Click here to grab your kit

What Is Fear (HOW TO) || 5 Steps To Overcome Fear So It Stops Holding You Back From Your Purpose

written by
Stephanie Rodnez, Author, Filmmaker & Purposeologist

In this blog, we're going to talk about what is fear and five steps you can use to stop letting fear get in the way of your God-given purpose. My name is Stephanie Rodnez, founder and CEO of Godlywood Girl, and my purpose in life is to help you achieve yours, and that's why I'm so excited to dive into this topic because fear has stopped me from doing a lot of things in my life, and I want to make sure that it does not stop you.

There are three steps to keeping fear from your purpose:

1. Recognize what fear actually is
2. Identify if fear is keeping you from your purpose
3. Locate the root of the fear
4. Treat the root of the fear
5. Embrace that fear will always be there.

Step 1: Recognize what fear actually is

Step number one is to recognize what fear actually is. I love this definition from Dictionary.com. It says, "Fear is a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, whether the threat is real or imagined." Another website said, "Fear is an emotional response induced by 'perceived threats' which causes a change in brain and organ function, as well as in behavior." Now, the reason why I love this definition is that a lot of times, as Christians, people tell us that fear is a lack of faith. They're like, "If you're so afraid, then you ain't believing in God and you got issues."

I remember a couple of years ago, there was a hurricane - HURRICANE - propelling towards South Florida. And I was very afraid, I was very fearful of the hurricane, and I remember I posted on social media about it. I was like, "Oh my gosh, this thing is a category 5, it's so scary." And somebody actually dragged me! They were like, "Stephanie, you talk about living your purpose all the time, you need to have more faith in that, you being afraid shows that you don't really believe in God," and all this stuff. That's not true, sis! Fear is an emotional response caused by a perceived threat. It is a perceived threat. Whether it's real or imagined, it is a threat.

Because there's literally good fear and there's literally bad fear. Good fear is, "Hey, if I jump off of that building that's 100 feet in the sky, I'm going to die." That's good fear, right? Because that keeps me from jumping off the building and making a stupid decision. Bad fear is when it's something that keeps us from pursuing our God-given purpose. It's a fear that keeps us from taking action when the dream has got a place in our heart. That is a bad fear, that is when it's actually a bad thing.

Fear is not a lack of faith. And the reason why I wanted to make sure we went over this in step one, is because if you believe that fear is a lack of faith, then you're not going to let yourself acknowledge that you're really feeling fear. Because you're going to want to be like, "Oh no, I believe in all this stuff." But fear is not the opposite of belief, my darling. Fear is literally just an emotional response to a perceived threat or danger, something that can cause you harm, ok? All of us feel fear. Every single one of us feel fear at something, or someone, or some scenario. But what matters is if we allow that fear to keep us from living our God-given purpose. And that's when we get to step number two.

Step #2: Identify if fear is holding you back from living your God-given purpose..

Step number two is to identify if fear is holding you back from living your God-given purpose. Now, again, there are some fears that are good fears, ok? They're good fears because they keep us from putting ourselves in really bad situations. A fear of going into a really bad neighborhood in the middle of the night where there are drug dealers and people trying to rob you, that is a good fear. Because it keeps you from being in a dangerous situation. But a bad fear is a fear that keeps you from living your God-given purpose, a fear that is not based on actual facts, but it's something just imagined inside of our head, it's a perceived threat, ok?

Step two is to identify whether you are having a good fear, which is keeping you from actual danger, or bad fear, which is keeping you from living your God-given purpose. Here's what I mean. Is there something that God has asked you to do but you're not taking action on it because of some perceived threat to your well-being? Napoleon Hill talks about six basic fears, but there are really three, that in my experience working with women living their purpose, that really keep us from taking action in our God-given purpose journey.

Fear #1: The Fear Of Poverty

Now, those three main fears, the first one is the fear of poverty. You are afraid that if you take action on your God-given purpose, if you dive in, if you go all in, then you're going to end up broke, you're going to end up spending all your money, you're going to end up not being able to make money, you're going to end up in the poor house, ok? If that fear is holding you back from taking action on your God-given purpose, then yes, fear is standing in your way.

