Many types of fear are learned responses based on memories from previous experiences. There are, of course, also innate fears. Like other animals, we’re naturally prone to be highly vigilant the first time we’re exposed to things like heights, deep water, snakes, and spiders. But, for most things in life, fear is not a primal instinct but a learned association. 

These learned associations can come from almost anything, from old injuries to bad experiences or past failures, including fear responses we might not even be consciously aware of. 

While learned fear responses are normal and sometimes helpful, they can also hinder performance if we can’t move past them. A strong learned fear response leads to a disproportionately strong stress response, amplifies anxiety, and makes your emotions run rampant. This makes you more prone to burnout and reduces resilience. In challenging times, when one difficulty bleeds into the next, these responses can make the difference between burnout and growth.

To recalibrate these fear responses, we have to look at how they’re created, the predictions our brains make based on the environmental cues around us, and the way we mentally and emotionally process those moments. 

As military theorists put it, we have to do the work “left of bang” rather than repeatedly trying to deal with the symptoms after the fear response has taken over.