How to Overcome Fear and Self Doubt

As far back as I can remember, every major decision I have made in my life has had one commonality that sticks out above the rest. Moments before making the decision or even days or weeks beforehand, I start to feel the symptoms; knots in my stomach, lump in my throat, adrenaline rushing, heart pumping. These are the physical symptoms of feeling major fear and self doubt.

     These are also my body’s way of telling me, “Dude, this is something you NEED to do!” You see, I have a unique perspective on fear and self doubt. In my opinion, Fear and Self Doubt are natures filter for separating the successful from the average or unfortunate; and how you react determines which side of the line you fall on. So I created this post to share my personal story of fear, doubt, success and failure and how you too can overcome fear and self doubt.

Pinnacle moments in my life

     In my life, I can strongly remember some pinnacle moments where I either had to or chose to make a decision that would affect the rest of my life. I decided to put them in the order that lead me to where I am today. These  were scary “what if” decisions.

Career vs. College

     Many people would disagree with my opinion of college but here is the jest of it. “College is necessary for many career paths, but for others, it can be a complete waste of time. Education is absolutely necessary for almost all career choices but you don’t have to receive that education from college. College is a financial pitfall for many career paths and a way of filtering you into the herd of sheep or worker drones with some exceptions (fitness not being one of them).” My girlfriend is in her fifth year of college getting her Master’s degree in Childhood Education. This is very important for her to become the best teacher she can be and compete for a job in a very competitive career path. This is one of the few exceptions and she is completely debt free having paid all her tuition as she went (she worked her butt off to do it!) This is a good example of where college is a necessity. Meanwhile, I know other local and non-local personal trainers who are working for big chain gyms while spending their money on college tuition and personal training certifications. They are literally learning some of the same material over and over and over again; most of which does nothing to make them a better fitness professional. At the end of the day, they will be very good at reciting all the muscles in the body and all of the origin and insertion points of the muscles, but they will have little or no understanding of how to apply their knowledge to a typical person. Like a mother of three kids, for instance, with tight hip flexors and a full time desk job, or a full time parent with a busy husband who is the sole income earner in the household, or a retired 57 year old man with osteoarthritis. You get the idea (but they don’t).

       So instead of going to a 4 year college after high school (and against what my parents and closest friends thought I should do), I went to a 1 year vocational school called The National Personal Training Institute in San Diego. Since then, I have invested thousands of dollars a year on Fitness and Nutritional Coaching, books, DVD’s and CD’s, business coaching of all kinds and have had the opportunity to fine tune and test everything I know on literally hundreds of clients. If I went to a 4 year college I would be graduating this year and just starting the learning and application process of all that I know and wouldn’t know nearly as much as I do now.

San Diego vs. New York

     After graduating top 2 in my class at NPTI, I became a trainer for the worst gym in the world. I’m not going to name names but it rhymes with “shell hey phitness”. After only 6 weeks working there, I was nominated trainer of the year for the entire company and felt like a big shot, but I was just your typical snot nosed trainer who didn’t know the difference between making someone fitter and just kicking their butt with hard cool looking exercises. I was living paycheck to paycheck, spending most of my free time going on dates, surfing, and working out or fighting (not so proud of that one). Anything to get out of the house since things weren’t great at home.

      I was in a personal lifestyle rut and was going down a path of zero personal growth. To make matters worse, I was 3,000 miles away from most of my family, including my father and wanted to be closer. So I made a choice. Leave everything and start over in New York. And that’s precisely what I did.

Comfort and Security vs. Passion and Personal Growth

      Within a month, I got a job as a trainer working in a Dr. Facility, Prohealth.  I made a nice steady paycheck at my job charging $90/hour for one-on-one sessions and $65 for half hours and I even got $12/hour just for standing around on the gym floor. It was enough for me to invest in attending Fitness and Business events where I learned to be better at what I do; as well as establish relationships with some of the best in the world and learn better ways to improve people’s lives. Unfortunately many of the techniques and beliefs and systems I learned were not accepted at my work place. I had to do things their way, even if my way was better. So I made yet another choice. I left the corporate gym world charging $90/hour for one-on-one and switched to charging $8-$10/hour with my fitness boot camp while adding tons of value for free (grocery tours, meal plans etc.). I was on my own and self dependant for my income and had no fall back if I failed.

Learning to “Fail Forward”

     Not every decision I made was the right one or a good one at that. I had a “ready, fire, THEN aim” approach to things. I trusted shady people who were money hungry, scam artists marketing coaches and wasted thousands of dollars because of it. Things that almost cost me my business; but I learned from those mistakes. I learned that if I fail I will fail forward and never make the same mistake twice (and never let it affect the awesome service I provide for my loyal followers and clients).

Some important take away points

• The worst thing you can do is nothing.
• There is no such thing as maintenance. You are either getting better or worse every single day. Getting closer or further from your dreams and goals.
• If you Fail, so what. Get over it, learn from it and make adjustments when necessary.
• Filter out the Bulls**t – I had lots of haters and little or no support for many of the biggest decisions in my life. Go with your gut. Do what you feel is best for you.
• Do things for you. Never make a decision based on Negative emotions from others, Fear, Guilt or Shame
• Invest in yourself – every day do something for you and only you. For many of my boot camp clients, boot camp is their time to vent, relieve stress, get away from the kids etc. (As my client Marie once told me, “Sometimes you just have one of those days where you need to go to boot camp and swing a kettlebell and slam a ball as hard as you can!”)
• Get out of your comfort zone – Growth comes out of stress. Not Di-stress but EU-stress (same usage as eu-phoria). Positive stress builds character and it takes character to willingly subject yourself to it.
• Do the opposite of the crowd – If you want what everyone else has then do what they do. If you want something better for yourself do what they are unwilling to do.

     I sincerely hope I didn’t bore you with my life and I hope you learned something from this post. If you like what I had to say or learned something valuable let me know by commenting below.

Stay Motivated and Keep Moving,

Mike Salvietti