Fear #2: The Fear Of Criticism

The second fear that I feel like really impacts women of purpose is the fear of criticism. Are you terrified that if you take action on your God-given purpose, then people are going to criticize you and speak badly about you? If the answer was yes, then yes, fear is standing in your way of living your purpose. For me, this was one of the biggest fears that held me back, because at a very young age somebody told me that I was nothing. And so, I kept that in my head and I refused to prove that person right. So I was terrified of people criticizing me about bad business decisions, about mistakes that I made. So for a long time, that fear kept me from taking action on my business.

Fear #3: The Fear Of Loss Of Love

The third fear that Napoleon Hill talks about is the fear of loss of love. Are you afraid that if you take action on your God-given purpose, if you move forward in the calling and the destiny God created you to live, that there are certain family members, or friends, or loved ones who aren't going to support you or aren't going to love you anymore because you're doing what you want to do instead of what they told you to do? If the answer is yes, then fear is holding you back.

So if you answered yes to any of those questions, or if you know there's some other fear that is keeping you from stepping into your God-given purpose, then the answer is yes to this question, "Is fear holding you back?" And it's time to move on to step three.

Step #3 - Locate the cause of the fear.

Step three is to locate. Locate the cause of the fear. Every single fear that we have comes from a root source. Where did it actually come from? Think about it. We know that jumping off a 100-foot building is going to kill us, right? But we don't know it from experience. We know because either somebody told us that it was going to happen, or we saw it actually happen to somebody in a news article or something like that. So our actual fear is based off of somebody else's experience. It's the same thing with any fear. A fear of loss of love, a fear of criticism, fear of poverty, it's because somebody told us that might happen if we step into our God-given purpose.

Now, think about the fear holding you back from stepping into your God-given purpose. Who told you that if you pursue this, you may lose all your money? Who told you that if you pursue this, people are going to criticize you and make fun of you? Who told you that if you pursue this, you may not be loved anymore, you may not be cherished anymore, you may not be supported anymore? Who told you those things? Who made you feel those things? Sometimes it's a family member, sometimes it's a friend, sometimes it's a news article that we read or a book that we read, sometimes it's a bad experience, a past failure, or a past hurt that we went through that creates that fear inside of us.

Whatever it is, it's really important to identify where the fear first began. For me, my fear of criticism began when that person told me that I was nothing when I was 15 years old. From then on, I was terrified of proving that person right. And the fear of criticism kept me from doing anything too bold or too loud, because oh my gosh, if this person finds out that I did it, and I didn't succeed, then they're going to criticize me, and they're going to tell everybody, and they're going to know that it's right. That is literally where that root of fear was.

I want you to really sit down and think to yourself, what is the source of this fear? Where did it come from? And I want you to do this by doing something I like to call "The why exercise." Grab a sheet of paper, and at the very top write down, "I fear that I will fail on my purpose because..." and then write down the first thing that comes into your head. For me, when I did this exercise, I wrote down, "I fear that I'm going to fail on my purpose because everybody told me I would fail when I was 18 years old."

Then write down your why statement. Why you believe that fear. So for me, I wrote down, "I believed when people told me I was fail when I was 18 years old because that person told me that I was nothing when I was 15 years old." So because I had that experience of that person telling me I was nothing, when people told me I wasn't good enough to succeed as a filmmaker, I believed them. So that was my why.

Then we're going to do it again. We're going to write another "why" statement for why we believe that fear, right? So we're going to keep doing these why statements until we get to a tangible fact. Something that is not based off somebody else's opinion, but it's actual fact. So when I ask myself why did I believe when people told me I was going to fail when I was 18? Well, because that person told me that I was nothing when I was 15. Why did I believe that person when they told me I was nothing when I was 15? Well, when I really think about it, it's because I hadn't developed a track record yet. I hadn't really succeeded at anything at that point in my life. So of course I believed that person, because I didn't have any proof to the contrary.

So that is my tangible fact as to why I believed that person when she said I was nothing. It's because I hadn't actually done anything that I found was valuable in a career setting yet. That's tangible. When I was 15, I didn't have a track record as a filmmaker, I couldn't, I was 15 years old. So I want you to sit down and keep doing those why statements until you come to the tangible fact that is the root of all that fear.

