The Driving Fear Blog

Wow.  It’s been awhile.

Sorry I’ve been gone and not writing for a bit, I had a lot going on over here in my neck of the woods and got caught up in it.

Just as a reminder, don’t forget that you can always go to the Fear of Driving Forum if you want to talk to others who share your fear and are overcoming it.   I’m there quite a bit myself and I love getting to know all of you on a more individual basis.  Just go to:

www.fearofdrivingforum.com

But enough about me, I wanted to make sure I had a extra good post since I’ve had plenty of time to ponder it, and guess what?  I do…

Today I want you to learn the “Golden Rule of Fear”.

Now you’re probably already familiar with the other Golden Rule, you know, “treat others how you would want to be treated”.   What makes that the “Golden” rule?  Well, I guess because so many questions can be answered by it.  It’s kind of like your “go-to” rule.  Don’t know what to do in a situation?  Golden Rule time.  Confused about what’s right or wrong?  Golden Rule time.  It’s a very simple sentence that you could spend a lifetime trying to live by.  It’s power is in its simplicity.

So it was a little bit overwhelming when I was trying to come up with a Golden Rule of Fear.  I’ve got some stiff competition.  That other one has been awhile.

But I did it.  The Golden Rule of Fear is deceptively simple, yet it contains all you really need to know about how to conquer your fear.  Now living by it, just like the other Golden Rule, is a different story, but this one sentence I’m about to tell you should be your “go-to” question whenever you feel anxious, panicky, or fearful.

Ok, ready?  Here it is…

“What would I do if I WASN’T afraid?”

Told you it was simple.  That’s the point, but before you click away, let’s look at it…

The Golden Rule of Fear helps you think more clearly when anxiety makes it difficult.  Let’s say you’re driving and come to a large bridge over some water that always makes you panic.  Your brain screams to get off at the next exit and avoid it, but another part of you isn’t so sure.  It’s just so darn hard to think straight when you’re anxious and conflicted…

But wait.

The Golden Rule.

If you weren’t anxious, what would you do?  Go over the bridge or get off and avoid it?

That’s right, keep on truckin’.

So you get closer to the bridge and you start to feel anxious…your stomach gets queasy, you start to sweat, your thoughts race…so you start to tighten your grip on the wheel, breathe fast and shallow, and drive super fast to get it over with.

Hold on a second…what about the Golden Rule?

You remember the rule and think what you would do if that bridge didn’t scare you.  You relax your grip on the wheel, slow your breathing, and slow down -just like it didn’t bother you a bit.  You stop all those anxious physical symptoms from making you feel worse.

Do you shut off the radio to focus on your anxiety and monitor your body for signals it will get worse?  Grab a cell phone to distract yourself and hide from your feelings?  Snap at the kids?  Feel weak or less than everyone else because of how you feel?

Not if you’re living by the Golden Rule.  Someone who’s not anxious doesn’t need to be hyper vigilant about a sensations in their body, the don’t need to distract themselves from their thoughts…just do whatever you think you would do if you weren’t anxious.

Simple?  Yes.  Easy?  Not so much.  But I guarantee you this, it will help you more than you could believe.  There’s a lot you can do about your anxiety, but a lot of it comes back to that simple sentence.  The problem with a lot of techniques for controlling anxiety is that in the middle of an anxious episode, it’s hard to remember and do.  The Golden Rule is eight words that can change your life.  Go tattoo them someplace.

Oh yeah, the other Golden Rule is a pretty good idea too.

Rich Presta

www.DrivingFear.com

It’s been a bit since I’ve posted, but I figured you were getting enough emails from me about other things so I didn’t want to overstay my welcome in your inbox.

You know, it’s funny, I get all kinds of emails, and many times people with the fear of driving tend to look at their fear as this other “thing” they need to battle.

There’s no “thing”.

It’s all part of YOU.

And believe it or not, when you want it to go away, you can tell it to.

You may not know how to yet, but you can.

See, when you think of it as an opponent, you’re not recognizing it for what it is…just you.

There’s no little demon running around your brain flipping switches and driving you nuts, although I know it can feel that way.

It’s you.  And the sooner you warm up to the fact that YOU’RE the one making YOU miserable, the better off you’ll be.

People avoid it because nobody wants to be the one causing all this grief.

You want to BLAME someone or something else, anything but you.

“Where’s the enemy!  I’ll get ‘em!  Must be my job, or genetics, or husband, or brain chemicals!”

But the good thing is that when you truly realize that it’s you scaring you, it’s a short hop to understanding that you can choose to NOT do that.

