The great Swiss psychiatrist, Dr. Carl Jung said: “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” The unconscious powerfully influences behavior but most people give it little thought. The unconscious is the part of your psyche that is comprised of everything forgotten and repressed.
One common aspect of the unconscious is ego-based fear. Fear and the ego are interconnected. The ego is the unconscious projection of what you want others to think and feel about you. It operates out of self-interest and seeks constant recognition. The ego is always rooted in fear – fear of not being admired, of losing power, of not being liked, of making a mistake. When you’re fearful, fear triggers you to act in ways that you often later regret.
Your dominant personality structure impacts how and why fear manifests. The open-minded personality can underestimate the difficulty of getting big ideas over the goal line. They fear they won’t receive enough respect for their creative contribution. The extrovert can oversell their abilities. They fear they won’t get enough of the spotlight. The agreeable personality will often dismiss their own needs or subordinate their interests in order to build or maintain relationships. Their fear is they won’t be liked or appreciated. The conscientious personality can overly focus and not expand beyond what they can control. Their fear making a mistake. The highly emotionally stable personality can be overly negative or judgmental. They fear being proved wrong so they don’t appreciate the emotional impact of their actions.
When fear remains hidden or unexplored in your unconscious mind, it will direct life decisions in significant ways. Often poor decisions appear to be due to “bad luck” that is beyond your control. But “bad luck” is often preventable because your decisions are being driven not by accurate thinking but by ego-driven unconscious fear.
Our coaching advice is to reflect on these questions: 1) What do you fear? 2) When has fear influenced a decision or an action and how did it turn out? 3) Looking back at your worst decisions, did you push fear into your unconscious and thus didn’t recognize it until it was too late?
When you can see a common thread that explains bad decision making or career and life failures, you’ve identified ego-driven behavior that can be managed. You’ll see real psychodynamic growth when you manage fear by putting it into context. The deeper your analysis of patterns of behavior, the more powerful your outcomes.
Think of an important decision facing you. Now, reflect on your inner fear(s). Are you thinking accurately and do you have a different perspective now that you understand where fear may be coming from?
There is great power in deepening maturity of the ego by confronting the unconscious. Bringing the unconscious to the conscious takes some serious self-reflection. The payoff…you won’t have to imagine navigating life almost effortlessly. You’ll make consistently accurate and excellent decisions without the influence of that pesky ego-based fear. This will be your new reality!
We incorporated the power of overcoming fear in our new book, “Becoming a Strategic Leader: Capitalize on the Power of Your Personality. Published by the American Psychological Association, the world’s leading professional association for psychology and applied behavioral science. Go to www. BecomingStrategic.com to get a discount code to order directly from the APA.