the less scared you are (usually). If you’re scared every time you make a bowl of cereal then there’s probably something wrong with you. It’s the less familiar or more daunting tasks that cause the most fear. Does this mean fear is a sign you shouldn’t do something?

Not necessarily.

Fear simply means you need to be more aware of what it is you’re doing so you don’t die. But pretty much everything we do that scares us has basically zero chance of killing us. Not to many people die from public speaking (at least not literally – some comedians talk about dying on stage, but that just means their act didn’t do well.)

Personally, I get scared right before I have to make a phone call to someone. Even if it’s someone I’ve known forever, there’s something about that initial outreach that scares the bejesus out of me. Yet I don’t recall every having been told that my outreach was unwelcome. I knowing this I can tell myself that while I’m scared, it’s unlikely to be an issue and that helps me move forward.

This post was also scary. When I thought about writing it I thought, “no one will like it” and “who am I to have an opinion”. There were multiple scary moments. First was the actual writing of the post. The next was publishing it. But the most scary moment was right before posting on social media that I had written it. Once the post had been written, published, and posted on social media, the fear went away. (I’m saying this with anticipation of course since I’m writing this before publishing and posting it.)

However, there’s motivation here. When we want to do something that’s scary, it’s usually a sign that it’s the thing we need to do to change and grow. We have to start. That means getting through the fear and taking the first step. After that, momentum will start and the fear will subside.

Keep going. The more you do and the less you think about doing, the less fear you’ll experience and the more you’ll get done and grow. Momentum is your friend here. I’m not saying that fear will go away completely. It will just go down to a manageable level.

The next time you feel scared to do something, remember that once you start doing you’ll be less scared. Use that knowledge to start. Maybe you’ll be the next Stephen King.