Reminds me of a story….

“A group of construction workers were building a new skyscraper in Chicago and every day they’d sit down on the beams and have lunch.

The first day, a guy named Joe opens his lunch and says, “Oh, no.  Not peanut butter and jelly.  I hate peanut butter and jelly.”

The next day at lunchtime Joe opens his lunch bag and says, “Not again.  I can’t stand peanut butter and jelly.”

Third day comes and Joe once again open up his lunch and says, “Yuck.  Peanut butter and jelly again.”.

This time one of the other guys says, “Hey Joe, if you hate peanut butter and jelly so much, why don’t you ask your wife to make you something different?”

Joe replies, “I’m not married.  I make my own lunch.”

See, we all make our own lunch.

Next time you get mad about your fear,  remember, you made you own sandwich.

Learn to make a different one at Driving Fear.

Leave me a comment…I love to read em’!

Rich

People I talk to with driving anxiety are always afraid of losing control, being hurt, or going crazy while driving.

Of course, when you really peel the fear apart like we do in the
Driving Fear Program, that’s usually a big part of what you’re
REALLY afraid of. It’s not the driving so much, it’s what you tell
yourself driving in a certain situation will lead to.

“But, Rich, if I drive over that big bridge and can’t get off when I want my anxiety will get to the point where I’ll lose control!”

“No way Rich, if I get on the highway I just KNOW that I’ll go crazy and drive into the ditch and kill everyone in the car.”

“If I’m more than 10 miles from my house it’ll make me slam on my brakes for no reason with a big semi truck behind me and then I’ll be dead and it’s all because of you Rich. You’re a bum.”

See, and you thought you were the ONLY one with those types of
thoughts, huh?

Sorry, I’m sure you’re special for others reasons…but that isn’t
one of them.

But what’s funny is that the same people aren’t afraid of going
crazy or losing control in the shower.

It makes me scratch my head and wonder…

What’s the different between your car and the shower?

See, it doesn’t make sense. Losing control, going crazy, and that
sort of stuff doesn’t depend on geography or on what activity
you’re performing at the time.

If you’re going to lose control of your senses, or whatever you’re
afraid of, you wouldn’t be ok everyplace else but the car.

People with genuine mental illness (not anxiety or phobias) that do
“crazy” things aren’t ok some places and not ok in others.

Replace “car” or “driving” with something else and let’s see if it
makes sense. I’ll highlight the part I changed.

“My Uncle Bob is just fine and dandy but as soon as he starts hopping on a pogo stick he loses his mind and would hurt his loved
ones.”

“I work with this guy who is great at his job and is really smart and creative, but for some reason whenever he gets into a hammock he goes temporarily insane and will punch you in the face for no reason because he loses control over his body.”

“It’s a funny thing. If I eat pudding in my neighborhood I’m ok, but if I try it 25 miles away I just might slip into a mental illness and never be the same again.”

I’m not doing this to make fun of your thoughts, I had the same
ones and more and know how REAL they feel at the time, but it’s
good to realize that they’re silly, even if they FEEL real.

So what’s changing in the car to make you feel the way you are?

Your thoughts. How you talk to yourself. How you’ve trained
yourself to react.

It’s all a story you’ve told yourself so often you’ve come to
believe it. Like my 3 year old daughter believes in the tooth
fairy and that there’s a monster in the closet.

But when I open the closet door and SHOW her that there’s no
monster there, she sees the truth and her mind is at ease and she
can drift off to sleep.

The next night I may have to do it all over again, she doesn’t
trust the truth she learned the first time.

But after a few nights, she believes there’s no monster in the
closet. She’s changed her beliefs.

So here’s what I want you to do. Next time you’re in the car and
you get scared that there’s a monster in your closet, open the door.

Be brave, even if you’re SURE the monster is real and what you fear
will come pouring out.

Open the door.

See the truth.

When you have the courage to open the door a few times, you’ll know
it was always an illusion.

There never was a monster.

Click here to open the door

Hi All,

Some of you may already know about it, but for those that don’t, there’s a new forum I put together so everyone can chat back and forth, share successes, and whatever else helps them overcome their fear of driving. It’s at:

Fear of Driving Forum

You’ll need to register by clicking in the upper right hand corner first, then your password will be sent to you in email. Then that’s it!

I’m really hoping that people utilize the group therapy aspect of this forum, it can be really helpful.

As I’m prone to do, I’ll probably be giving some stuff away to register users in the near future too (hint, hint).

