10 Things We Fear the Most & 5 Ways to Build More Confidence About the Future

Who doesn’t worry about the future? At some point in our lives, we all fear the unknown, and anxiety fills our thoughts. Although these feelings are very common, the best way to deal with them is to understand where they are coming from and knowing and how they coincide with what stage you are in your life. In this episode of On Purpose, Jay Shetty shares five strategies to help you better manage these fears, along with practical exercises you can use today to build better self-confidence. Learn more about fear & the path to moving forward in chapter 3 of my bestselling book, Think Like a Monk, available here Key Takeaways: 01:49 Worrying about the uncertain future 02:25 10 categories of fears that we have 05:05 Strategy #1: It’s normal for us to worry about the future 09:07 Strategy #2: Instead of focusing on the details, focus on our target 11:13 Strategy #3: The big payoff of worry is it gives us the illusion of control 14:13 Strategy #4: Create a flexible framework to deal with future fears 20:45 Strategy #5: Grit is staying determinedly on the path, but be able to distinguish between distraction and an unexpected opportunity Like this show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps! Post a screenshot of you listening on Instagram & tag us so we can thank you personally! Achieve success in every area of your life with Jay Shetty’s Genius Community. Join over 10,000 members taking their holistic well-being to the next level today, at https://shetty.cc/OnPurposeGenius See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jay Shetty?

  This episode is brought to you by AG1. Are you feeling September reset too? Shorter days, longer to-do lists, earlier alarms, all those routines you promised yourself you'd pick back up. It can feel like your whole life is recalibrating. And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on. AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically-backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop. AG1's ingredients are sourced from quality partners for absorption, potency, and nutrient density to deliver the foundational nutrition your body needs. And alongside a proper diet,

• 0:44Jay Shetty?

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• 1:30Jay Shetty?

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• 2:16Jay Shetty?

  And when everything around you is changing, it helps to have a few things you can rely on. AG1 Next Gen is one of those easy habits to keep. It's the clinically backed, comprehensive daily health drink that supports your gut health, energy production, and foundational nutrition all in one scoop. AG1's ingredients are sourced from quality partners for absorption, potency, and nutrient density to deliver the foundational nutrition your body needs. And alongside a proper diet, AG1 Next Gen meets 94% of nutrient requirements and is clinically shown to enrich the gut microbiome. For a limited time, save 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen or AG1

• 2:59Jay Shetty?

  Pro at drinkag1.com/onpurpose. That's drinkag1.com/onpurpose. If you're rigid in your goals, you may hit them, but you won't surpass them. That's what we often try to do with the future. We try to plan meticulously so we know every step to take, but we lose the room to be spontaneous and grow. When Angela Duckworth became a public school teacher, her father was livid. He was disappointed. He thought she was throwing it all away. Ironically, this woman, who he thought was giving up, was actually demonstrating the kind of grit she would go on to study. She was in the dark tunnel, but she kept moving forward.

• 3:50Jay Shetty?

  Hey, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world, thanks to each and every single one of you that are here with me, whether you're walking your dog, whether you're working out at the gym, whether you're working out at home, whether you're cooking, whether you're cleaning, whether you're on a run or a jog, or you're editing something right now. Thank you so much for tuning in to On Purpose. You're in exactly the right place to improve your mind, to elevate your energy, and to transform your life. And today's episode is all about the five ways to stop worrying about the future and methods to build more confidence.

• 4:32Jay Shetty?

  So, show of hands out there. Who's worried about the future? Yep, that's right. Just about all of us. Of course, I can't actually see you, though I wish I could, but I know that most of you raised your hands because I hear this all the time. "Jay, I'm so anxious about the future and I just don't know how to stop worrying." And I hear you, so let's talk about it. How many of you feel that you're uncertain about your future, your family's future, your career, your passion, your children, your partner, your relationship? There are just so many uncertainties right now. First of all, I want you to know that you're not alone.

• 5:16Jay Shetty?

