Shelf Help's book of the month: Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway by Susan Jeffers

Shelf Help is a book club and community dedicated to self-help and self-development, and each month founder Toni Jones shares a book to inspire positive change with the online community
Toni Jones
Toni Jones9 August 2019

August’s Book of the Month, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers, is a self-help classic that has changed the lives of more than two million people since it was published in the 1980s.

Here, Shelf Help's founder, Toni Jones, explains why she chose it as her book of the month.

Book club founder Jones is re-reading Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway this summer
Toni Jones

1. The concepts in this book are simple and can apply to everyone. I think we can all benefit from learning how to transform our pain into power, and this book is a perfect example of accessible self-help that will show you how without being preachy or fluffy or boring.

2. I want people to understand that fear is our friend. One of my biggest learnings on my self-help ‘journey’ so far is that so-called 'negative' emotions aren’t always a bad thing. In fact, most of them - and especially fear - are here to help us.

We feel fear when we are trying something new or different and that means that we are pushing ourselves outside of our comfort zones and that is exactly what we should be doing - as often as we can - if we want to make something wonderful out of our lives.

Once we can tune in and recognise that scared feeling as either a sign that we are about to do something new and brilliant, or that we might be headed off track and need to course-correct, then we can transform it into a positive and empowering emotion that will help us become our best selves. So long as we are growing and learning in life (hint: that should be for as long as we are actually alive) we will feel the fear, so we may as well learn to embrace it and make it work for us.

3. It’s the Shelf Help members’ favourite. When new members sign up to Shelf Help I ask about their best self-help books and this one is the winner by a mile. I’m a big believer in reading, re-reading and sometimes re-reading brilliant self-help books to let the lessons really sink in and every time I read this book I get something new from it.

Buy Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway by Susan Jeffers on paperback, kindle and audible.

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