I know I’ve said in the past the forums aren’t typically a good idea because they spread negativity and people argue and flame one another, but I’ll be moderating this one and trust me, I won’t stand for any shenanigans!

So here you go, pop in and say hello, you’ll be glad you did:

Fear of Driving Forum

See You There,

Rich

Hi Again,

As you may have read last time I emailed, my wife and I were recently fortunate enough to have been blessed with a healthy baby boy with a tremendous set of nighttime lungs. The week after we had him, we had a death in the family which took me back to the city I came from originally, and although tragic, there’s something to be learned from the experience…

If you know my story with the fear of driving, you know that for a long time (years), my fear and I were mishandled by therapists and physicians and instead of my anxiety getting better, it gradually got worse until I was confined to a self imposed prison of about a mile from my house.

One of the things that was within my driving comfort zone was a really good local library, and I would spend hours sitting in an old hardback wooden chair overlooking the river, reading book after book trying to figure out how to overcome my fears. I eventually did, and that was the start of the Driving Fear Program, but it was a long, depressing, and difficult period of my life, one I’ll never forget, no matter how much I want to sometimes.

While driving to the funeral home last week, I had to pass that very library I spent so many hours. For some reason, it kind of symbolizes that chapter of my life for me. To say it made me reflect is an huge understatement.

Here’s a picture of it:

I saw where I used to park my car and remembered the feeling of hopelessness as I’d walk up the stone steps of the library, knees still weak from anxiety, for another round of searching for answers. I didn’t know at the time how many people those answers would help.
I saw the bench overlooking the river I’d sit on sometimes, wondering what I did to deserve the fear and asking if it would ever end, if I’d ever be normal and lead a normal life.I remembered vividly the feelings I used to have while I was there – loneliness, overwhelm, even terror of what the future held.But then I saw something else…

I looked in the rear view mirror and saw a completely different person looking back than used to sit on that bench and curse fate.

I saw my wife next to me, two car seats in the back of the car, and realized that I had just driven three hours to get there and never once had even the slightest twinge of anxiety about it.

I realized that I changed.

It was like coming full circle. I said a silent good-bye to the library, and I know I can leave those memories with it, I don’t need them anymore. I’m not who I was then. I’m not scared. Not hopeless. I changed. A lot.

And you can too.

No matter where you are in your life right now, if you don’t like it, you can change it. You’re not a tree.

It may not be easy all the time, or as fast as you want, but you don’t have to settle for it.

Hell, you SHOULDN’T settle for it.

I can’t tell you how completely turned around my life has become since I used to sit in that dingy old musty library. I want to hate every minute I spent there, every panic attack and tear I shed about my fear.

But I can’t.

Because without it I may not be where or who I am now. And I like who and where I am now.

Without that building being there, within that mile of home (not coincidently I don’t think), there wouldn’t be the Driving Fear Program. And without it, there would be a LOT of people still struggling like I was. If I had to suffer during that time so I could help hundreds of others like you overcome their fear, I’ll take it. Deal.

Who knows what having your fear will mean for you long term? Maybe it will make you look at life differently, or make you want to take another path. Maybe it will make you appreciate being free more when you overcome it. It will certainly make you stronger. I guess what I’m saying is there may be a reason for this, there was for me. And that your fear doesn’t have to be permanent.

When you’re ready to change, you can. You won’t even have to sit in a old library trying to find the answers like I did, it’s all right here:

The Driving Fear Program

Go change.

Rich

Long time no talk!

Sorry I didn’t get the chance to write last week.

As some of you may know, my wife has been expecting our second child and I’m happy to say that we finally had him (albeit a little late) and our home is once again filled with such lovely newborn sounds like crying (the baby and me sometimes if I’m really tired), coffee pots continually brewing, and annoying musical sounds from every type of rocking, swaying, and vibrating toy and contraption imaginable.

But now I’m back, a little sleepy still, but back.

And as luck would have it, I’ve got a story to tell.

I’ll be honest, for the past 6 months or so, I’ve been terrified.

Not anxious, not scared. Terrified.

Of having another baby in the house.

Would it be too much? Would I be able to handle it?

When my wife was in labor, and we were on our way to the hospital, I was a wreck.

But you know what? As soon as it all started, I forgot about myself and wasn’t nervous anymore at all.

And when I got home with the baby, it was tough, but not scary at all. Actually a little bit fun. I was surprised at how well I was able to handle it.

I felt kind of like Super-Dad. Two kids? No problemo.