Step #4 - Treat the root of the fear.

And then we get to step four, which is to treat the root of the fear. Now, usually, the treatment is going to be the reversal of whatever that root cause was, ok? It's going to be the reversal of the root of that fear. So for example, since my tangible fact was that I didn't have a track record showing that I actually could be a filmmaker and actually succeed at it, I started keeping a journal of all my wins during my career over the past 12 years.

So for example, whenever - praise God - somebody purchases a product from me and sends me a testimonial of how it changed their life, I write that as a win. This proves that there is some value that I'm adding to the world. I'm not nothing, there is value that's coming from me. Whenever somebody messages me and says, "Oh my gosh, can we get on a coaching call?" And we get on that coaching call and she actually walks away with an action plan to step into her God-given purpose, I write that down as a win. Because hey, there is value! That's value coming, praise God, and that means I'm not nothing, there is value coming from me.

So whatever it is that is the root cause of your fear, reverse it. Reverse whatever it is and build up proof that that root cause is not true. Because fear sometimes is like Joel Osteen says, is false evidence appearing real. We are literally basing our fear off of somebody else's opinion and what happened to them, and their story, and their journey. But really, we have to look at what’s fact.

What is really keeping me from stepping into my God-given purpose? Oh, it's the fear that I'm nothing? Well, let's start proving that I'm something. And by the time I'm done, now I believe, praise God, I'm something. So when that fear tries to come my way, "Stephanie, you're nothing, you're meaningless, you don't have value." No, bro! I'll break out my win journal, I take a look, I read it, and I know that it's not true.

So create an action plan to reverse that fear. And if you want some tips to do this, make sure you check out my "How to think positive" series that I did. There is a lot of ways that you can reverse those fears, so you can step into your God-given purpose.

Step #5 - Embrace that some sort of fear will always be part of our purpose journey.

And finally, step number five is to embrace. Embrace that some sort of fear will always be part of our purpose journey. There was nobody in this world who never feels fear, ok? Fear is a necessary emotion that protects us! It is an emotional trigger to a perceived threat. So not all fear is bad. The only fear that's bad is when it's actually keeping us from stepping into our God-given purpose.

So when you identify fear that is actually keeping you from stepping into your purpose, do the why exercise, identify the root cause, get yourself a treatment plan, and reverse it, and keep it moving, sis. Do it afraid, like Joyce Meyers always likes to say. I love that saying. Do it afraid, because there is never a time when we will completely eliminate fear from our lives. But what we can do is eliminate fear from stopping us from stepping into our God-given purpose, and that is what we want to do.

So this is the first blog of a four-part series that I'm doing on how to slay fear and step into your God-given purpose. So if you're not already subscribed to my email list, make sure you join me at https://purposelegend.com/ so you'll always get the new alerts.

And I have two amazing things for you. Number one, if you're not yet clear on your God-given purpose, you're like, "Stephanie, I don't want to let fear get in my way anymore but I'm not sure what God purposed me to do," grab my free 5-day Activate your Purpose Challenge at https://purposelegend.com so I can show you how to start living your purpose step by step.

And number two, at the end of this month, I'm releasing a brand-new purpose kit called the "Slay Fear: Unleash your Faith" kit. And it's going to be amazing and give you tangible resources to take action and give you that treatment plan, so you can reverse that fear and step into your God-given purpose. And so, to get on the waiting list for that, go to purposelegend.com/slayfear. Thank you so much for reading today's blog, and God willing, I will see you on the next one.

Thank you so much for reading this post. Share it with anyone you want to see gain clarity on God’s true purpose for their life.

And be sure to join me for my free video training where I walk you through this step by step. Sign up by going to http://purposelegend.com.

May the Lord bless you and keep you, make the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.  God bless you always, sister of Christ. And remember, live your legend.

Want to learn how to find God's purpose for your life? 

Want our free 3-part video training and eBook that teaches you how to find God's purpose for your life - AND how to achieve it once you find it? Enter your best email address in the box below so I can email you Godlywood Girl's incredible free "What's Your Purpose?" 3-part video training now.