  According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, nearly 40 million people in America alone deal with anxiety and it's the most common mental health challenge in the US. Numbers are similar worldwide and have spiked in this last year due to the pandemic. According to psychotherapist and author Amy Morin, there are 10 broad categories of fears that hold us back in life. See how many of these you identify with. The first thing we fear, and what I love about this and what I want you to think about, before I tell you what those 10 things are, I want to share with you this really interesting insight that you're about to learn, that we don't actually fear a thing or an event.

• 6:00Jay Shetty?

  We're fearing a change of emotional state. We're fearing a change of emotional experience. So here are the 10 categories of fears that we have. Change, loneliness, failure, rejection, uncertainty, something bad happening, getting hurt, being judged, inadequacy and loss of freedom. These are the 10 things we fear the most. I'll say them again. Change, loneliness, failure, rejection, uncertainty, something bad happening, getting hurt, being judged, inadequacy and loss of freedom.

• 6:45Jay Shetty?

  Now, I hope you are keeping count as to how many you're dealing with right now. Notice how we're not fearing a particular thing or a specific thing. We're fearing how it feels to go through that thing. So we're fearing a signed belief to that thing. So for example, losing your job, we are fearing failure or we're fearing rejection, right? But if you didn't see losing your job as a rejection, if you saw that as an opportunity, it would no longer be something you were fearful of. We'll talk more about that in this episode. To me, these all sound like the fear of life because how many of them are a natural

• 7:27Jay Shetty?

  part of life that we know are not only unavoidable, but play a critical role in our growth and development? We can't stop them. Take change and rejection, for example. These things will happen. They are guaranteed. The question is, what can we do? What do we do to live meaningful, vibrant, engaged lives in the face of the fact that many of our broad fears will come true? It's crazy to fear something when you know it's going to happen because that way we feel more paralyzed and stuck. Today, I've got five ways to stop worrying about the future, along with concrete things

• 8:08Jay Shetty?

  you can do to build more confidence about your ability to thrive in years to come. First of all, number one, it's normal for us to worry about the future. It's something we've always done. According to Juma, a professor in Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, people were even reluctant to try coffee, if you can believe it. They were used to teas and other beverages, which I choose myself, but now there's a coffee shop on every block. In a Washington Post article, Juma discusses why we tend to fear new things, and it's not necessarily why you'd think. Juma says we often resist new technologies, for example, not because we think they're so bad, because how we fear they'll change our lives and what we think they'll require us to give up.

• 8:53Jay Shetty?

  We fear they will make us lose some aspect of our identity, of our lifestyle. In my home country of England, we once resisted the newfangled technology of the umbrella. Now, how could anyone resist an umbrella in England of all places? It's always raining. Yet, as Walter Thornby writes in his book, Old and New London, "When the umbrella was first introduced in England, folks wanted nothing to do with it, because umbrellas were already the rage in France. English people felt it would be somehow un-English to use them. It interfered with our national identity." As Juma says, "There's another big reason we resist change. We're afraid that innovations, for example,

• 9:36Jay Shetty?

  will separate us from nature and from our deep purpose, which he says are both fundamental components of the human experience." I certainly can't argue with that. I'm a big believer that nature and our deep purpose, on on purpose, are important. Now, when we don't dig to the bottom of our fears, for example, fear of change, we end up resisting something that in many cases is good for us and in most is going to happen anyway. If we learn to identify what it is we actually want to protect, such as a sense of our identity, our relationship with nature, or our purpose, we can focus on what steps to take to actually protect these things instead of being afraid of everything. Notice that difference.

• 10:19Jay Shetty?

  If you're aware of what you're scared you're going to lose, you can protect that without losing everything. I'll give you an example. When I transitioned from monk life into work life, the biggest thing I was scared of losing was time with my monk teachers. I loved spending time with them. I loved building my relationship with them. I loved growing with them. And I remember saying that to my teacher. I said, "I'm so scared about losing this." And they said, "I am too." And I realized, because I was scared of that, it was a responsibility. It was a priority I had to set in place. And now, until the pandemic hit, I've spent three months a year with my teachers.