And it got me thinking, isn’t that always the way it is with what intimidates us?

Isn’t the anticipation of the event we fear always worse than actually doing it?

Aren’t we ALWAYS able to handle it?

If you’re afraid of driving on the highway, it’s always worse in your imagination.

If you’re scared to go over that bridge because you’re not sure if you could handle it, guess what? You can.

Don’t let your wild imagination replace reality. Reality is rarely that bad.

Don’t mistake your fearful thoughts for a crystal ball. What you’re imagining almost certainly won’t come true.

Remember, the anticipation is almost always worse than doing it.

And when you’re out there doing it, cruising down the highway, going over the bridge, ask yourself, “Is this what I feared?”

You’ll see that the reality isn’t that bad and that all that energy you spent being scared was a giant waste of time.

Ok, babies crying, gotta run.

Go do what you’re afraid if, it won’t be that bad, I promise. The Driving Fear Program can make it even easier.

Rich

Are you one of those fearful drivers that’s constantly checking their mirrors, wondering if the car or truck next to them will run into them, or drives dangerously slow because you feel like if you go too fast you can’t react fast enough?

As much as I appreciate you being such a careful driver and keeping the rest of us knuckleheads safe, here’s what I want you to do…

Quit being so safe.

Yep. Loosen up and quit trying so hard.

I can hear you already. “What? Don’t drive safely? Get into a wreck?”

Well….not really.

See, you’re a lot like people who get anxious and get all wrapped up in their body symptoms. They constantly check to see if their heart is beating ok, if they can take a deep breath, and they worry that AT ANY MOMENT, if they just stop focusing on it, everything will go haywire and they’ll die, go crazy, drive off the bridge (insert scary thought here)…

But constantly monitoring yourself or your environment is incredibly stressful. Not to mention, if your heart is going to stop beating, you’re not going to be able to “will” it to start again. If you’re going to be unable to breathe for no reason whatsoever, paying attention to it won’t help one little bit.

Now when you’re on the road, it’s a little different because being aware of your surroundings and other motorists CAN keep you safe, to a point. But when you’re so anxious about it, and doing it obsessively, you’re actually at MORE risk. See, you’re not designed to operate like that. You’re not supposed to consciously try to process all that information and do it on purpose; your brain is smarter than that.

Your brain processes MASSIVE amounts of information every second and brings to your conscious what it thinks is important, or what needs a decision. You don’t THINK about every slight adjustment to the steering wheel or every car on the highway, you’d never be able to process all that. Instead, your brain looks for important changes and brings those to you to see what to do with.

For instance, were you ever driving and noticed the odometer change from 19,999 miles to 20,000 or something like that? Why did you notice that and not the countless other miles click by? Because it was a change in your environment. So your brain took notice. Smarty pants.

Ever almost get into an accident? The other day a toddler down the street from my house ran out in front of my car. I slammed on the brakes and everything was fine fortunately, but I was driving, saw the child, hit the brakes, turned the wheel, and avoided him, all in about half a second. I didn’t THINK about it at all. I didn’t even SEE it. My brain took over and took appropriate action.

There’s a certain amount of trust you need to give yourself that you’ll react the right way should you need to. And if you need to, you don’t even want to be the one making the decision; you’re too slow compared to your primitive instinctual mind. You WANT it done without thought.

Some of you are still saying, “Great advice, Rich, drive around not caring at all, creating hazards wherever we go, no thanks buddy.”

See, I can hear you. Eerie isn’t it?

I’m not saying not to pay attention. I’m not saying not to be safe and drive defensively and all that good stuff. I’m just saying to back off a bit. You don’t need to do all that, even if you think you do.

It’s like the story of two guys in Chicago walking down the street and one guy keeps clapping his hands every 5 or 10 seconds. The other guy asks him why he keeps doing that and he says because it keeps the elephants away. The other guy tells him that there’s no elephants anywhere near Chicago. The other guy says, “See, it works”.

What you’re doing really isn’t helping, even if you think it has been.

There’s a middle ground, like everything else. Don’t stop paying attention while driving, just don’t be obsessive about it.

It’s as if you had a temperate of 107 degrees and I told you that we needed to bring your temperature down. You wouldn’t say, “but we NEED heat, we’re warm blooded, I can’t NOT have a temperature…”

It’s like that, we need a temperature, but not one that high, we need to bring it down so we’re healthy.

We need to pay attention on the road, but not that much.

So let’s bring it down a little and be healthy.

