Could you accomplish your goals if fear no longer had the power to hold you back? In this episode, bestselling author, blogger, and podcast host Ruth Soukup joins YSPM host Kristin Maxwell to share what it takes to finally move past fear and accomplish more than you think possible. If you ever get stuck in procrastination, self-doubt, or perfectionism, listen in to discover how your own Fear Archetype may be holding you back — and what you can do to get past those fears!

Hello everyone. Welcome to your SuperPowered Mind. I’m your host Kristin Maxwell. And in this show we explore the process of transformation and give you the tools and strategies you can use to transform your own life.

Today, we’re going to be talking to Ruth Soukup about how to move past fear to finally accomplish your goals. Ruth Soukup is an author, podcast host of the podcast Do It Scared, a product creator, a bestselling author of six books. Her blog, Living Well, Spending Less reaches over 1 million women and where she helps them to overcome fear to create the life that they love. Her newest book, Do It Scared, Finding the Courage to Face your Fears, Overcome Obstacles and Create a Life You Love, just came out in May. And I am so excited to dig into some of these theories around getting past our fears. So Ruth, welcome to your SuperPowered Mind.

Hey, thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.

Thank you. So my question always is at first, what super power did you uncover as a result of mastering your mind?

Realizing that I always have a choice and that I am in control of the choices that I make.

Oh, such a good question. And I think that if I was to say one thing, it would probably be realizing that I always have a choice and that I am in control of the choices that I make.

Well, so that is a huge one. So can you say more about that? Because for some people, I think they really don’t realize that they have a choice.

Right, my kids.

Yeah.

It’s a lesson that I’m definitely trying to drive home with my kids. I have a 10-year-old and a 12-year-old and this comes up a lot. And I think that what I mean by that is, and this is something that I definitely talk about in the book, but we all have our stuff. We all have those things that hold us back and keep us stuck in our life. And a lot of times we can find excuses and reasons of why we can’t do something or why we can’t move forward or we can complain that life’s not fair. We can focus on all the bad things that have happened in our lives or the people that have treated us badly, or the health issues that we’ve had or the fact that I’m six foot two and I can never find pants to fit me, whatever it is. I could find a million things to complain about right now.

Some would be legitimate, some would not be legitimate, but the reality is, at the end of the day, none of those things are serving me and staying stuck in those things are not serving me. And so I have to choose every single day that even if I can’t choose what happens to me or how people treat me, that I can always choose how I respond and how I choose to move forward.

And the thing about that is that it’s so incredibly freeing. It is the most powerful thing that you can do for yourself and for your life because then you’re no longer dependent on other people. You’re no longer waiting for somebody else to rescue you. You’re no longer waiting for your circumstances to be perfect because you get to have the say, you get to have control and that’s pretty amazing.

It is truly amazing. And I love how clearly you explained that because I remember when I first learned that it was not what happened to me, that dictated how I felt, but that I could choose it. It was truly liberating. I went around, I think, for a year and a half, and I often tell my clients this phrase saying, “This is not what I would’ve picked, but it’s happening. And so now who do I want to be?”

Exactly.

Yes. And it’s like, well, do I want to complain? Because that’s going to make myself miserable and everybody else, too.

It’s so true. I have these two little girls and we have this conversation almost every day. And when it most often happens is in the morning, because I have my 12-year-old, as the consummate oldest child. She’s very organized and neat and she’s likes … she cares about her appearance and she’s always ready on time and she loves to get to school early so she can play with her friends before school.

And then my younger daughter is just a walking disaster. Every day it’s like she can’t find her shoes and she just won’t comb them her hair, won’t brush her teeth and won’t clean up and won’t do any of the things that she’s supposed to do and no amount of yelling or pleading or any of that is going to make her move any faster. And so my oldest daughter gets so frustrated because they of course have to get driven to school at the same time because she has to wait for her sister and she … just everyday it’s the same thing, “It’s not fair. Why does Annie have to take so long?”

What you can control is how you react to it.

And every day I have to have the same conversation. “You’re not going to change your sister. You can hope to help her. You can hope that she grows out of it. But what you can control is how you react to it. You can either let this ruin your entire day every single day because you’re right, it’s not fair. Your sister is super annoying right now.” And that’s all I can really tell her is, “I wish it was different too. But if you choose to let this ruin your day, then that’s on you.”

And I don’t know, some days I think she gets it. Some days she doesn’t. But I think that’s such a hard lesson for all of us to learn that even when things are completely unfair, we still have to make the choice of how we’re going to deal with it.

Yeah, that’s perfect. By the way, I have three teenage daughters, so I-

You understand that.

I completely understand and there’ve been times when I myself have to give myself that talk of, “Okay, well, I can choose how I want to respond to them.”

I know. It’s sometimes easier said than done.

Exactly. Definitely. Okay. Well, I really do want to get into fear and how did you get into those … looking into the role of fear?

It really happened organically. I have a pretty large audience and I speak to a lot of women every single day and I speak to both entrepreneurs and moms and women who are just trying to get their homes in order. And in both places, I kept hearing things that related back to fear, that women would say things to me like, “Ruth, you talk about setting big goals for yourself, but I feel like I’m sitting on the sidelines of my life. I feel like I’m so afraid to jump in and go after it and I don’t know how. I’ve spent so much time taking care of everyone else that I don’t know what I want for myself and I’m so afraid.”

And it wasn’t just one or two people, it was again and again and again. And this theme kept coming up and it got me curious because fear has definitely been a huge part of my life, and having to overcome fear has been a huge part of my own life. So I wanted to dig in and find out a little bit more, and so I started asking a lot of questions and those questions sort of snowballed into this gigantic research study that I had no idea when I started, how big it would end up being. But we ended up surveying more than 4,000 women, and not actually not just women, 4,000 people on the role of fear in their lives.

It was so much data and so much information that we ended up having to hire a whole team of researchers to go through the data and psychologists to help us make sense of it all. But through that, what we discovered about fear was pretty amazing and really exciting and that’s sort of the starting point for the book.

Wow. Okay. That is great. And I really want to get into what are some of these fears and how do you move past that fear to finally accomplish your goals to really figure out what it is you want in life, but we have to take a break first. Before we go, can you let people know where they can learn more about you and your book?

Absolutely. You can find out everything you want to know about the book and about me at doitscared.com.

Perfect. We’ll be right back.