• 11:02Jay Shetty?

  And so, because I was aware of what I was scared of, it changed everything. So it's not about being prepared for what you're scared of. We need to be prepared for what we're scared of. But in order to be prepared, We first need to be aware. Now, here's the exercise and tactic. Get a better handle on your identity. Often, it's formed by accident or unconsciously. Was not using umbrellas really important to English identity? Did anyone sit and really think, do I want to use an umbrella? It was a knee-jerk reaction based on an unconscious piece of the national identity, which was to not be like France. It was reactionary. It was ego-based. It's far more beneficial to actually think about our identities

• 11:44Jay Shetty?

  and construct it by the choice of what we want to be a part of it. Make a list, twenty aspects of my identity. I'm a dog lover, a runner, a book lover, a kind person, a funny person. Make a list of everything you think of. Now, go back and circle the ones that are most important to you. There will likely be default pieces of your identity that don't truly matter to you, but that by not bringing them into your awareness, you'd make life choices to defend them. That includes resisting change that could be beneficial. This is strategy number two. Instead of focus on all of the details, like our specific goals, we want to focus on our target, which is the kind of life we want to have. How do we want to feel? What values do we want to honor?

• 12:27Jay Shetty?

  In the Mahabharata, a literary epic of ancient India, Dronacharya is a guru charged with teaching the art of warfare. Many of the students are jealous of Arjuna because they think the teacher favors him. When the guru learns of these accusations, he devises a test. Gathering the students, he places a wooden bird on a branch and asks them to tell him what they see. Yudhishthir, the oldest, responds first. "I see a wooden bird, the branch and the tree, the leaves, moving and the bird." Then, Drona asks each of the others, "What do you see?" Everyone else responds the same way. They see a tree, a branch, a bird, and so on. The teacher shakes his head and tells the students to lay down their bows and arrows.

• 13:12Jay Shetty?

  Then, he turns to Arjun and asks, "What do you see?" Arjun states, "I can only see the eye of the bird." Dronacharya smiles because though he really has been playing favorites, it's with good reason. While everyone else was distracted by the scene, Arjuna focused on his target, the eye of the bird.

• 13:33Jay Shetty?

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• 14:16Jay Shetty?

  That's indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. If you're talking about quality food, you can't forget Whole Foods Market, who've been holding themselves to the highest standards since they opened in 1980. That means you'll see thousands of organic products across their stores, from the produce department to the aisles. It also means you'll never see certain ingredients. They've banned artificial sweeteners and colors, high fructose corn syrup and more, so you can shop with peace of mind. Shop Whole Foods Market in-store or online. This episode is brought to you by Wayfair.

• 15:01Jay Shetty?

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• 15:47Jay Shetty?

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• 16:03Jay Shetty?

  When we learn to identify and focus on what's most important to us, all else falls away. And that includes most of our everyday anxieties, most of which will never come true anyway. And if they do come true, we can be prepared by being aware. Here's an exercise. Identify what you want out of life. Not the physical trappings, but the kind of life you want to have. Write down five feelings you want to have about your life and five values you want to honor, no matter what. Some of these might overlap with pieces of your identity that are important to you. These are going to be what you cling to and defend. This is what you'll set your laser-like focus on. Now identify five long-term goals.

• 16:45Jay Shetty?

  These can be things like a certain career, making a certain amount of money, and so on. These are things you can orient to, but will hold loosely. Here's strategy number three. As Robert Lee, he writes in his book, "The Worry Cure", the big payoff of worry is that it gives us the illusion of control. We think if we can imagine everything under the sun that could possibly go wrong, we can prevent it. But really, it turns out we're pretty bad at predicting what will actually happen. Psychologists from the University of Pennsylvania had patients with generalized anxiety disorder, which is characterized by widespread anxiety, for 10 days keep a journal where they recorded all of their everyday worries.

• 17:27Jay Shetty?

