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Escaping fear's gravity
written by SAI
filed under MINDSET
published JULY 23, 2023
TLDR
Overcome your fear and achieve your goals by breaking down your experiences into actions and contexts and prioritize those that are within the learning zone
Problem Statement: "I know I what I want to do / have to do, but how do I overcome my fear and do it?"
“I really want to share my art with the world, including through social media. But I haven’t really posted on social media with my own creations.”
This is an example of someone who has so much to share through their art, but because for any number of reasons, the world is losing out on it. How do they break through whatever may be holding them back. There are many solutions to this - I’m going to lay out just one here.
So you’ve probably heard of a comfort zone before. People always say “do things outside your comfort zone.” I agree with that mentality. That’s one way you learn new skills, have new experiences, and meet new people.
There’s also a decent chance you may have run into a diagram of your comfort zone, how you go past it, and get into a learning zone where that ‘new you’ feels comfortable. The diagram may look like one of the two below.
(source Diagram 1: Positive Psychology; source Diagram 2: Mind Tools)
These are two main models that I encountered of the comfort zone and learning or growth zone. I’d like to examine, reconcile the differences and similarities, and from there expand our perspective.
Two main questions I will answer here that will help answer the main problem statement above:
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How is it that there can be fear or danger immediately outside of the comfort zone and beyond the learning/growth zone in these models?
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What factors actually comprise these zones?
From there, I’ll lay out my proposed framework and a helpful metaphor, along with the everyday usefulness.
A couple of small nomenclature notes before we fully dive in - I use panic zone and danger zone interchangeably. And though some models have the learning and growth zone as separate zones, I see them as very overlapping and have combined them into one.
As shown in Diagram 1 above, this framework has the 3 sections of:
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Comfort Zone
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Learning Zone
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Panic / Danger Zone
In Diagram 2, it has 4 sections:
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Comfort Zone
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Fear Zone
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Learning Zone
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Growth Zone
One question I had as I read through the content sources of these frameworks was “how do I reconcile that there is a fear zone right outside of the comfort zone and a panic zone outside the learning zone?” In other words, why are there these ‘negative’ zones surrounding the ‘positive’ zones?
There’s a simple answer. I believe they’re both right. Yes, it’s actually that easy. We just have to combine each of the frameworks’ sections into a slightly more comprehensive model. It then has these sections:
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Comfort Zone
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Fear Zone
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Learning / Growth Zone
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Panic / Danger Zone
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Why does this make sense to me? When we are in a familiar situation or we’re doing something we know how to do, then we feel safe and comfortable. But if just one of those things change — the situation or our action — then our innate fear response kicks in.
For me, starting my podcast was new in some respects. For a few months leading up to it, I would voice record myself after a meditation session. I actually still haven’t listened to them since, and neither has anyone else. But it was a combination of catharsis and curiosity. Point being, I had experience voice recording into a device.
Additionally, I had experience posting on social media to my followers. But that had historically just been my travels or other random things that I did or found amusing. They weren’t really sharing something that I had created. It may be more commonplace now but for me it was new.
Finally, I would share my ideas with people in 1x1 virtual chats but those ideas usually just stayed between us and wasn’t distributed to anyone formally.
So I had experience doing each of these individual activities — voice recording, posting content, sharing ideas — in those specific contexts, but not really combined in the form of a podcast. So it still felt like something new that I hadn’t done before. It was the aggregation of all those that forced me to push through the fear zone.
The change I would make to the fear zone is that this is not necessarily a zone but just a dotted line to break through. This may just be semantics but I believe it makes a difference. I view this fear ‘zone’ more of as an escape velocity threshold. Why an escape velocity? Because it puts you in the driver’s seat. Of this rocket that’s going to blast through. Instead of a fear zone that you must go through to get to the learning zone, it’s simply a speed you have to get to to escape its gravity— in this case, fear’s gravity.
