Fear & Excitement: Same Physical Response
Your body can’t tell the difference—your mind decides what it means
The graph shows what most people don’t realise: fear peaks right before action, then drops dramatically once you start doing.
Think about this: fear and excitement produce identical physical responses – increased heart rate, elevated adrenaline levels, heightened awareness. Your body is simply preparing for something significant. The only difference is the story your mind tells about those sensations.
When you’re stuck in the thinking phase, your brain has time to catastrophise. It imagines every possible failure, every way things could go wrong. That’s the mountain of fear you see on the left side of the curve.
But once you cross into doing, something shifts. The same physiological state that felt like fear suddenly becomes a state of growth. You’re too busy executing to catastrophise. The sensations don’t change—your interpretation does.
This is why action is the antidote to anxiety. Not because the doing is easy, but because it transforms the same biological response from paralysing to propelling.
The vertical line isn’t a barrier. It’s a choice.
Stop asking whether you’re ready. Your body’s already given you the same signal it provides when you're excited. The only question is which story you’re going to tell yourself about it.
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