  Then they watched for the next 30 days to see which of their fears came true. On average, 91.4% of worries did not come true. And for most participants, none of the things they were worried about came to pass. I tried to find out what they wrote down, but couldn't access the actual study. As Lee explains, studies show that when we worry, our anxiety actually drops because we think we're doing something to control our future. However, when we manage to stop worrying, our anxiety actually skyrockets. What we don't realize is that worry fuels anxiety. Additionally, studies show that warriors, instead of being able to identify threats faster, actually take longer to identify them. And that's because they're already in a perpetual state of arousal and tension.

• 18:12Jay Shetty?

  So they can't respond quickly. Fear of the future doesn't protect you. It distracts you from creating a powerful present, which actually prepares you for that uncertain future. This reminds me of a great quote from Bruce Lee, who in addition to being an incredible legendary martial artist, was also a philosopher. Lee said, "All fixed, set patterns are incapable of adaptability or pliability. The truth is outside all fixed patterns." Here's the lesson. When we try to over-control and over-plan our futures to avoid discomfort, we create these fixed patterns. Think about deciding in your teens you want to be a lawyer, then going to undergraduate college and on to law school, but the whole time you hate it.

• 18:55Jay Shetty?

  Yet it's what you've decided, so you feel you have to stick to it, and eventually it will make you happy, but it never does. How many of us have experienced something like that? Because change and disruption inevitably happen. When the winds of life blow, these undeniable plans often end up breaking, and us along with them. Either the plan doesn't quite come together, or we execute it perfectly, but we're miserable. When Bruce Lee trained people in martial arts, students were taught precise techniques, but they're also taught to keep and use only those which feel authentic to them in their body, and they're also encouraged to add their own expression to the technique. It's the embodiment of Lee's often quoted advice. "Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless,

• 19:40Jay Shetty?

  and add what is specifically your own." Hear that again. Bruce Lee said, "Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless, and add what is specifically your own." That is step number three. Now, this is step number four. What you want to do is create a flexible framework to deal with future fears. Thinking about Bruce Lee made me think of another flexible framework that actually has links to martial arts. It's rap and hip-hop. As you know, if you follow me, I'm into spoken word and music, which I've been doing since I was around, I don't know, 14 years old. I'm really inspired by a lot of rap and hip-hop artists who put together lyrics and phrases so thoughtfully and intelligently. And one of the things I'm most impressed is Old school rap battles.

• 20:24Jay Shetty?

  When rappers and lyricists battle, they might have some rhymes in their backpocket, but mostly what they've trained in is this technique. They can't prepare in advance everything they're going to say. They train and study and practise so they know how to get into flow, so they know how to create on the fly. They practise their craft diligently and then are free to create with a flexible framework. I once heard that Jay-Z is someone who literally freestyles in the studio, in the booth. None of his raps have ever been written down. A friend of mine, who's a martial artist, told me that sparring is like that. You can't know what your opponent will do. You can only train so that you have an assortment of techniques at the ready. And if you push your own plan or your own agenda too hard, you can't respond effectively.

• 21:08Jay Shetty?

  Bruce Lee emphasised the importance of staying relaxed so we can respond quickly. And if you've seen him, you know how unbelievably fast he was. The key is relaxation. It's staying soft. Just like in the research I mentioned on anxiety, if your muscles are tight and constricted, you can't react as quickly. Have a plan, but hold it loosely. We learned in 2020 that flexibility is a meta-skill. It helps us be better at everything we do and to cope more effectively with life. We stay flexible by training the techniques for a successful life. We cultivate effective and productive habits. We foster meaningful relationships by being trustworthy and sincere and loving. We learn the skills, we need to do the job we want to do.

• 21:53Jay Shetty?