Let’s take the example of rockets. And you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand this. Up to a certain point in human history, we didn’t know how to escape Earth’s orbit. After many successes and failures mainly throughout the 20th century, we now in the 21st century take it for granted a rocket can reach escape velocity. Interstellar travel is now a possibility and not just a dream. Simply because we can get past that escape velocity threshold.
I actually don’t believe that some people have more or less fear than others. This representation is consistent with that viewpoint. It’s not ‘the greater the fear, the larger the fear zone’ or ‘the greater the fear, the higher the escape velocity’. It’s ‘the greater the escape velocity, the easier we can escape fear’s gravity’.
Even the best in the world at what they do have that fear show up in certain ways. Hell, it even shows up during times where things should theoretically be in our comfort zone. Maybe we’ve done a hundred keynote speeches, but before this one we still get nervous.
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The concept of fear represented as a constant escape velocity is actually consistent with physics as well. “The escape velocity of any object is independent of its mass. This means that if you want to throw a grain of rice or an elephant into outer space, you need to give them both the same initial velocity which for the Earth works out to be about 10,000 meters per second.” (source)
Now let’s reconcile the Danger Zone. It’s not just a hit Top Gun song by Kenny Loggins. It could be a very real place for some people, where they do take the highway to it. 😉
We ride into the Danger Zone when not just either of our situation or the activity is new, but when both of them are new. We’ve moved beyond the initial escape velocity of fear and are learning and growing. But what if something is so new that we don’t know what to do? We can feel overwhelmed, panicked, frustrated, among a whole host of other emotions. How come?
When we were escaping fear’s orbit from our comfort zone into the learning zone, it was either a new situation or a new action. One or the other. A familiar context or a familiar action means we can at least know what step 1 could be. Fear’s orbit may still be there. But we generally know what we have to do. But in a situation where both the situation and action are new, then we may not even know where to start.
An example of this in my life was starting my job at 2ULaundry. I came from a technical background with no professional experience in the marketing field, with startup companies, or within the laundry industry. All those were brand new to me, not to mention the new people themselves that come with switching companies. It felt like I learned more in the first 1-2 weeks at 2ULaundry than I had in the entire 15 months in my previous job. I was extremely tired and exhausted even by the end of the first day. By Thursday I was continually yawning while my manager was explaining things to me. He even asked me if I needed to call it a day early. That’s what the danger zone looked like for me back then. It was essentially a result of multiple aspects of the overall experience being new.
Now another adjustment to how we view this danger zone. I don’t view it as this bounded zone on all sides. I view it as a space. A general area to which we’ve assigned meaning. Roll with me here. Let’s say Earth was the comfort zone. And fear was just gravity. You just need a certain escape velocity threshold to move beyond gravity’s effect. The learning zone is then everything within Earth’s orbit. This includes the Moon as well as all the manmade satellites. The danger zone then is any space beyond Earth’s orbit. This includes the other planets, asteroids, and just ‘space’ as a whole. Just like with space, there is no real delineation of ‘this is where space ends.’ So how is it dangerous then? It’s dangerous not in the “a tiger is going to eat you” way. It’s dangerous in the “you’ll just be floating around until you die" way. The thing is that’s what it kinda feels like when you’re here. Hopeless. Nothing to really hold on to. Feels like it goes on forever.
Here’s a picture to illustrate this fascinating metaphor.
Now you can still experience this danger zone of space, but from the safety of a rocket, or space station, or the Moon. We just have to be tethered or go in a vehicle that can safely transport us to this danger area and bring us back. In the past, the Moon used to be in humanity’s danger zone. Over time, we became more adept at getting there. Eventually it has become closer and closer to our comfort zone, where we can go there with less and less risk each time. Same applies as we do things that are in a danger zone occasionally to stretch ourselves. Then we return to the comfort zone or learning zone. The danger space becomes less daunting each time.
Let’s recap my answer to the question: How is it that there can be fear or danger immediately outside of the comfort zone and beyond the learning/growth zone in these models? There is fear in doing something where either the context OR action is new: fear's gravity. Then there is fear in doing something where both the context AND are new: danger zone.