Rich

Remember that old Saturday Night Live skit with Stuart Smalley who would always look in the mirror and say “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me”?

Well, that was affirmations in action folks.

Affirmations are statements you repeat to yourself  in the hopes of convincing yourself that they’re true.  So if you’re afraid of spiders, you tell yourself 200 times a day “I’m not afraid of spiders, I’m not afraid of spiders…”, and hopefully, eventually, you’ll convince yourself that you’re……you guessed it…..not afraid of spiders.

Here’s the problem with affirmations.  First, you’re not that stupid.  You can’t just tell yourself something that isn’t true and somehow ’sneak’ it past your brain into your subconcious.  Your brain will call BS on it every time (unless you’re doing the affirmations in a subliminal manner or under hypnosis for instance, which bypasses the critical part of your brain).  You may be able to lie to other people, but it’s REAL hard to lie to yourself.

Second, it takes too long.  Most everyone gives up on it way before it would do any good.  Even if you were that patient, why would you want to wait months and months babbling the same old line when there’s much more effective ways to the same end results?

Lastly, affirmations stink because that’s not how you think!  You don’t think in words, you think in pictures.

Let me explain…

If Iask ask you to visualize “porcupine”, what do you do?

Do you see the letters P-O-R-C-U-P-I-N-E in your head?

Or do you see the animal with the quills?

The second, of course.

So when you tell yourself 200 times a day, “I’m not afraid of driving”, what happens?

Your brain sees what image?  AH-HA!   You being afraid of driving.

Well that sucks.  That’s not what you wanted at all.   You don’t want to keep burning that into your head do you?

So if you’re going to do affirmations, you have to do them in the positive.  Things like, “I’m relaxed and at peace when I drive”.  That way your brain pictures what?  Right - you being relaxed in the car.  Much better scene to replay over and over again in your mind.

You also have to make them realistic.  If you’re terrified of driving over bridges, don’t start with, “I feel totally happy and at peace on bridges”, because your brain will say, “No you don’t.  Liar, liar, pants on fire”.

Start with something more reasonable, like, “I can handle my anxiety on bridges and relax my shoulders”.  See?  You can believe that.  Work your way up.

The best thing to do is to perform affirmations visually.  To actually SEE the scene you want in your own head, so it’s more than just words and it’s more the way you think normally.

A very powerful way of doing this and “tricking” your subconscious into believing it is in the Driving Fear program,  and we’ve seen tremendous success with people using it.  Those of you who are using the program will know what I’m talking about.

This is the type of stuff that separates the wishy-washy “feel-good” fluff you’ll find other places from the hard hitting advanced techniques you’ll learn about in the program.   Affirmations are talk, I’m all about action.  I run a fluff free ship.  It’s not for everyone, only those that are ready to REALLY overcome their fear.
Talk to you soon.

Rich

I’ve been slowly but surely working on putting together a new website for the Driving Fear program, the one I have now is fine I suppose, but when I first introduced it I put it up fairly hastily, not knowing it would get the attention it did, and to be honest, it’s well…a little ugly.

So to get some ideas for how I’d like it to look, I did what any reasonable person would do, I looked at others people’s site and tried to steal their ideas.

While I was clicking around, it reminded me why I started doing all this in the first place. As I looked at page after page of “anxiety”, “phobia”, and “panic attack” sites, it made me a little nauseated.

See, virtually all of them were trying to pitch some “short-cut”, all kinds of different garbage - just listen to this or read that and you’ll be cured of anxiety instantly, by noon tomorrow, without breaking a sweat.

None of the people selling these crap-ola solutions was actually recovered by using any of this junk of course, and you’d think people would see through that…

But you’d be wrong.

See, these people make a boatload of money selling this hogwash, preying on people’s desire to feel better RIGHT NOW, without having to put forth ANY effort. There’s entire companies and buildings of people selling this stuff - they’re good at it, I’ll give them that - but I’m not quite sure how they can sleep at night taking advantage of people’s desperation. I guess we’re just cut from different cloth. It makes me sad because all these false promises they pitch only bring heartache, disappointment, frustration, and failure.

It’s like everyone’s lying to one another. The snake oil salesmen are lying to the people giving up their money, and the people buying it are lying to themselves thinking it’ll work. Can we all just quit lying to ourselves and each other?

So here’s the deal. If you’ve read about my program, thought it was too much work because I don’t promise it’ll help in 3 minutes or without any effort on your part, and instead you’ve decided to go get the “Super Fast and Easy 45 Second Phobia Cure” or whatever, I have something that’s difficult for me to say…

I don’t think we’re meant to be together…

Here’s why…

The Driving Fear Program is a step by step method for eliminating your fear of driving. It’s not a quick fix or band aid solution, it doesn’t work without at least a little effort, and there’s no mysticism involved.