  We go to the spiritual gym, and then we release the outcome. It's hard, isn't it? When you hear that, you go, well, how do I do that? How do I do all of this and then release the outcome? Well, actually, in the process of doing everything, you can release the outcome because you know you've done everything you possibly can. I recently sat down with Will Smith on the podcast. If you haven't heard the episode, I highly recommend you go back and listen to it from a couple of weeks ago. And he talked about the importance of releasing the outcome, how what happens is not a direct reflection of what we did. How releasing the outcome gives us the greatest control because it doesn't let the outside world control how we feel. I want to introduce you to a person named Ed Catmull.

• 22:37Jay Shetty?

  He's the co-founder of Pixar and was both the head of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios. Catmull says that learning to sit in the discomfort of not knowing what's going to happen next has been essential to Pixar's creative process and their ability to break box office records by repeatedly coming up with new and inventive films that push the genre. As Catmull says, everything centers on one key ideal that governs the entire process. Story is king. Beyond that, with every single film, the production teams go off the map. They have to in order to push the boundaries and make something new that's surprising and that connects with audiences. Catmull says he's watched over and over

• 23:17Jay Shetty?

  as film directors become almost disorientingly lost in their movies at some points. But as he says, if you don't get lost, if you stick to a script, you won't create anything worth watching. To deal with this inevitable confusion, each director has a guiding metaphor they use. One uses the analogy of a dark tunnel. He knows on a film there is a light at the beginning and end, but when he's confused and doesn't know exactly what's coming next, he doesn't panic because he knows he's in the dark middle, and that's normal. He may not know how long the tunnel will be, but he trusts if he keeps going, he will get to the light again. That's a rational image and visualization he uses to keep his emotions and anxiety in check

• 24:01Jay Shetty?

  so he and his team can execute their skills and create something phenomenal. Here's an exercise I have for you. Devise a metaphor that works for you when you're in the middle of a tough time. Being able to call on this metaphor will help engage your brain and diffuse your emotions. Another example is cooking. When my wife's creating a new recipe, she doesn't know if each attempt will be a success, but she knows it's a step closer to creating something truly new that eventually... will be a success. It's kind of like creating a potion or creating an experiment and seeing how it's gonna work out. It's a messy middle kind of concept. We can use the metaphor of cooking a new dish. When we hit that confusion and the path isn't clear, we can think,

• 24:45Jay Shetty?

  well, it's inevitable. I'm cooking a new dish. Do I need more salt? Do I need less sugar? What do I need? Right? That dark tunnel is part of the process. When you see it as an obstacle, when you see it as a challenge, that's what scares you. When you see it as part of the process, that's what helps you. When we see pain as against the process, that makes us scared. When we see pain as part of the process, that makes us aware and prepared. In his book Creativity, Inc., Catmull shared a letter he once received from animator Austin Madison. Madison wrote, "I, like many of you artists out there, constantly shift between two states.

• 25:28Jay Shetty?

  The first is white-hot, in-the-zone, firing on all cylinders, creative mode. This happens about 3% of the time. The other 90% of the time, I am in the frustrated, struggling, office corner, full of crumpled-up paper mode." Madison says what helps him in these times is, like the dark tunnel metaphor, to just keep going. Don't give up. But one powerful thing that helps him to do that is to look at past stories and examples with Pixar and beyond of how people have managed through just those situations. I constantly talk about reading biographies and autobiographies. The reason I do that is it convinces me that I'm in the messy middle. I'm in that part of the story, just as the greats are, just as the people I look up to, just as the people I'm inspired by. So, here's the exercise for you.

• 26:13Jay Shetty?

  Become a story collector. Find one to three stories that resonate with you about how now-successful people navigated a difficult time. My favorites are people like Einstein, Martin Luther King, Steve Jobs. Now, I want to share with you the fifth and final strategy. It starts with a story. There was a young woman who was raised by a father who had very regimented and static beliefs about how to be successful in life. To his delight, once she graduated high school, she went on to Harvard and met with success there as well. She earned a BA in neurobiology and went on to earn a master's degree in neuroscience and got a job as a management consultant. But she was miserable.

• 26:56Jay Shetty?

