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By Root 341 0

situations we will avoid them. Habit drives us towards the safe, the known and the comfortable. Yet fear is a major problem that inhibits so much of what people do. It affects us all at times. In my view, fear has no role to play in shaping decisions and behaviour in the modern world, although I am aware that many people disagree with this. When giving talks on FIT Science over the years I have been challenged on this many times. Of course, I appreciate that fear has a primal function. It protects animals from dangers, but that is in the jungle, in the past, or in a completely different context. We do not live in the jungle or in the past anymore and these basic animal instincts have little relevance to modern life. I would even question the benefit – for a cognate human being – of fear in any situation. Sure, if I am on the edge of a big drop I will be fearful but I don’t think that fear is protective there either – speaking for myself only, I think the fear would be more likely to make me fall! It might even make some jump.

Being fearless is not just about doing things without the feeling of fear surfacing in your thoughts. In some situations it is actually better to feel the fear and do the right thing. I am reminded of one person whose FIT Profiler clearly showed him to be low on the fearless constancy, meaning that he was quite fearful. Over time he was profiled several times and always disagreed with this profile as he thought that fear did not drive his decisions and actions. The penny dropped one day when he realised this was because he made sure he never did those things that might cause him to feel fearful. He had constructed his life in such a way that it kept him safe from any risk of feeling this emotion. It had worked so far, but he had shrunk his world and that was one reason he was really being held back.

This case also illustrates another important point about fearlessness. It is necessary to unearth the fears that are masked by the habitual behaviours and natural tendencies we all have. I believe that by being hidden these fears can do us more damage than if we faced and overcame them. The family of fear (including phobia, anxieties, nervousness and trepidation, for example) influences many behaviours and decisions that people make, although it may not be apparent. Fear can have a strong grip on our unconscious actions and often does not allow our conscious thoughts into this secret. So we need to be aware of the hidden traps and later we’ll see how Do Something Different helps to expose them.

23. Self-responsibility

This is the degree to which an individual accepts personal accountability for their world irrespective of the impact of factors outside themselves.

People get what they take responsibility for. That is true of you and me. It is true for all of us. If ten different people are put in the same situation, what each makes of it will be more determined by their levels of self-responsibility than by their talents and skills. I have witnessed many examples of high levels of self-responsibility overcoming enormous practical and societal barriers. In business, for example, a high degree of self-responsibility can make up for a lack of educational advantage. People who refuse to blame others for problems and issues gain the resources and experience to overcome them themselves. Yet it seems to me – when I listen to others talk in most situations – that people think the world ‘out there’ determines what happens to them. ‘They’ – those faceless others who seem so central to the lives of people – seem to be perceived to be the primary shapers.

There are many ‘they’s for all of us: the government, our bosses, the media, society. But the hand that life apparently deals us is the way it is because we think and act as if ‘they’ control things, not because they do. There are all sorts of reasons why people feel they cannot take self-responsibility (genetics, upbringing, lack of resources or help from others) but to maximise the opportunity in any situation it’s essential to be self-responsible