Functional Fear: The High-Functioning Way to Hide

We explore the concept of "functional fear," a subtle form of avoidance that masquerades as productivity and responsibility. This sneaky pattern keeps high-achievers on a narrow, controlled track while appearing successful and put-together on the outside.

• Functional fear differs from obvious fear by appearing as structure, routine, and responsibility
• This pattern keeps you productive and comfortable while limiting genuine growth
• Signs include excessive micromanaging, a perfectly organized diary, and climbing ladders without questioning them
• The cost includes burnout, prioritizing the wrong things, and hiding your authentic self
• Questions for self-reflection: what keeps confusing you, what do you push down your list, what excites YOU
• Consider what tools you lean on just to keep going that might actually be forms of avoidance
• Identify where you're creating elaborate plans but taking no action

Drop me an email at wendy@thecompletioncoach.co.uk or send me a DM on Instagram at thecompletioncoach.

If you've enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review and subscribe! And if you want to learn more from me, come and say hello on Instagram @thecompletioncoach or via email at wendy@thecompletioncoach.co.uk or find out more about working with me on my website, thecompletioncoach.co.uk.

Chapters

• 0:01 Welcome and Introduction
• 1:04 Understanding Functional Fear
• 2:23 Signs of Hidden Fear
• 4:58 The True Cost
• 6:22 Questions for Self-Reflection
• 9:00 Closing Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to, and what Else, the podcast with me, wendy O'Byrne, also known as the Completion Coach, and we're back. We're back to talk about something that's a little bit less sexy than most of the topics that flood our feeds and our minds and get us usually thinking about fear in one particular way. The fear that shows up, that's loud, the fear that has us sobbing because we're not doing what we want to do. The fear that's actively screaming at us in one way or another and we know we want to overcome it. We know all about it. That fear I'm pretty comfortable with, because that fear is making itself so known that it's obvious and it's so known that you can't avoid the fact that it's fear. It's really clear that it's fear and then, being really clear that it's fear, it feels less dangerous to me because it's making itself known.

Speaker 1: 1:04

The things that I work with people on and the depths of where we have to go are in something far sneakier than that. It's the kind of fear that is quiet, smart, looks good, hard to spot. It looks like it's got its shit together. It looks like structure, it looks like routine, it looks like a really well-managed diary. It looks responsible, it looks successful, it looks sorted Fine, but what it actually is is chaos that's got boxed in, chaos that's got really ordered, and that's functional fear. I'm just going to call it functional fear. I don't know if that term already exists as something for people to look at, but functional fear keeps you productive. Functional fear keeps you moving. It also keeps you comfortable. It lets life carry on. It doesn't shut you down. It just keeps you on quite a narrow, quite a controlled track. Externally you don't look like you're avoiding too much. Everybody sees you as a doer. They see you as a completer. You look responsible. You handle everyone's problems. You're probably quite successful. You're a good sounding board. You are showing up. You know, somewhere in life you are showing up and it looks great. You're getting things done. But if we sat down and really dug in, if we looked at things a little bit closer, we'd see that this functional fear is a set of patterns and we would see that it's really, really clever. This kind of fear isn't screaming I can't do it. It's the distracting kind that says, oh, but we are doing it. We're just doing it in a really safe way. It doesn't really whimper or scream of fear. It doesn't have you stamping your feet or wondering what's in the way. It has you convinced that you're doing things in a logical order and it has you believing it it's actually logical and responsible and practical and you love those things.

Speaker 1: 3:57

And this could look like you're still micromanaging everything to such a degree that there's no space whatsoever for you to really think about things. You're too busy. This looks like an exceptional diary. This looks like an exceptional diary, but actually what's happening is you're turning up to everything out of fear of not being at one thing. This is you presenting a certain way to people, whilst knowing that you've got lots of things that you want to handle underneath that that you're not admitting to. This looks like you climbing ladder after ladder after ladder without showing anybody that you're not entirely sure if it's your ladder.

Speaker 1: 4:41

This is you looking vulnerable whilst absolutely curating the vulnerability within an introvert's life. And it's not sabotage in the really obvious sense. It's not quitting, it's not spiraling, it's not freezing, it's none of the things that we hear so much about. It's really bloody reasonable, which is why it's so hard so hard to catch it. And it can thrive in people who have quote-unquote done the work, because if you're smart, self-aware and high functioning, then functional fear can still be something that's remaining running in the background because it will have you working through some more obvious stuff. It will have you looking somewhere else and not at it.

Speaker 1: 5:32

And functional fear expensive. I put this in my email yesterday. If you're on my mailing list and that's financial To some degree, there will always be implications. But it's also expensive in what it costs you Energetically. You know if you're feeling burnout and can't really put your finger on why, other than you're going to blame all of the tasks that you're doing. But you know a rest won't soothe your soul. It's costing you when you are prioritizing things that don't matter and making other things matter so much that it's costing you what truly, truly, truly does matter and wants your attention. And it's costing you because it looks so good. It looks so good to everybody else that absolutely nobody is asking any questions. So effectively it's costing you by hiding you, and the longer you stay hidden, the more you climb, the faster you go, the more you do the additional things that you take on. All of it hides you just a little bit more.

Speaker 1: 6:42

And I'd love you to get curious, really curious, about how you're feeling, what's confusing you, and when I say what's confusing you, you, and when I say what's confusing you, there will be some internal conflicts that confuse you. There will be some things you are doing that are confusing you. There'll be some things that don't give you the same satisfaction they used to, which are confusing you. They're it might just be an onslaught of information that we are subjected to every time we open our eyes. That is confusing you, and I want you to just consider what do I keep pushing down the list? What do I do that excites me? Not what do I do that is exciting to other people, and I'm really going to leave it on that.

Speaker 1: 7:36

We've come back with a short, maybe not so sweet episode, but what I want you to really think about here is what tools have you learned to lean on, to just keep going? What looks great externally that allows you to hide from what you really want to do? What are you doing that makes it look like you're really showing up for yourself, but actually it's just another form of disguise. It's stopping you from doing the actual thing. Where in my life is there something I really want to do that I'm trying to make a really practical map towards, but actually that map's been going for quite some time quite some time and I've done nothing as yet.

Speaker 1: 8:28

What do I make look risky? That is not risky for me, because other people may perceive you as somebody that takes big risks, but only because those things look to other people as if they're risky, but really you don't find them risky at all. What is it that you are avoiding? That feels like a risk to you Because you are micromanaging a plan to the nth degree but aren't actually doing anything yet. I'm going to leave it here. Thank you, as always, for listening, and I will speak to you next week. As always, you can drop me an email, wendy, at thecompletioncoachcouk, or drop me a DM at thecompletioncoach on Instagram.