  She was depressed, feeling no satisfaction with her accomplishments, and she had no idea why or what to do about it. So at 27 years old, she decided to become a public school math teacher. She taught for many years, and she also volunteered to be a companion for seniors. It was in that time that she realized she really enjoyed working with students. And in that work, she became intrigued when she saw that IQ was not the best predictor of a student's success or failure. It sparked in her curiosity about student motivation, and she became driven to learn more about what truly drove the learning process towards success. In her early 30s, she went back to school to earn her doctorate in psychology and finally started to hone the research focus for which she became so well-known when the book she wrote about it

• 27:41Jay Shetty?

  appeared on the New York Times Bestseller List for 21 weeks. She was later awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant. The researcher was Angela Duckworth, and her theory and work on grit is the basis of some of the most popular success advice you hear today. Ironically, though, as Duckworth is quick to say, grit, which she defines as passion and perseverance applied over time, has been widely misunderstood. It's been taken by many to mean that all we need to do is find our passion and fixate on it relentlessly. That's not what grit is about, says Duckworth. It's not about creating the shortest, straightest line to your goals possible and then following no matter what. And in fact, she says that actually, that's terrible advice for younger people.

• 28:24Jay Shetty?

  Instead, she encourages people to do something called sampling, as she did, trying things out and leaving room for discovery and learning. Otherwise, you could spend all of that effort and energy staying on a predetermined path, as she was, and become miserable. Where to apply grit is focusing on the idea that as long as you're learning, you're moving forward, to be gritty about learning. So many of us describe and hear something like Duckworth's story from others. "I did what I was told," or "what I thought was I was supposed to do, and I'm still not happy." That's because, at its best, life is a creative effort. Duckworth says the mistake we make is thinking we are supposed to succeed immediately, or by a certain age.

• 29:09Jay Shetty?

  But grit, she says, is about viewing life as a marathon and not a sprint. As I see it, grit is like keeping an Arjuna-like focus on your goals, but also being able to distinguish between what's a distraction and what may be an unexpected opportunity. It's staying determinedly on the path, but recognizing that the path curves and twists, and sometimes goes through dark tunnels. When I started making videos, I had no idea that I would one day make a podcast. I would write my own book called Think Like a Monk. I would do so many corporate events. I would work with so many incredible people. I would be able to raise money for charity and donate to philanthropic causes that I care about. I never knew about any of this.

• 29:50Jay Shetty?

  I've allowed myself to evolve and take new turns on that road. As Ed Catmull said, "If you're rigid in your goals, you may hit them, but you won't surpass them." That's what we often try to do with the future. We try to plan meticulously so we know every step to take, but we lose the room to be spontaneous and grow. When Angela Duckworth became a public school teacher, her father was livid. He was disappointed. He thought she was throwing it all away. Ironically, this woman, who he thought was giving up, was actually demonstrating the kind of grit she would go on to study. She was in the dark tunnel, but she kept moving forward. Here's your fifth and final exercise.

• 30:34Jay Shetty?

  Keep moving forward. If you're in that confusing time and you're worried about the future, I want you to sit down and isolate just one to two small next steps you can take to help me move forward. Again, it doesn't have to be totally clear. It doesn't have to be exactly linear. Sometimes when you're driving, it's foggy, and you can't see what's next. You turn on the lights, you drive a bit slower, but you're hyper-aware, but you don't stop moving because you know that you just need to increase your awareness. What's a skill you may be missing, or that you're just interested in developing? What's a book you're interested in reading that you haven't made time for? When you're in that dark tunnel, look for wisdom. I really hope that this podcast has helped you today. And if it has, I think you'll really enjoy my book, Think Like a Monk,

• 31:19Jay Shetty?

  available on both the audiobook and the physical book, the hardback cover, because fear is what I talk about in chapter three. Dive into Think Like a Monk and you'll get a pathway from fear to moving forward. Thank you so much for listening. If you get a moment, I would love you to leave a review on whichever app you're listening on. I can't wait to hear it. Thank you.

• 31:51Speaker 01

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