How to overcome fear and self-doubt to follow your dreams.
Let’s be honest: the news is grim. War, climate anxiety, housing crises, horrifying leaders that not-so-long-ago seemed only the stuff of satire. Bills, burnout, and the creeping sense that the world is cracking at the edges. No wonder you sometimes feel stuck in Sad Town. And the buses out of there only run once in a while.
When everything around you screams “it’s all falling apart,” the idea of following your dream (whether that’s writing a book, starting your own business, or daring to fall in love again) can feel not just indulgent, but impossible. The voice of the not-good-enoughs pipes up: “Who are you to chase joy when the world is burning? Sit down. Be quiet. Don’t risk it.”
And maybe you do sit down. Maybe you close the curtains and stay small. Because the cage of fear, fed daily by a steady drip of headlines, is persuasive and exhausting. It says: “Stay inside. Stay safe. Don’t try.”
But here’s the truth: you’re not broken for feeling this way. These feelings aren’t weakness; they’re evidence you’re paying attention. And yet… paying attention doesn’t mean pocketing the keys to live in Sad Town forever.
The Stories That Stick
In the Irish language, emotions aren’t something you are. They’re something that’s on you. You don’t say I am sad you say Tá brón orm: sadness is on me.
Which is profound, really. Because if feelings are on you, like a heavy jacket, you can notice them, loosen them, and even shrug them off. The news may be real. The heartbreak may be real. But the story stitched into the lining of that coat—the one whispering “You’re powerless, don’t even try”—that story is optional.
Borrowing Some Pronoia
Rob Brezsny coined the word pronoia, the opposite of paranoia. Instead of believing the universe is conspiring against you, pronoia imagines the universe is quietly plotting in your favour.
Sounds ridiculous when you’re doomscrolling at midnight, right? But imagine it for a moment: the unexpected kindness of a stranger, the absurd meme that makes you laugh-snort, the random opportunity that lands in your inbox. What if those weren’t accidents, but tiny reminders that not everything is hopeless?
Pronoia doesn’t erase the real crises. It doesn’t ask you to smile while Rome burns. It just tilts the balance enough so you can breathe again, so you can see your dream as not frivolous, but vital.
Cracks in the Cage: How to overcome fear and self-doubt to follow your dreams
Escaping the cage of fear doesn’t mean smashing it open overnight. The bars are built from repetition—news loops, self-doubt loops, shitty experiences, other people’s expectations.
But every time you notice, “Oh, this is the not-good-enoughs talking, not truth,” you bend a bar just slightly.
You don’t need a heroic jailbreak. Sometimes it’s enough to open a tiny crack and slip one hand through. Share the poem. Write the heartfelt caption. Ask for the role you want. Make time for the volunteer position. Tell everyone you know that you want to be loved. Do the embarrassing thing in front of someone else. Say no to something every time you say yes to something else. Laugh when you’re not supposed to. Admit, even to yourself: “I have this ridiculous dream.”
Feel your feelings, but don’t let them decide your fate. We have tendency to believe ‘truths’ associated with fearful and painful feelings, we add the stories up that align with those. But it takes work to do the same ‘adding up’ with joyful, self-loving, beautiful feelings. Our brains aren’t really built to house those in the same way. Adopting a pronoiad way of life, purposely giving attention to the good stuff, can open doors—even if they’re old, creaky ones that are damned hard to open. Even if they’ve locked been a long time.
The cage might still enclose, but the air outside is intoxicating.
Dreams as Defiance
Here’s what matters most: your dream is not frivolous. In a world that’s frightening, daring to create, to love, to imagine, is radical. Chasing what lights you up is a form of resistance. It’s saying: “The Sad Town journalist doesn’t get to write my whole story.”
Yes, the not-good-enoughs will shout. The cage will rattle. The news will still be grim tomorrow. But you? You’ll be moving anyway. Jacket flapping, wobbly, slightly ridiculous—and gloriously free.
Want to Go Bolder?
If you’re reading this and thinking, “Yes, I want to risk a little more, but I don’t know how”—that’s exactly why I wrote my book, Bolder. It’s for the ones who secretly want more from life, but feel held hostage by Sad Town, the not-good-enoughs, or the endless cage of fear.
And if you’d like company while you unravel those sticky stories, I also offer life coaching to help you untangle the impacts of fear, news, and old narratives so you can find clarity, courage, and maybe even a little joy in the process.
Because confidence doesn’t start with bravado—it starts with tiny cracks of possibility. Sometimes, all it takes is daring to believe that your dream might matter.
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