It’s the EXACT steps I took to fully recover from my fear of driving, and the same steps that hundreds of others who are back on the road in comfort have as well. Plus a whole lot more…

But if you’re looking for the next “zero effort miracle”, you’re not going to like it anyway. You may as well stop reading now, I don’t have what you’re looking for. I simple refuse to join the other snake oil salesmen selling a bag of bullshit, no matter how much money it could generate – I refuse to sacrifice my integrity, to risk my good name in the industry that’s brought me this far, and I won’t insult your intelligence.

Sorry if this sounds harsh, but I’m just not willing to compromise. So if you’re looking for the next easy quick fix promise, if you just want someone to lie to you with a smile on their face so you have some hope for the next couple days – no hard feelings, just go someplace else.

But if you genuinely want to overcome your fear of driving. If you’re willing to put in some effort (not a ton, but some), and are honestly ready to turn your life around (not everyone is, some are comfortable the way they are, even if it limits them), then you’re who I want to be talking to, and I can’t wait to get the program into your hands, because nothing makes me feel better than getting an email or phone call from someone whose living a better life because of the program. Whether or not that next email is sent from you is in your hands…

Rich

Yesterday I spoke to someone who told me they’ve been “fighting” their fear of driving for years and just couldn’t get themselves to “push through it”.  Later on in the day someone else told me how they’d been “trying like hell” and just couldn’t get past a particular hurdle.

It made me think back to when I still was afraid of driving and how I’d white knuckle the steering wheel, grit my teeth through the panic, and somehow sweat and claw my way from stoplight to stoplight, wondering why I was never getting any better. I looked at my fear like an opponent, like something I had to beat. I can even remember thinking if I could just outlast it maybe it would ‘die’.

Boy, was I wrong.

You CAN’T out fight it. You can’t do it because it’s not real, it’s like a mirage. It’s like those Chinese handcuffs that go on your thumbs and the harder you try to pull yourself free from them the tighter their grip gets, but if you relax and stop fighting them they slip right off…

Your fighting is what feeds your fear. When you stop fighting, there’s no more momentum. That doesn’t mean you’ll be totally fear free right away, but it does mean that you’ll take away it’s ability to grow.

The next time you get anxious while driving, instead of tensing, let go. Instead of gripping the wheel harder, relax.

You can’t fight anxiety with MORE anxiety.

The Driving Fear program shows you some really powerful techniques you can use in the car to help you calm your body and slow your mind so you can stop feeding your anxiety. The more relaxed you can be in the face of your fear, the quicker you’ll starve it.

Maybe it’s because the sun’s finally been out a bit and I’ve been able to take my daughter to the park a few times, which is a sure sign of spring, but today I’m really in the mood to talk about something really positive, sound ok?

When you’re going through the Driving Fear program to overcome your fear of driving, you want to have a good motivation to keep you going when it gets tough, or if you hit a patch that slows your progress down a little. You need a reason to go after it in the first place.

Sometimes I’ll ask program participants what they’re using to keep them going, what gets them in the drivers seat when they really would rather sit on the couch and watch American Idol. I’ve found that there’s two motivations. Well I guess I didn’t discover this, psychologists have known it for a long time, so I’ll say I confirmed it, there’s negative and positive motivations. The carrot and the stick.

What that means is that you’re either using the desire to escape pain to motivate you, or you’re using the desire to seek pleasure to motivate you. Both work, but one works better.

Lots better.

It’s probably no surprise that positive reinforcement works better. Well, knowing it and using it are two different things.

The clients I find that have the toughest time are the ones that have motivations such as:

“I don’t want to embarrass my family anymore.”

“I’m sick of being so weak.”

“I can’t keep having this anxiety, it’ll kill me.”

So we’re going to knock that off. Just typing them made me depressed and unmotivated, and I’m a tough guy to bring down.  Too much stick, not enough carrot.

Now we’re going to take some time and think about what you want to do when you overcome your fear. Not if. When. Got it?

Close your eyes, relax a bit, and picture in your mind how life would be different if you were comfortable driving. Picture yourself with the window open, wind blowing through your hair, radio on with your favorite song playing, and a secret grin on your face. Where are you going? A friends house you don’t get to see often enough now? Are you on your way to a family trip, maybe a long weekend someplace great, with your family in the back of the car? Maybe you just closed a big deal for work and you’re on your way back home, feeling confident and proud.