Now let’s answer the second question: What factors actually comprise these zones? The answer is actually just a packaged up way of what I’ve laid out above. The two factors are:
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Context
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Action
Context is external. Action is internal. Context is the situation we find ourselves in. Action is what we are doing. Then let’s say we have familiar and new contexts and actions. I like to think in quadrants, so it would look like this.
Let’s take the example of my podcast. I had voice recorded — familiar action — but not in the form of a podcast — new context. Same with posting content and sharing ideas with people. Both of those are familiar actions. But again podcasting was a new context.
Now in starting my 2ULaundry position, that was a new action for me — marketing — in a new external context — startup, laundry industry, new team members.
Let’s update the quadrant above with these examples.
I hope you’re starting to see all this come together. I was in a learning zone with the podcasting, and in a danger space when I was onboarded at 2ULaundry. A filled out quadrant with the learning zone model looks like this.
Now let’s combine this quadrant view with the space illustration that we have from above.
This is my new proposed way of viewing the comfort zone, learning zone, our fear, and the danger space.
Side note here that when you overlay the framework with the illustration, it creates more of a continuous series of bands or rings going from the inside to the outside. This slight change in interpreting a 2x2 matrix accommodates the spectrum-like quality of reality rather than the rigidity of quadrant sections.
So now the question is “this looks cool (and potentially confusing) Sai, but how is this useful for me right now?”
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If you want to experience something new, start out by a) doing something you already know how to do just in a different context or b) doing something you don’t know how to do but in a context in which you’re familiar
If there’s something you’ve always wanted to be doing but you feel like there’s something holding you back, ask yourself is it something in the danger zone or elsewhere. Do this by breaking them down into contexts and actions. Then categorize them within the quadrant framework. If it is in the danger zone, then look for a way to bring it into the learning zone by changing your action or changing the context to something familiar.
If you want to experience something new, start out by a) doing something you already know how to do just in a different context or b) doing something you don’t know how to do but in a context in which you’re familiar
This works with one time experiences or habits you’d like to build. Habits are just things that are within our comfort zone. But at some point, these habits were either in the danger zone or learning zone. Whichever one it is though, either way you’ve started to build that muscle of breaking fear’s escape velocity threshold. Next time, it becomes easier to reach that velocity. And easier still subsequent times. In no time, you’ll be seeking out new experiences all the time and learning tremendously from them. When you have newer experiences (somewhere in the learning zone), then there will be a ripple effect of more things being within your comfort zone. Or at the very least your learning zone, and not the danger zone.
I found that other places will say something along the lines of ‘do something new’ or exert yourself more in something you’ve previously done to break through the comfort zone. How is what I’m saying any different from that? Fundamentally, it’s not. I’m just breaking it down further so you can take it step by step in becoming more confident in your abilities to learn new things.
They say that “action cures fear.” Simplistically, yes that’s true. But based on my proposed idea here, let’s adjust that.
“Action beyond the comfort zone cures fear.”
An even more in-depth version could be “Familiar action in a new context or new action in a familiar context more easily escapes the gravity of our fear.”
Let’s go back to the example I shared at the beginning. Someone who says, “I really want to share my art with the world, including through social media. But I haven’t really posted on social media with my own creations.” How can we use this new framework to go about achieving the desired action?
Instead of having both a new action (sharing art) and a new context (on social media), they can ease their way into that in at least a couple different ways:
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sharing their art (new action) with very close friends (existing context)
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sharing things other than their art (existing action) on social media (new context)
Over time, posting on social media or sharing art will then become an existing action or context. So that’s when you introduce a new action of sharing your art. At that point, it’ll still be within the learning zone and not the danger zone.
Phew! Okay, now it’s your turn!
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Compile your list of things you want to do but have some reservation of doing
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Break those things down into Actions and Contexts using the framework below
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Categorize them within the Context x Action Quadrant
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Start doing the things that are in your learning zone!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sai is a Life Coach for Young Adults seeking to Live their Quarter Life on Easy Mode!