Getting Out of the F-State and Into Personal Power
SUMMARY
What do you do when you get into an “F-State?” F-States are negative emotional states such as fear or frustration or freaking out or feeling frantic. All of these are un-resourceful emotional states that hinder and stop people. Learn how to snap out of your “F-State” and to shift into a state that empowers you and makes you powerful and effective.
It’s like a changing a radio station…a radio frequency. If the radio frequency you’re listening to is not powerful, it may be staticky or it may be bad music or a boring talk show or something. It’s just absolutely driving you crazy. What do you do with your radio? You change the station. You change the frequency to one that is powerful for you, one that is empowering or satisfying or gratifying or whatever it is that you actually can enjoy listening to.
Here are the three steps to get out of the “F-State”
- Decide to get out of the “F-State.”
- Focus on Your Next Step Only.
- Take Immediate Action.
The decision, focus, and the action will almost instantly dissolve the negative, paralyzing state and put you into the motion and emotion that will allow you to accomplish more.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Hey winners, Kevin Ward here. Have you ever just got absolutely in a bad situation where your brain is not doing what it’s supposed to do? It’s called the F-State. What the F-State is…is whenever things don’t go the way you want them to go or you’re facing something you don’t like and you Freak out. The F-State is being freaked out. It’s being frustrated. It may be fear. It may be frantic. It’s one of the most unresourceful states that you can get into because what it is is it’s an emotional condition. It’s an emotional process in your brain that keeps your brain from functioning powerfully, that keeps you from functioning powerfully.
In fact when your brain goes into the F-State your body follows it. If you get afraid your body … When you get terrified, when you get really frustrated or when you freak out, you can literally physically feel it in your body, right? Your face may get hot. Your neck may get hot. You may break into a cold sweat. Your hands may get cold. You may literally shake. Whatever it is, when your mind goes into the F-State, your body follows it.
Now what’s the challenge about being in the F-State? Being in the F-State is just it’s not powerful for you. It’s a dis-empowering state. What do you do? Well, you’ve got to get out of it. I just get frustrated. Well, if you get frustrated, give it back and get something else. Exchange that state fr a better state, for a more powerful state like determination or commitment or absolute passion. You’ve got to change the F-State for a powerful state, something that makes you more powerful.
What I want to do is just share with you real quickly three strategies or three steps for breaking out of the F-State. Whenever you get in the F-State you get freaked out, you get frantic, you get fearful or just frustrated. What can you do to get out of it? I want to give you three strategies that will absolutely work. The great thing is they work like that (snap of fingers). They can work instantly if you’re willing to take the action.
Here’s what it’s like. Instead of calling it the F-State we’ll call it the F-Station. It’s like a changing a radio station…a radio frequency. If the radio frequency you’re listening to is not powerful, it may be staticky or it may be bad music or a boring talk show or something. It’s just absolutely driving you crazy. What do you do with your radio? You change the station. You change the frequency to one that is powerful for you, one that is empowering or satisfying or gratifying or whatever it is that you actually can enjoy listening to.
Why? Because it makes you feel better. Well, in this case it makes you more powerful. It make you more productive. It makes you feel more confident, more effective, whatever the feeling is you want. You want one that’s empowering, not dis-empowering. I want to give you the three strategies for just changing and getting out of the F-State.
#1) Decide to get out of the “F-State.”
The first one is simply making a decision to do it. It’s the GOI. GOI stands for something real powerful, get over it. Okay? You literally just have to make the decision, I’m going to get over it. I’m going to change the frequency. I’m going to change the station. I’m going to get out of the F-State, I’m going to stop being frustrated. Somebody did something to me that irritated me or something is happening that I’m afraid to make this phone call. What do you have to do? Just get over it. Just boom, I’m over it.
Make the choice not to live in the drama because a lot of times the F-State is when we start living in our drama. We become the drama queen or the drama king and we just kind of enjoy our story. We enjoy that. Listen, how’s that serving you? How is that going to help you move forward towards your goals? It’s not. What do you do? Get over it, GOI. It’s one of my three favorite coaching words whenever somebody gets into one of those dis-empowering states is just to say, “Okay now, agent, GOI.” What does that mean? GOI. Get over it.
Get over it. When? Right now. Step number one.
#2) Focus on Your Next Step Only.
Number two, the second strategy, the second strategy is to focus on something very simple. Just focus on the next step, the next thing you’ve got to do. Now let me just kind of give you an example. Recently I had the opportunity to climb to the top of a 40 foot telephone pole and climb up onto a little platform at the top of the telephone pole and jump off. It’s called a leap of faith and it was absolutely terrifying. Yes, I was tethered. Yet you’re climbing up with these little hooks and you’re literally just climbing up on this telephone pole and then you’ve got to climb up over this ledge and literally stand on this little platform. You’re looking down.
Thirty feet, when you’re standing up thirty feet up or forty feet up, that’s like half a mile down. It’s thirty feet up, but it’s half a mile down. It’s terrifying. Even though you’re tethered, your brain still wants to go into the F-State, freaked out, fearful, terrified. How did I do that? Well, it was one simple technique they taught us and that is don’t focus on the height, don’t focus on the whole picture, don’t look around because you’ll freak out.
What do you do? Focus on just the next step. The next step up the ladder, the next step up the pole. It’s just one step at a time. If you just do that one thing, what happens is your focus is really honed in on just the next step and you can always handle the next step. Okay? What that does is that keeps you from living in the anticipation of what could go wrong.
One of the things that the F-State does is it always asks the question, “What if?” What if this goes wrong? What if this happens? What if that happens? I love what Mark Twain said. He said, “I have faced thousands of problems in my life, most of which never happened.” We face them. We face this what if thing, this F-Factor, the fear, the freaking out. This what if this goes wrong or what. Just focus on the next thing that you have to do.
Here’s one of the amazing things about fear. When you’re dealing with fear you have to understand that fear is not based in reality. Fear is not real. Fear is the anticipation of something in the future that could happen. It’s an anticipation of pain or an anticipation of something happening or going wrong rather than the reality of something happening wrong. All I want to do is focus on this moment right now, right here. What is the next step I’ve got to do? What is the next thing that I need to do to get me where I want to go? Just focus on the next step.
#3) Take Immediate Action.
The third strategy is to act now. Do something right now. You’ve got to take action now. See, here’s what a lot of people think. I’m afraid of this or I’m frustrated. Just give me some time. If I’m frantic it’s like okay, okay, I’m getting ready. I’m getting ready. Here’s the thing. What we’re trying to do is get over our fear. The reality is that people who move forward and seem to never be afraid of anything, it’s not that they don’t have it. It’s that they act in spite of it.
The secret is learning to take action in spite of your fear. The longer you wait it doesn’t make it easier. It’s kind of like whenever you’re getting ready to jump into a swimming pool of water and it’s cold. There’s two ways to do it. You can try to ease your way into it or just jump in. When you just jump in is it a moment of … You know it’s going to be a breath taking moment and yet the faster you do it the faster it’s done. You face the fear. You take action now and you realize as you do it that creates momentum. The momentum, the action actually creates courage.
You see, courage is not eliminating fear. Courage is taking action in spite of fear because it’s the right thing to do. What happens with the F-State is it stops us. The F-State dis-empowers us. The key is when you find yourself in the F-State, to do whatever it takes, whether it’s just making a decision to get over it, whether it’s just focusing on the next step I’ve got to have or just making it a decision, I’m going to act now, that moves you fast out of the F-State. The F-State doesn’t take you where you want to go so when you find yourself in it, do whatever it takes. Take action now to get out of it so that you can move on with your life and win. Don’t play with fear. Play to win.