Think about it, get in touch with it. How do you FEEL? There’s no reason that can’t be you. No reason at all. I’ve seen too many people accomplish it to think otherwise. Think about that often and use that to motivate you. You CAN do it.

Write it down somewhere and refer to it often. Write it on a index card and keep it in your pocket where you’ll feel it often and think about it. put one in your car and look at it while you’re at a red light to remember why you’re doing it. Stick one on the mirror in your bathroom and read it while you do your hair. Just write it down. Write it in the comments section under this post, let’s see what it is.  Writing it down takes it from your mind and puts it in reality.  It’s the first step to turning from imagination to real life.  Just do it now.

No, seriously. Right now.

I want the desire to accomplish this to drive you forward. I want this to be so intensely positive to you that nothing will stop you from accomplishing it. I want you to be so in touch with it you can close your eyes and feel the wind in your hair and your hands on the wheel. In your mind, be there.

When you can really get in touch with it and all the emotions that go with it, you can fake it. When you get afraid, you can”act as if” you’re already that person. How would they think? How would they feel? Would they turn back or keep going? Smile or frown? Are their shoulders tense or relaxed?

I’ll let you in on a secret….ready?

Pretend to be that person often enough and you will BECOME that person. You are who you THINK you are.

Think careful.

Rich

When people go through the Driving Fear program, often they’re making great progress, and then do something very well intentioned that louses it all up.

Let’s take a client we’ll call Terry as an example. Terry started out terribly fearful of driving, so much in fact that he wouldn’t drive more than a block from home. He went through the program, did the exercises, got better with the techniques, and started working towards eliminating his fear. Just like the program says, he took small steps towards it, and after a few days is able to go two blocks away, which is a huge accomplishment (100% improvement right?). Two days later he’s able to go five blocks. Then a mile. Then three miles. And he gets so excited, he wakes up feeling great one day and decides he’s going to tackle a big bridge over water during rush hour.

If you’re saying “uh-oh”, you’re right.

He gets on the bridge and realizes he can’t get off when he wants to, and anxiety sets in. He gets caught in traffic, can’t go anywhere, realizes there’s no escape, and panics. It takes him 20 minutes to cross the bridge, it’s sheer terror the whole way, and when he’s done he sits in his car and cries because he knows he can’t make it back. The next day he doesn’t even try to go the three miles he used to because he’s still shook up, his confidence he had was shattered, and he feels weak and hopeless again.

I wish I could say Terry is unusual, but he’s not. This happens a LOT. I warn against it in the program, but who listens to me, right?

So what did Terry do wrong? He tried to fix what wasn’t broken.

He was making great progress, building steadily towards his goal, doing wonderful. Why did he change anything? What was there to fix?

Whenever you’re striving towards any goal, you fix what ISN’T working, not what IS. Let’s look at a different example, a guided missile. Basically a goal seeking device, right? When a guided missile is launched, it knows what it’s target is. That’s something we know too (or should). As it flies along, if it’s on path to meet it’s target, it doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t correct what’s working. But if a wind blows it off course, or it over corrects, then it realizes that it’s off course to its target and then it corrects based on negative feedback (not positive). If it over corrects again and sees it still on off target, it corrects again, until it’s back on path. It keeps correcting until it receives positive feedback, then it stops correcting and keeps doing what it’s doing until it again recognizes negative feedback. It’s a zig zag path, just like you’re have in overcoming your fear of driving, but it never changes what is going right.

As much as I admire the desire to go faster and push yourself, before you make changes to the plan you design in the program, ask yourself if you’re fixing something that isn’t broke. If you’re progressing well and steadily, you may be better off just staying the course you’re on, after all, it’s working!

Rich

Well once again I can’t get to all this email everyone is sending me, so I’ll answer some questions about the S.A.F.E Series I wrote about earlier in the post below:

www.drivingfear.com/Blog/the-safe-advantage-download-the-free-report

If you didn’t already get your copy of the free report, follow the link above and get it, you’re going to want to know what we’re talking about.

Here’s some of the most common questions I’ve been getting:

Q: What will the series consist of?

A: The S.A.F.E Series will be five 30 minute downloadable sessions, with one of them being binaural and 4 being standard. They will all be customized specifically for the fear of driving. They cover general anxiety while driving, traffic, bridges, highways, driving alone, driving with passengers, and more. All totaled it will be 2.5 HOURS of the best material of its kind assembled .

Q: How limited will the first release be?

A: 50 copies, which will go fast.

Q: Can I pre0order?

A: I didn’t want to do this because it’s a lot to manage, but I understand some people will be on vacation and whatnot, so if you send me an email to rich@drivingfear.com and tell me you want to pre-order, I’ll reserve a copy for you.

Q: How much will the S.A.F.E Series cost?

A: The introductory price will be only $19. I don’t know specifically what it will be after that. It may only be $40, or I may not offer it outside a program bundle, I haven’t decided.

Q: Will it be guaranteed?

A: Everything I do is guaranteed. If I don’t believe in it, I don’t make it available. So yes, it will have the same guarantee as the Driving Fear program, 8 weeks, no questions asked, 100% money back.

Q: What do binaural beats sound like?

A: Here’s a sample of JUST the binaural beats, without subliminals underneath them. It’s just a few minutes, but it will help you get the idea. Keep in mind, it’s a frequency, not music, like I talk about in the free report (thesafeadvantage.pdf). Don’t listen while Driving!

binauralsample.mp3

We’re almost there, keep an eye on the below!

Rich

I spent some time putting out a really great report you can download for FREE that outlines what we’ve been working on over here that going to be such a big help to anyone that still has a fear about driving.

I reveals WHY you have a fear of driving, what makes it so hard to overcome, and why most therapies and programs fail.

Most importantly, I tell you what you can do about it.

There’s controversial stuff in here, I know, but I’ve done so much research into this subject and how we can use it to really kick the recovery process from driving anxiety into high gear, I felt I had to share it. If you’re apprehensive about using such psychologically powerful techniques, I understand, you can still get past your fear using just the Driving Fear program on it’s own. This is only going to be for those that need to overcome their fear very quickly or have a severe phobia.

It’s going to be called the S.A.F.E Series, and we’re the ONLY ones that are going to offer this. Using it in conjunction with the Driving Fear program is going make things a LOT easier for you if your fear is severe, or if time is of the essence and you need to overcome your fear of driving fast.

Download the free report below, the S.A.F.E Series will be released on April 8th.

I can only make it available in very limited quantities until I can get feedback, so it will be priced very inexpensively at first. Due to the high cost of development and production, it won’t be able to stay that way so watch your inbox and try to get it early. I’ve already had a lot of questions about it so I know everyone is eager, we’re almost there, believe me.

Check it out here (you can right click and do a “save as”):

thesafeadvantage.pdf

Be sure to leave me a comment and let me know what you think!

Rich

Here’s a good question I get asked a lot, what about anxiety medication for driving anxiety? Do I believe in it?

It’s a tricky question to answer, and I always first say to do whatever your doctor says because I’m not a physician (in case my lawyer has my phone tapped).

But here’s my opinion and experience…

Anxiety meds can be your best friend, or worst enemy, depending on how you use them.

What I don’t think is good is relying on meds exclusively to get you through your anxiety, for driving or anything else.

What I think they can be good for is to help you slow your anxiety down enough to learn skills like what I show you in the program that will help you permanently.

Do you NEED medication? I’ve seen enough people recover without it to say no. Can it make the recovery process more comfortable? Sure. Can it be abused and actually do more harm? Absolutely, and it usually does.

If you have a fear, and all you do it take a medication to cover it up, the fear is still there, it’s just got a blanket over it so you cant see or feel it. If that’s all you do, if and when you stop taking the meds (which you’ll have to do eventually or get addicted), you’ll be exactly where you were before. If you use them as a means to slowly pull the blanket back and expose more and more of your fear, that’s fine by me. Personally, I wouldn’t use meds for more than a few weeks because they can be very difficult to stop and cause more anxiety in the long run. Unfortunately, I rarely see that. I see them being used for months or years.

It’s like this. If you step on a tack, it’s going to take a lot of aspirin to make the pain go away. And even if it does, the tack is still there, whether you feel it or not. When the aspirin wears off, you can take more to relive the pain again, or you can be right back where you started. The treatment for a tack in the foot is to remove the tack. If you need some aspirin while it’s getting pulled out, I get that. But if you leave the tack in and expect it to go away on it’s own, you’re kidding yourself. That’s what the Driving Fear program does, it pulls the tack.

On another note, I know everyone is excited and curious about what’s I’m going to be releasing in the next few weeks that I’ve been mentioning. I can’t tell you what it is yet, so you can stop asking, but I will soon and like I said, it’s going to be really powerful stuff. Just hold tight.